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Welfare states and environmental states: a comparative analysis

Ian Gough

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: A framework is presented for thinking about state intervention in developed capitalist economies in two domains: social policy and environmental policy (and, within that, climate-change policy). Five drivers of welfare state development are identified, the ‘five Is’ of Industrialisation: Interests, Institutions, Ideas/Ideologies, and International Influences. Research applying this framework to the postwar development of welfare states in the OECD is summarised, distinguishing two periods: up to 1980, and from 1980 to 2008. How far this framework can contribute to understanding the rise and differential patterns of environmental governance and intervention across advanced capitalist states since 1970 is explored, before briefly comparing and contrasting the determinants of welfare states and environmental states, identifying common drivers in both domains and regime-specific drivers in each. The same framework is then applied to developments since 2008 and into the near future, sketching two potential configurations and speculating on the conditions for closer, more integrated ‘eco-welfare states’.

Keywords: welfare state; environmental state; climate mitigation policy; social policy; comparative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Published in Environmental Politics, 2016, 25(1), pp. 24-47. ISSN: 0964-4016

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