The Welfare State in Austria

Abstract

The changes which have taken place in the welfare state systems of highly industrialized Western states over the two last decades have been described in different terms and theoretically explained by various commentators after applying different methods.1 In comparative analysis, a break with the preceding decades, described as the end of ‘the golden age of the European welfare state’2 or even the emergence of a ‘neo-conservative turning-point’ have been detected.3 At the same time there has been repeated discussion on the endogenously and exogenously caused ‘structural problems’ of modern welfare states.4 These problems are reflected – according to the general findings – not only in financial and governance problems, but also in contributions to the duration and intensification of the stated legitimation crisis of modern welfare states. In connection with this, Jessop explains the corelationship of the economic crisis and the disintegration of social consensus on the ‘Fordist’ growth model, which had shaped the decades after the Second World War. At the same time he describes the ‘erosion of the nation state’ and the gradual displacement of the ‘Keynesian welfare state’ by a model that he describes as ‘Schumpeterian workfare regime’.