Exploring the World of Social Policy. Hill, Michael

in various senses ‘families’ of social policy systems can only imply a wish to either stress the uniqueness of systems or to confine study to limited comparisons of specific aspects of social policy. Nevertheless, the application of regime theory remains much weaker where countries lie outside the standard frameworks of comparison, but where social policy is practised, highlighting the need to think beyond the ‘worlds of welfare’ and better account for worlds of social policy. Identification of this issue also links with another problem about the extent to which the central tenets of regime theory rest upon analysis of income security policies (or, more recently, employment policy). This is given attention in subsequent chapters on specific policy domains and is followed up in detail particularly in the chapter on health policy. It does seem anomalous that despite the enormous importance of health care within social policy the work specifying regimes gives it minimal attention. This is true, above all, in Esping-Andersen’s own work (where health care does not even appear in the index of his original three worlds work). It can only be said that, such has been the influence of the regime approach, it has fed into questions about the use of typologization in all the policy fields explored in this book.

      On the other hand, it is still appropriate to challenge with the question: why typologize? If the academic study of social policy necessarily has an inherent social purpose then typologizing for its own sake with no wider significance would have little point. It is important therefore not to lose sight of Esping-Andersen’s argument that regime theory is designed to highlight the dynamics of social policy systems past, present and future. This provides a clear rationale not to depart too radically from a judiciously theorized model, or to ensure that if departure is deemed necessary there are good reasons based on the identification of an alternative dynamic, rather than simple observations that some systems are different. The arguments setting out the limits of Esping-Andersen’s model are important in themselves for comparative analysis inasmuch as they highlight different processes in the ever-changing world of social policy. In this respect a fallible but well-theorized taxonomy is useful precisely because it highlights the complex nature of differences between societies. But to what extent does it, in the end, help to explain policy choices? This topic forms the starting point for Chapter 4