Surveying the welfare state: challenges, policy development and causes of resilience

33

forms, as an answer to accommodate pressures on advanced welfare states, which began to
be felt particularly after German unification, were relatively rare and were only launched
(and adopted) after the turn of the century. Crucially, however, observing them makes it
legitimate to ask whether the robustness of resilience arguments has been overstated by the
literature. In addition, they give rise to a number of important questions. Did these reforms
occur simply because of mounting pressures on contemporary welfare states, amplified by
the extraordinary burden of unification, that have finally translated into large-scale
changes? Given the numerous institutional obstacles to reform in the German polity and its
welfare state structure, under what conditions have these obstacles been overcome? What
other factors besides reform pressure played a role here, for instance, political agency or
political ideas? These questions certainly warrant further research into the reasons behind
structural reform.³⁴

³⁴ The question on the role of political agency and ideas has been assessed in the author’s doctoral thesis
titled ‘The Role of Ideational leadership in German Welfare State Reforms: Towards an Explanation of
Structural Shifts in Social Policy’, forthcoming, 2007.

<<   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   >>

More intriguing information