Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States

This book revises established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies with a new perspective on how religion shaped modern social protection systems.

Kees van Kersbergen (Edited by), Philip Manow (Edited by)

9780521723954, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 6 April 2009

320 pages, 1 b/w illus. 4 tables
22.6 x 15 x 2.3 cm, 0.47 kg

“This superb and highly integrated edited volume will be a central reference point for work on the role of religion in the political construction and evolution of the welfare state and more generally comparative political economy. It contains six excellent country chapters with serious historical depth. And it is structured analytically around the coalitions which Christian democratic and social democratic parties have been able to forge in different types of electoral systems, an analysis which Manow has played a large part in developing. We should be grateful to van Kersbergen and Manow for producing an unusually coherent and useful book.”
-David Soskice, Duke University

This book radically revises established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies and introduces a new perspective on how religion shaped modern social protection systems. The interplay of societal cleavage structures and electoral rules produced the different political class coalitions sustaining the three welfare regimes of the Western world. In countries with proportional electoral systems the absence or presence of state–church conflicts decided whether class remained the dominant source of coalition building or whether a political logic not exclusively based on socio-economic interests (e.g. religion) was introduced into politics, particularly social policy. The political class-coalitions in countries with majoritarian systems, on the other hand, allowed only for the residual-liberal welfare state to emerge, as in the US or the UK. This book also reconsiders the role of Protestantism. Reformed Protestantism substantially delayed and restricted modern social policy. The Lutheran state churches positively contributed to the introduction of social protection programs.

1. Religion and the Western welfare state: the theoretical context Philip Manow and Kees van Kersbergen
2. Western European party systems and the religious cleavage Thomas Ertman
3. The religious foundations of work-family policies in Western Europe Kimberly J. Morgan
4. Italy: a Christian democratic or clientist welfare state? Julia Lynch
5. Religion and the welfare state in the Netherlands Kees van Kersbergen
6. A conservative welfare state regime without Christian Democracy? The French Etat-providence, 1880–1960 Philip Manow and Bruno Palier
7. Religion and the consolidation of the Swiss welfare state, 1848–1945 Herbert Obinger
8. The church as nation? The role of religion in the development of the Swedish welfare state Karen M. Anderson
9. The religious factor in US welfare state politics Jill Quadagno and Deanna Rohlinger
10. Religious social doctrines and poor relief: a different causal pathway Sigrun Kahl.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA]