The UK as a Third Way: The US Model with a Human Face?

Abstract

In most of the literature on varieties of capitalism and welfare states as well as within the public policy debates in Europe, the UK is constantly classified alongside the US; the two countries are taken to represent both the so-called Anglo-Saxon liberal market economy model (Hall and Soskice 2001) in contrast to the coordinated market economy and, in welfare state comparisons, the residual welfare state in contrast to social democratic or conservative corporate welfare states (Esping-Andersen 1990). Within the policy debates in Europe the choices are often presented as between following the American or the European social model (for review see Hopkin and Wincott 2006), representing some combination of the social democratic and conservative corporate varieties. Comparative research design often involves comparisons between an example from the selection of liberal market economies against an example or two, chosen from the presumed wider range of coordinated market economy or social democratic/corporate social models. It is rare for comparative research to address in any detail the differences between the liberal market economies or the so-called residual welfare states.