The Antipodean social laboratory, labour and the transformation of the welfare state

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2398844
AutoresLloyd Cox (0000-0001-7436-2563, Macquarie University and La Trobe University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2006
Volumen42
Número2
Páginas107-124
Fecha de publicación2006-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1440-7833 • E-ISSN: 1741-2978
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1440783306064941
OpenAlexW1979568634
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8
Referencias citadas18

The Australian and New Zealand welfare states have undergone dramatic transformations since the early 1980s. This has led some commentators to redeploy the 'social laboratory' metaphor widely used to describe Australasia at the turn of the 19th century. This article analyses the disjunctures in Australia's and New Zealand's experience of transforming the welfare state, and seeks to account for them. Drawing inspiration from comparative political sociology, it suggests that the differences can be explained with reference to variations in the political-economic starting point of transformation, variations in the institutional context of political decision-making, and variations in the balance of social and political power in the two countries

Balance (ability) · Context (archaeology) · Economic growth · Economics · Metaphor · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Power (physics) · Social change · Social policy · Social science · Social transformation · Sociology · State (computer science) · Welfare · Welfare state · History · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Social Policy and Reform Studies