Nation State and Social Policy: An Ideational and Political History

Advances in social policy were often related to processes of nation-building, like the introduction of social insurance by Chancellor Bismarck during the years 1883–1889 which contributed to the social integration of the new German Empire. The Empire had been created through the unification of the numerous German states in 1871. Critical periods in a country’s history that went along with a renewal of the national spirit also propelled social reform, like the New Deal during the Great Depression in the 1930s and the creation of the British “welfare state” in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Today, the golden age of the welfare state, the decades after WW II, has passed. Domestic problems combine with the impact of globalisation. Some authors assume that globalisation makes nation states increasingly irrelevant. What, then, is a history of a national welfare state as presented in this book series good for in the contemporary debate?