The Welfare State Reader ,

The idea of The Welfare State Reader is to bring together in a single volume a fine selection of enduring and contemporary writings on or about the ‘welfare state’, including some of the most influential writers to shape our thinking on this subject. The Welfare State Reader is therefore aimed at a broad studentship in social policy (and beyond), and given the material included, it certainly makes for interesting and often essential (course) reading and reference. In this 3rd edition, the editors have comprehensively overhauled the content of the Reader (from the earlier 2nd edition of 2006), bringing it up to date with contemporary discussions about this most crucial aspect of social and political life. The book includes 17 new selections. Out go some of yesterday’s hot topics, debates, authors and thinkers (Giddens on ‘positive welfare’ in the 2nd edition, for instance; Hutton on welfare strategy in the 1st edition), to be replaced by some of today’s cutting-edge welfare research themes. We now find ‘happiness’ and ‘social investment’ included, for example, along with ‘climate change’ (also a new entry) – one can do little more than merely wonder what might feature in a fully revised 4th edition in years to come? The Reader continues to be divided into three parts; each section is set in context by a new editorial introduction with 31 diverse readings in total. Part I considers ‘approaches to welfare’, and includes an extract from Paine’s Rights of Man, followed by sections focusing on ‘classical’ approaches (Briggs, Marshall, Titmuss), ‘perspectives on the Left’ (now trimmed down for the new edition with the loss of O’Connor and Korpi, but still featuring The Commission on Social Justice, and Offe), ‘responses from the Right’ (Hayek, Murray, Mead) and ‘feminism’ (Pateman, Hernes). In Part II, ‘welfare regimes’ are now ‘under threat’, with readings on ‘trajectories’ (Esping-Andersen, Manow and van Kersbergen, Pierson), readings on ‘constraints’ (Swank, Kvist and Saari, Armingeon) and readings on ‘challenges’ (Meier and Werding, McDonald, Schierup and Castles, Bonoli). Part III showcases the ‘emerging ideas’ (namely the ‘Big Society/Third Sector’, Alcock; ‘Social Investment’, Jenson; ‘Governance of Economic Uncertainty’, Crouch and Keune; ‘Climate Change’, Sadeque; ‘Basic Income’, van Parijs), before moving onto ‘emergent forms’ (‘Social Reform SOCIAL POLICY & ADMINISTRATION ISSN 0144–5596 DOI: 10.1111/spol.12110 VOL. 49, NO. 1, JANUARY 2015, PP. 128–137