Practice question · True or false
Predictions that the welfare state would be dismantled after the 1970s crisis were largely borne out.
Hints
- Look at spending as a share of GDP across the decades that followed.
- Spending proved remarkably resilient; the shape changed instead.
Show the answer
False
Why
False. Spending as a share of GDP proved resilient across almost all rich democracies. What changed was the shape: activation conditions on benefits, later retirement, private provision layered on top. Pierson's explanation is that expansion created concentrated beneficiaries who defend the programmes, so retrenchment is electorally much harder than building was.
Practise The Welfare State: Rise, Crisis, Typologies
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More questions on The Welfare State: Rise, Crisis, Typologies
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