The development of unemployment/employment policy in the post war British state

In the latter half of the twentieth century, almost all core capitalist countries experienced the phenomenon of rapidly increasing numbers of people without paid employment. In such essentially `workd-centred' societies this situation represents a potential political and economic problem to which governments, and through them `states', may have to respond. This study is concerned with the nature and quality of the response, both state and governmental, to the growing problem of unemployment in post-war Britain. The study aims to describe in detail the characteristics of the various different strands of the policy response and to explore its development over the post-war period, emphasising both changes and continuities over time. The central determinants of each of the different strands of the employment/unemployment `policy cluster' are identified and the nature of the interrelationship and interdependence between these different strands is examined. The development of employment/unemployment policy is explored within the wider context of the changing characteristics of the British State itself during the post-war years. Different historical periodisations are identified, each marked by qualitative changes in the form and practice of the state, and the impact of these changes on the policy response to unemployment and the unemployed is examined. In this way the study attempts something of a rapproachment between what have traditionally been two very different levels of policy analysis: between the empirical study of a specific area of state practice in a particular historical conjuncture, and the more general and abstract theoretical explanations of the State in capitalist societies. It sets out to develop a `middle-range' theoretical and methodological approach which is more theoretically informed than much traditional policy analysis, yet is more empirically relevant than most social theoretical accounts.