Legal Reconstitution of the Welfare State: A Latent Social Democratic Legacy

Abstract

The great challenge to contemporary political analysis and theoretical reflection is posed by much discussed crisis of welfare state in wealthy nations of western Europe and North America, by attendant dramatic reversals of public policy in several of leading nations, and by widespread loss of confidence and political initiative among welfare state's dedicated partisans (Dunn, 1984). Although it is historically accurate enough to say that the essence of welfare state is government protected minimum standards of income, nutrition, health, housing, and education, assured to every citizen as a right, not as a charity (Wilensky, 1975, p. 1), a broader use of term seems justified by usage in important parts of literature (Lowi, 1985), as well as by analytical considerations. The new classes of expenditures and guarantees to which historical definition refers have been everywhere closely intertwined with regulatory and planning measures, as well as with characteristic developments in organization of government and constitution of political process. As Luhmann has pointed out, welfare state utilizes law as well as money in attempt to compensate all citizens for disadvantaged interests (Luhmann, 1981: pp. 25 32). Fiscal problems doubtless have fueled allegations of crisis, but debate is by no means limited to issues directly affecting public budget. The contemporary attack is aimed against whole complex of developments associated with great thrustin direction of welfare state, which Jurgen Habermas correctly identifies as central political development of twentieth century in these nations (Habermas, 1981).