institutional redistributive model, which provides services regardless of market participation and is based on the principle of need.
•The industrial achievement model, which holds merit (interpreted as productivity) as the determinant for meeting welfare needs.
•The residual welfare model, which assumes the private market and the family to be the main sources of welfare, with the state only coming into play temporarily when these institutions break down.
Taking his lead from these ideas, Esping-Andersen’s (1990) approach to comparative analysis is rooted in the notion that some social policy systems may reflect and contribute to social solidarity. It also derives from arguments which have seen social policy development as an important element in the alleged ‘truce’ between capital and labour within democratic societies, in which social policies may be concessions to the latter that contribute to the preservation of the capitalist order (Streeck, 2014). The concept of ‘decommodification’ is used by Esping-Andersen to define the extent to which some policy systems achieve a universalism which treats all sections of society alike. Decommodification is used to describe the extent to which individuals’ social entitlements are relatively independent of their positions in the labour market.
Esping-Andersen (1990, pp. 26–7) identifies what he describes as three regime types:
1.The ‘liberal’ welfare state, in which means-tested assistance, modest universal transfers or modest social insurance plans predominate. This indicates low levels of ‘decommodification’. The word ‘liberal’ in the definition refers to liberal economic ideas which see the free market as the ideal device for allocating life chances, and the primary role for the state being to enhance economic efficiency. Esping-Andersen puts Australia, the US, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and the UK (with some qualification) in this category.
2.Nations which Esping-Andersen labels as ‘conservative’, where state-led development significantly shaped the evolution of social policy institutions. In these societies neither strong pro-market ideologies nor democratic movements were important for this development. Instead, a strong state sought to incorporate interest groups to ensure their support for the regime, hence the use of the term ‘corporatist’ to also describe the welfare character of these nations. The consequence was welfare systems in which ‘the preservation of status differentials’ is more important than either ‘the liberal obsession with market efficiency’ or ‘the granting of social rights’. This second category includes Italy, Japan, France, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands.
3.The ‘social democratic’ countries, those ‘in which the principles of universalism and decommodification of social rights was extended also to the middle classes’; in these places ‘the social democrats pursued a welfare state that would promote an equality of the highest standards’. Denmark, Norway and Sweden are the nations in this category.
The decommodified systems of the Nordic countries are thus contrasted with conservative and liberal systems which more clearly reflect labour market divisions and market ideologies. These are attempts to classify national systems as a whole; the inclusiveness of the Nordic system is seen relative to other systems. But it is important to bear in mind that in this approach the nations in the ‘conservative’ group are not simply identified as middle ones, with levels of spending between the other two. They may indeed be high spenders; the key point is that such spending will tend to be distributed proportionately across the socio-economic spectrum in ways which are likely to reflect Titmuss’ idea of ‘merit, work performance and productivity’. The method Esping-Andersen adopted to develop his regime model involved comparative statistical analysis of the extent to which some key social security benefits delivered extensive social support without making labour market participation a crucial qualifying condition. Decommodification is thus a variable, systems being placed along a commodification–decommodification continuum.
Esping-Andersen justifies his approach in two ways. First, he argues against the ‘simple class mobilization theory of welfare state development’ in which welfare development can be seen as coming from the growth of demands by less advantaged people through an emergent democratic political process. Instead he sets out a more complex theory which can be seen as built upon that idea. He presents a picture of regime development in which historical forces are interactive. Political coalition formation is seen as contributing in distinctive ways to ‘the institutionalisation of class preferences and political behaviour’ (1990, p. 32). Empirically, Esping-Andersen explores the influence of selected independent variables – a measure of the share of Left parties in government, a measure of the share of Catholic parties and ‘absolutism’ alongside measures of GDP per head and GDP growth – and shows that these political variables have a key influence on the dependent variable: decommodification. This part of his enterprise may be seen as focusing on the explanation of regime difference. The theory suggests, in Arts and Gelissen’s (2002, p. 139) words, alternative ‘regime-types, each organized according to its own discrete logic of organization, stratification and societal integration’.
Second, Esping-Andersen makes claims for the predictive capacity of his model, arguing that ‘a theory that seeks to explain welfare-state growth should also be able to understand its retrenchment and decline’ (1990, p. 32). That is a challenge taken up in his later edited work (1996), emphasizing differences in the ways the different regimes have responded to global economic challenges, giving attention to issues about family arrangements (a point of criticism for its neglect in his 1990 work) to predict responses to demographic change and increasing female labour market participation (1999), and exploring future scenarios (2002). The claim that the model has a predictive value will be explored further in Chapter 4.
Esping-Andersen’s work has spawned an enormous literature (see Emmenegger et al., 2015) and poses the question as to why a study conducted in the 1980s using a limited sample of OECD member countries (when that organization itself was much smaller) should be so influential in shaping scholarship. Inevitably, some of the responses to his work criticize his methodology. Bambra (2005) and Scruggs and Allan (2006) have even found errors in his original work. Studies have been developed with alternative indices and other methodologies (see Arts and Gelissen, 2010, table 39.1, for a summary of these).
Much discussion has centred on the implications of using a typology. As indicated above, this approach has been presented as advancing a superior approach to the analysis of welfare state development to theories that postulate uniform or unidimensional processes. Esping-Andersen (1999, Chapter 5), in an answer to his critics, makes the case for parsimony and questions whether the presence of ambiguous cases matters for the strength of the overall approach. A less defensive response could be that while arguing against a multiplication of types, the recognition that ambiguities can throw up important questions about what is happening in specific countries is productive in theory development.
Clearly there is an alternative response to the inadequacies of global generalizations. This is to stress the unique characteristics of each individual system (see Schubert et al., 2009). But there is a midway point between these alternative perspectives. Comparisons may be made between detailed developments in individual countries, developing ‘middle range’ theories. There is a good case to be made for this approach, recognizing that social policy ‘systems’ are complex mixtures of policies than may bear relatively little relationship to each other (see Kasza, 2002).
Arts and Gelissen (2002, pp. 138–9) provide a valuable discussion of reasons to be cautious about the use of a typology for theory development. Their starting position is as follows:
Do typologies based on ideal types have theoretical
