Social policy paradigms, welfare state reforms and the crisis

The article focuses on the interplay between changes in welfare state paradigms (Keynesian, neo-liberal and social investment) and actual social policy reforms. It takes a broad look at the interplay between changes in social policy paradigms and welfare state reforms, framing what happened over the last decades and what it is happening in a long-run perspective. The first part of the paper looks at the role of ideas and paradigmatic change in relation to the role assigned to the welfare state in capitalist economies. The second part of the paper analyses common European trends. The third looks at specificities in welfare state reforms set in place in the different «worlds» and regimes. The last part is dedicated to how both the paradigms' debate and the real institutional changes are taking place at a time of deep economic crisis and subsequent austerity plans