PSCI 381
The Conservative Welfare State
Last Offered Spring 2024
Division II
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Conservatives in the United States are traditionally hostile to state power in general and the welfare state in particular. In much of the rest of the world, however, conservatives harbor no hatred of the state and, when in power, have constructed robust systems of social welfare to support conservative values. This course offers an analysis of the conservative welfare state with particular interest in public policies around social insurance, employment, the family, and immigration. The course traces the conservative welfare state’s development from its origins in late nineteenth and early twentieth century corporatism, through the rise of Christian Democracy and the consolidation of conservative welfare regimes in continental Europe after World War Two, to its contemporary challenges from secularism, feminism, and neoliberalism. The course also investigates divergent conservative models in East Asia and Latin America as well as new ‘illiberal’ welfare states in contemporary Hungary and Poland. It concludes with a discussion of the prospects of right-populist politics in the United States.