Introduction

Abstract

In Western societies, the modern welfare state has been developing for over 40 years. Many scholars have made efforts to examine the reasons for the expansion of the welfare state in the advanced capitalist countries, and have produced some excellent theories to explain this process. However, these theories, either from the perspective of industrialization or from the change induced by capitalist development, do not yet offer a full explanation for such development of state welfare in the developing countries. Some possible reasons are suggested below:

• (a) the theories focus mainly on welfare state development in the advanced capitalist countries, not in the pre- or peripheral capitalist ones;

• (b) capitalist development in the developing countries is not a spontaneous process, and may have been forced by the advanced capitalist countries;

• (c) many important features of Western capitalism are impossible to reproduce in the developing countries (e.g, the imperialism of the nineteenth century).