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1 - Introduction: federalism and the welfare state

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Herbert Obinger ,
Francis G. Castles  and
Stephen Leibfried
Edited by
Herbert Obinger ,
Stephan Leibfried  and
Francis G. Castles
Herbert Obinger
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor Centre for Social Policy Research, University of Bremen, Germany
Francis G. Castles
Affiliation:
Professor of Social and Public Policy University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Stephen Leibfried
Affiliation:
Professor of Public and Social Policy in the Department of Political Science University of Bremen, Germany
Herbert Obinger
Affiliation:
Universität Bremen
Stephan Leibfried
Affiliation:
Universität Bremen
Francis G. Castles
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Summary

Now let us take the oath of this new federation. We will become a single land of brothers, nor shall we part in danger or distress.

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), Wilhelm Tell 1804, part 2, scene 2 – founding oath of the Swiss confederacy, attributed 1291

The federalism I have in mind – real federalism – aims to provide citizens with choices among different sovereigns, regulatory regimes, and packages of government services … The citizens’ ability to vote with their feet and to take their talents and assets elsewhere will discipline government in the same way in which consumer choice, in nonmonopolistic markets, disciplines producers.

Michael S. Greve, Real Federalism: Why it Matters, How it Could Happen (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1999), pp. 2f.

The ideal that all citizens share responsibility for the welfare of their fellows, and the impulse to unite in federations have, on occasions, been historically conjoined. The founding myth of Swiss federalism, as recounted in Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, literally makes solidarity ‘in danger or distress’ a proviso for membership in a budding thirteenth-century federation.

Federalism and social policy

Recent comparative welfare state research has acknowledged the importance of state structures in explaining cross-national variation in both the level and the dynamics of social policy formation.

Type
Chapter
Information
Federalism and the Welfare State
New World and European Experiences
 , pp. 1 - 48
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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