Warfare and Welfare Military Conflict and Welfare State Development in Western Countries

While the first half of the 20th century was characterized by total war, the second half witnessed, at least in the Western world, a massive expansion of the modern welfare state. A growing share of the population was covered by ever more generous systems of social protection that dramatically reduced poverty and economic inequality in the post-war decades. With it also came a growth in social spending, taxation and regulation that changed the nature of the modern state and the functioning of market economies. Whether and in which ways warfare and the rise of the welfare state are related, is subject of this volume. Distinguishing between three different phases (war preparation, wartime mobilization, and the post-war period), the volume provides the first systematic comparative analysis of the impact of war on welfare state development in the western world. The chapters written by leading scholars in this field examine both short-term responses to and long-term effects of war in fourteen belligerent, occupied, and neutral countries in the age of mass warfare stretching over the period from ca. 1860 to 1960. The volume shows that both world wars are essential for understanding several aspects of welfare state development in the western world.

1 - Introduction: Studying the Welfare-War Nexus
2 - The Impact of War on Welfare State Development in Germany
3 - War Preparation, Warfare, and the Welfare State in Austria
4 - Italy: Wars, Political Extremism, and the Constraints to Welfare Reform
5 - The Two World Wars and Social Policy in France
6 - Welfare Policy and War in Japan
7 - Foreign Policy on the Home Front: War and the Fevelopment of the American Welfare State
8 - War and the Development of the British Welfare State
9 - Reinforcements for the Wage-Earners' Welfare State? The Effects of the Two World Wars on Australia's Model of Welfare
10 - Wars, Nation, and the Welfare State in Finland
11 - From Military State to Welfare State: The War-Welfare Nexus in Denmark, 1848-1950s
12 - Diverging Paths: The Impact of the Two World Wars on Welfare State Development in Belgium and the Netherlands
13 - War and Social Policy Development in Switzerland, 1870-1990
14 - Bullets and Benefits in the Israeli Welfare State
15 - War and Welfare States Before and After 1945: Conclusions and Perspectives

Herbert Obinger is Professor of Comparative Public and Social Policy, University of Bremen. His research focuses on comparative welfare state research and comparative political economy. His publications include The Political Economy of Privatization in Rich Democracies (with Carina Schmidtt and Stefan Traub, OUP, 2016), The Welfare State as Crisis Manager (with Peter Starke, Alexandra Kaasch, and Franca van Hooren, Palgrave 2013), and The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State (co-edited with Francis G. Castles, Jane Lewis, Stephan, Leibfried, , and Christopher Pierson, OUP, 2010). Klaus Petersen is Professor of Welfare History and Director of the Danish Centre for Welfare Studies, University of Southern Denmark. His research focuses on welfare state history, the Nordic model of welfare, and on contemporary Danish history. He has published in a number of leading journals including Journal of European Social Policy and the British Journal of Political Science. Peter Starke is Associate Professor at the Danish Center for Welfare Studies, University of Southern Denmark. His research is in comparative welfare state research, qualitative and mixed methodology and political economy. His publications include Radical Welfare State Retrenchment (2008) and The Welfare State as Crisis Manager (2013), as well as articles in journals such as Policy Studies Journal, the Journal of European Public Policy, and Politics & Society.