The Politics of Social Risk: Business and Welfare State Development / Edition 1

by Isabela Mares

Overview

When and why have employers supported the development of institutions of social insurance that provide benefits to workers for various employment-related risks? What factors explain the variation in the social policy preferences of employers? This book provides a systematic evaluation of the role played by business in the development of the modern welfare state. Isabela Mares studies these critical questions and demonstrates that major social policies were adopted by cross-class alliances comprising labor-based organizations and key sectors of the business community.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521534772
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/07/2003
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.91(d)

Table of Contents

1. The Welfare State: a world against employers?; 2. Interests and coalitions in the formation of the modern welfare state; 3. Workplace accidents as 'social risk': employers and the development of accident insurance; 4. Is unemployment insurable? Employers and the development of unemployment insurance; 5. Unified or occupationally-fragmented insurance? Political reforms during the Postwar Years; 6. Risk redistribution in mature welfare states: the politics of early retirement; 7. Conclusions.

Editorial Reviews

"Her insight that the course followed by each nation depended on its industrial structure and the particular form of its class conflicts is strikingly new and will likely inspire further research, particularly by business historians." Business History Review

"This is an ambitious, provocative, and impressive book." American Journal of Sociology

"This is an ambitious, provocative, and impressive book." American Journal of Sociology

From the Publisher