Coming together or drifting apart? Income maintenance in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom
There has been long-standing debate in the comparative welfare state literature as to whether social policy regimes come to look more alike over time (“converge”) or else retain their distinctiveness. In this article, we explore this question through a detailed interrogation of the social policy re...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Wiley
2016
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31999/ |
| _version_ | 1848794314276077568 |
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| author | Pierson, Christopher Humpage, Louise |
| author_facet | Pierson, Christopher Humpage, Louise |
| author_sort | Pierson, Christopher |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | There has been long-standing debate in the comparative welfare state literature as to whether social policy regimes come to look more alike over time (“converge”) or else retain their distinctiveness. In this article, we explore this question through a detailed interrogation of the social policy record since 1996 of three states widely classified as “liberal”: Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Overall, we find that the social/economic pressures faced by all three countries are more similar now than they were two decades ago and that each has sought to legitimize its politic response to the global financial crisis (GFC) in similar ways. In terms of the three policy areas we explore, we find convergence is much more substantial in “welfare-to-work” than in either child-contingent support, or pensions. But we also find that any straightforward convergence story is unsustainable, despite the GFC and accelerating globalization, and partisan effects remain important. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:14:13Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-31999 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:14:13Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-319992020-05-04T17:46:17Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31999/ Coming together or drifting apart? Income maintenance in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom Pierson, Christopher Humpage, Louise There has been long-standing debate in the comparative welfare state literature as to whether social policy regimes come to look more alike over time (“converge”) or else retain their distinctiveness. In this article, we explore this question through a detailed interrogation of the social policy record since 1996 of three states widely classified as “liberal”: Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Overall, we find that the social/economic pressures faced by all three countries are more similar now than they were two decades ago and that each has sought to legitimize its politic response to the global financial crisis (GFC) in similar ways. In terms of the three policy areas we explore, we find convergence is much more substantial in “welfare-to-work” than in either child-contingent support, or pensions. But we also find that any straightforward convergence story is unsustainable, despite the GFC and accelerating globalization, and partisan effects remain important. Wiley 2016-04-17 Article PeerReviewed Pierson, Christopher and Humpage, Louise (2016) Coming together or drifting apart? Income maintenance in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Politics and Policy, 44 (2). pp. 261-293. ISSN 1747-1346 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12150/pdf doi:10.1111/polp.12150 doi:10.1111/polp.12150 |
| spellingShingle | Pierson, Christopher Humpage, Louise Coming together or drifting apart? Income maintenance in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom |
| title | Coming together or drifting apart? Income maintenance in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom |
| title_full | Coming together or drifting apart? Income maintenance in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom |
| title_fullStr | Coming together or drifting apart? Income maintenance in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom |
| title_full_unstemmed | Coming together or drifting apart? Income maintenance in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom |
| title_short | Coming together or drifting apart? Income maintenance in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom |
| title_sort | coming together or drifting apart? income maintenance in australia, new zealand, and the united kingdom |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31999/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31999/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31999/ |