From UI to EI: Waging the War on the Welfare State

Abstract

From UI to EI: Waging the War on the Welfare State, Georges Campeau (translated by Richard Howard), Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005, pp. xiii, 235.Over the last two decades, much has been published about welfare state retrenchment and restructuring. No consensus has yet emerged regarding the scope and nature of social policy change occurring during the era of neo-liberalism and economic globalization. On the one hand, scholars argue that powerful institutional legacies and vested interests prevent policy makers from “dismantling the welfare state” (e.g., Paul Pierson, Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment, Cambridge University Press, 1994). On the other hand, a growing number of scholars recognize that, despite such institutional constraints, the combination of incremental change and path-departing reforms are reshaping major social programmes in advanced industrial societies. This is especially true as it concerns policies dealing with unemployment, which constitute a major target for neo-liberal “activation” (e.g., Robert H. Cox, “The Consequences of Welfare Reform: How Conceptions of Social Rights Are Changing,” Journal of Social Policy, 26(1) 1998: 1–16).