Reimagining the Welfare State (Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy) - Hardcover

Kerstenetzky, Celia Lessa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1041049773 ISBN 13: 9781041049777

Verlag: Routledge, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

New social risks, ranging from profound transformations in labour markets to rising inequality and the climate crisis, are reshaping contemporary societies and demanding innovative forms of social policy. This book argues that the critical expansion of public social services is central to addressing these challenges. Securing and investing in public services, particularly the social provision of education and health care, not only fosters well-being but also contributes to building equitable, low-carbon economies and generating quality employment.

The book draws on a wide range of theoretical traditions, including the capability approach, development studies, welfare state scholarship, and the UK’s Universal Basic Services perspective. It also advances a novel conceptual framework: the “constitutive welfare state.” This framework reconceptualizes public social services as an economic sector in their own right, with far-reaching structural consequences.

Blurring the often overdrawn boundary between Global North and Global South experiences, the ensuing empirical analysis turns to Brazil as a Global South case that serves both as a concrete illustration and as a broader laboratory for the policies advanced in this book. The Brazilian case provides estimates of the macroeconomic, social, and ecological effects of expanding these services, including their potential to generate low-carbon, equitable employment and to narrow gender and racial wage differentials. It also addresses the main constraints such an agenda would confront.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students of development, welfare state studies, social investment, well-being, labour markets, economic inequality—including gender and racial inequality—and distributional macroeconomics.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Celia Lessa Kerstenetzky holds a PhD with distinction in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute. She is currently a Full Professor of Social Policy at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where she holds the Josué de Castro Chair in Inequality and serves as Director of the Center for Studies on Inequality and Development.

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New social risks, ranging from profound transformations in labour markets to rising inequality and the climate crisis, are reshaping contemporary societies and demanding innovative forms of social policy.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Routledge
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1041049773
• ISBN 13: 9781041049777
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 166
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Routledge; https://www.routledge-ny.com/; ; Stockst?dter Str. 20; Gro?ostheim; Bayern; Deutschland