Author Description

"Globalization needs to be understood alongside the development of the national welfare state. Welfare provision massively expanded after World War Two, and it was the social protection of the citizenry which allowed Western governments to expose their societies to the external risks inherent in deregulating the global economy. Today, developed welfare states need to recalibrate. Two trajectories are possible: governments may slide back into destructive spirals of protectionism, or they must allow for the complex interaction of domestic social and external economic policy. Drawing on core studies from Germany, the USA and East Asia, Rieger and Leibfried argue that welfare systems function in different ways depending on the cultural setting. Culture thus shapes a welfare regime's capacity to mitigate globalization's effects on particular societies."--BOOK JACKET.