The Illusion of Welfare ‘Regimes’

Abstract

The concept of welfare regimes has become a centerpiece of comparative welfare research. Most criticism of the concept thus far has focused on whether this or that country fits a particular regime type or deserves its own regime category. This article offers a more radical critique of this concept. It argues that most countries practice a disjointed set of welfare policies due to the following typical features of welfare policymaking: (1) the cumulative nature of welfare policies, (2) the diverse histories of policies in different welfare fields, (3) the involvement of different sets of policy actors, (4) variations in the policymaking process, and (5) the influence of foreign models. It concludes that few national welfare systems are likely to exhibit the internal consistency necessary to validate the regime concept, and that policy-specific comparisons may be a more promising avenue for comparative research.