Radical Welfare State Retrenchment: A Comparative Analysis.(Book review)

RADICAL WELFARE STATE RETRENCHMENT: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BY PETER STARKE HOUNDSMILL, PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 2008

The 1980s and 1990s saw "political decisions to reduce the level of social protection guaranteed by the state" in many OECD countries. In his book Radical Welfare State Retrenchment: A Comparative Analysis, Peter Starke, from the University of Bremen, Germany, uses New Zealand as his major case study of welfare retrenchment, and compares the level, form and causes of retrenchment in New Zealand with Germany, the United Kingdom (UK) and Sweden. He uses New Zealand as his base because the 1991 benefit cuts and "Mother of All Budgets" were "perhaps the most dramatic example of welfare state retrenchment not just in New Zealand but the OECD as a whole".

The book is not just an excellent description of the New Zealand social security system along with a history of its development and changes post World War II, but is set within an international socio-economic/political framework in order to investigate how and why retrenchment occurred. The overall conclusion is that the welfare state has shifted from its heyday in the 1950s/1960s based on rights and entitlements, to one based on need and fiscal cost savings. The welfare state is on the defensive, and has been damaged, but is not obsolete or dismantled.

In the author's view, New Zealand probably "tested the limits" of how far a democracy can go in this "dark art of downsizing". But the combination (to use local vernacular) of Ruthanasia and Rogernomics, at significant variation to electorate expectations and wishes, resulted in a …