Participation and Solidarity in a Changing Welfare State

Participation requires that the less powerful groups succeed in making their voices heard. Such groups often have few resources other than their numbers, so that concerted action within a democratic framework is essential. The various welfare states that emerged during the past century rested in different ways on traditions of national male breadwinner working class solidarity, often in class-coalition with middle class groups and supported by an active trade union movement. Welfare policies in the post-war heyday of corporate capitalism reinforced this solidarity. More recently the post-war settlement has been eroded by globalisation, the shift from manufacturing to a service economy, the decline of the nation state, insistent pressures from women’s groups and others for greater equality and the emergence of new social risks. The new welfare state settlement is market liberal rather than neo-Keynesian. These shifts disempower the groups that were able to influence the traditional welfare state but empowers new groups affected by new social risks and by globalisation. The key question for a politics of participation is whether these groups can form solidarities that enable them to exert real influence.