The Welfare State Writ Large ; Globalization and the State

Abstract

I) The Welfare State Writ Large: Why do we have a welfare state today? Is the welfare state - whether understood as a body of minimal social institutions or in its maximal form as a complex network of resources and services – integral to the modern market economy? II) Globalization and the State: We live, we have been told, in a post-national ‘global’ world: one in which economies, communications, and people operate in a transnational space whose scope and pace puts it beyond the reach of traditional political and institutional regulation. Was this ever true? Is it true today? And what of governments, which remain – must remain – resolutely national? As we enter a new age of insecurity – personal, political, institutional and financial – shall we not see a return of the state and a re-legitimization of its interventionist capacities and role