Anthony Giddens

Christopher Pierson

Anthony Giddens has been described as 'the most important English social philosopher of our time'. Over twenty-five years, and even more books, he has established himself as the most widely-read and widely-cited social theorist of his generation. His ideas have profoundly influenced the writing and teaching of sociology and social theory throughout the English-speaking world. In recent years, his writing has become much more explicitly political, and in 1996 he took up his high-profile appointment as Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. It is in this new position and with these new political ideas that he has been described as the key intellectual figure of New Labour in Britain. Following the astonishing success of Labour in the 1997 General Election, his ideas have been the focus of intense interest. In this series of extended interviews with Chris Pierson, Giddens lays out with customary clarity and directness the principal themes in the development of his social theory and the distinctive political agenda which he recommends. This volume will be of great interest to second- and third-year students in sociology and social theory, politics and political theory, as well as to the general reader.

Making Sense of Modernity

Conversations with Anthony Giddens

Stephan Leibfried

Jane Lewis

Francis G. Castles

Herbert Obinger

The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State is the authoritative and definitive guide to the contemporary welfare state. In a volume consisting of nearly fifty newly-written chapters, a broad range of the world's leading scholars offer a comprehensive account of everything one needs to know about the modern welfare state. The book is divided into eight sections. It opens with three chapters that evaluate the philosophical case for (and against) the welfare state. Surveys of the welfare state 's history and of the approaches taken to its study are followed by four extended sections, running to some thirty-five chapters in all, which offer a comprehensive and in-depth survey of our current state of knowledge across the whole range of issues that the welfare state embraces. The first of these sections looks at inputs and actors (including the roles of parties, unions, and employers), the impact of gender and religion, patterns of migration and a changing public opinion, the role of international organisations and the impact of globalisation. The next two sections cover policy inputs (in areas such as pensions, health care, disability, care of the elderly, unemployment, and labour market activation) and their outcomes (in terms of inequality and poverty, macroeconomic performance, and retrenchment). The seventh section consists of seven chapters which survey welfare state experience around the globe (and not just within the OECD). Two final chapters consider questions about the global future of the welfare state. The individual chapters of the Handbook are written in an informed but accessible way by leading researchers in their respective fields giving the reader an excellent and truly up-to-date knowledge of the area under discussion. Taken together, they constitute a comprehensive compendium of all that is best in contemporary welfare state research and a unique guide to what is happening now in this most crucial and contested area of social and political development.

The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State

Daniel Béland

Kimberly J. Morgan

This is the comprehensively-revised second edition of a volume that was welcomed at its first appearance as 'the most authoritative survey and critique of the welfare state yet published'. Its fifty-one chapters have been written by acknowledged experts in the field from across Europe, Australia, and North America. Some chapters are brand new; all have been systematically revised, and they are right up to date. The first seven sections of the book cover the themes of Ethics, History, Approaches, Inputs and Actors, Policies, Policy Outcomes, and Worlds of Welfare. A final chapter is devoted to the future of welfare and well-being under the imperatives of climate change. Every chapter is written in a way that is both comprehensive and succinct, introducing the novice reader to the essentials of what is going on while providing new insights for the more experienced researcher. Wherever appropriate, the handbook brings the very latest empirical evidence to bear. It is a book that is thoroughly comparative in every way. The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, second edition, is a comprehensible and comprehensive survey of everything that it is important to know about the welfare state in these troubled times. It is an indispensable source for everyone who wants to know what is really going on now, and what is likely to happen next.

The modern state is hugely important in our everyday lives. It takes nearly half our income in taxes. It registers our births, marriages and deaths. It educates our children and pays our pensions. It has a unique power to compel, in some cases exercising the ultimate sanction of preserving life or ordering death. Yet most of us would struggle to say exactly what the state is. The Modern State offers a clear, comprehensive and provoking introduction to one of the most important phenomena of contemporary life. Topics covered include: * the nation state and its historical context * state and economy * state and societies * state and citizens * international relations * the future of the state

The Modern State

In this book, Chris Pierson argues that we will need to think quite differently about the British welfare state after COVID-19. He looks back to the welfare state’s origins and development as well as forwards, unearthing some surprising solutions in unexpected places.

UK Welfare After COVID-19

The Next Welfare State?

Following the astonishing success of Labour in the 1997 General Election, his ideas have been the focus of intense interest.

Christopher Pierson assesses the evidence of terminal decline, but finds rather a whole series of deep-seated challenges to traditional forms of socialist and social democratic thinking. Above all, these problems are to be found in the political economy of social democracy and its commitment to incremental change in the context of an increasingly globalized market economy. The latter chapters of the book are devoted to an assessment of market socialism, one of the most vigorous and innovative attempts to seek to recast socialist aspirations under these quite changed circumstances. In essence, market socialism represents an attempt to reconcile new forms of social ownership with the seeming ubiquity of the market. Having outlined this position, Pierson carefully and systematically critiques it and, in the process, develops a set of distinctive arguments about the nature of social ownership, the potential of the labor-managed economy, and the appropriate forms for an extension of economic democracy.

Christopher Pierson

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