Introduction

Abstract

During the past several decades, prospects for the welfare state have sparked an animated debate about the state’s role in protecting citizens against the market. In both advanced and developing countries, governments have responded to fiscal pressures generated by their welfare regimes by experimenting with new provisioning alternatives such as privatized services, targeted and conditional transfers, and earnings-related supplementary benefits. Although these initiatives aimed to contain spending and improve efficiency, critics charged that they fostered greater differentiation in access to welfare, deepened inequality, and eroded the concept of welfare as a right of citizenship.