The Politics of Crisis Response

Abstract

This chapter explores the politics of social policy responses to economic crisis from a theoretical perspective. After explaining why the welfare state is relevant as an object of research in the context of crisis, a typology of social policy responses is presented. Subsequently, we elaborate on some theoretical approaches that may help to explain the diversity of crisis responses. More specifically, we develop working hypotheses to explain the variation on the two dimensions of the dependent variable, namely the direction of change and the quality of change, that is, whether changes are merely incremental or fundamental. Explanations provided here build on insights garnered from political science, economics and sociology. The chapter closes with a section on the research design and methods used in this book.