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Between Ideas, Institutions and Interests: Analysing Third Way Welfare Reform Programmes in Germany and the United Kingdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2008

JOHN HUDSON ,
GYU-JIN HWANG  and
STEFAN KÜHNER
JOHN HUDSON*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York YO10 5DD.
GYU-JIN HWANG
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney, Australia
STEFAN KÜHNER
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York YO10 5DD.
*
email: jrh10@york.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article examines the policy detail of welfare state reform agendas in two countries in which self-proclaimed ‘Third Way’ governments have been in power – Germany and the United Kingdom – in order to explore the competing influences on social policy of an ostensibly common set of ideas and contrasting institutionalised policy legacies. In so doing, it assesses the analytic utility of Bevir and Rhodes’ ideationally rooted interpretive approach against institutionally rooted claims of path dependency. It concludes that while the interpretive approach rightly stresses the need for a stronger focus on ideas as an explanation for policy change, the detail of actual Third Way policy reforms can only be understood from within the two nations’ institutionalised policy legacies. In addition, it argues that policy networks have had a considerable influence on reform trajectories too. The article advocates a closer synthesis of perspectives centred around ideas, interests and institutions in order to further our understanding of processes of policy change.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 207 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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