The Political Economy of Care : Welfare state capitalism, universalism, and social reproduction

Abstract

Public long-term care services represent an interesting illustration of a particular type of commitment on the part of the welfare state, mainly because such services tend to involve more binding forms of reciprocity than in most other services. This book explores the implications of this reality in further detail with the aim of providing a deeper insight into the welfare state as an emergent phenomenon and into what we conceptualize as a “welfare state experiment” – the case of Scandinavia. Our ambition is to advance a historical and multi-scalar analysis of this experiment by exploring how key tenets of the welfare state are changing in the light of neoliberalism and the contemporary crisis of social reproduction conceived of as a “care crisis”. The contributors to this book approach this issue from diverse angles based on their different theoretical perspectives and scientific disciplines such as social anthropology, sociology, social work, and economy. They investigate how changes in the welfare service-chain are articulated at street- level by the public services and at the macro level in social policy and the imagination. They also examine how the relation(s) between these two realms of social reality give shape to a variety of ‘translations’, conflicts and negotiations.