{"title":"北大西洋漂移","authors":"S. Driver","doi":"10.7765/9781526137883.00008","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Since the early 1990s welfare reform has been at the heart of the Centre-Left’s search for a new political middle way between post-war social democracy and Thatcherite Conservatism. For Tony Blair, welfare reform was key to establishing his New Labour credentials – just as it was for Bill Clinton and the New Democrats in the USA.1 In government, Labour’s welfare-to-work programme has been the centrepiece of this welfare reform drive – and of Labour’s attempt to mark out a new ‘Third Way’ for the Centre-Left. But some (for example, Cammack, in chapter 8 of this book) see New Labour’s US-influenced welfare reforms as marking a consensus, not a break with the New Right. This chapter examines whether a policy strategy based on social exclusion and pushing ‘work first’ can sustain a commitment to egalitarian social democratic values, something on which Goes (see chapter 6) casts doubt. While I acknowledge the continuities between Labour and Conservative approaches to welfare reform, I argue that there are important social democratic elements in New Labour policy which cast doubt on a straightforward ‘neo-liberal convergence’ thesis.","PeriodicalId":22973,"journal":{"name":"The Third Way and beyond","volume":"95 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"North Atlantic drift\",\"authors\":\"S. Driver\",\"doi\":\"10.7765/9781526137883.00008\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Since the early 1990s welfare reform has been at the heart of the Centre-Left’s search for a new political middle way between post-war social democracy and Thatcherite Conservatism. For Tony Blair, welfare reform was key to establishing his New Labour credentials – just as it was for Bill Clinton and the New Democrats in the USA.1 In government, Labour’s welfare-to-work programme has been the centrepiece of this welfare reform drive – and of Labour’s attempt to mark out a new ‘Third Way’ for the Centre-Left. But some (for example, Cammack, in chapter 8 of this book) see New Labour’s US-influenced welfare reforms as marking a consensus, not a break with the New Right. This chapter examines whether a policy strategy based on social exclusion and pushing ‘work first’ can sustain a commitment to egalitarian social democratic values, something on which Goes (see chapter 6) casts doubt. While I acknowledge the continuities between Labour and Conservative approaches to welfare reform, I argue that there are important social democratic elements in New Labour policy which cast doubt on a straightforward ‘neo-liberal convergence’ thesis.\",\"PeriodicalId\":22973,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"The Third Way and beyond\",\"volume\":\"95 1\",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.0000,\"publicationDate\":\"2018-07-30\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"The Third Way and beyond\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526137883.00008\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"\",\"JCRName\":\"\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The Third Way and beyond","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526137883.00008","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
Since the early 1990s welfare reform has been at the heart of the Centre-Left’s search for a new political middle way between post-war social democracy and Thatcherite Conservatism. For Tony Blair, welfare reform was key to establishing his New Labour credentials – just as it was for Bill Clinton and the New Democrats in the USA.1 In government, Labour’s welfare-to-work programme has been the centrepiece of this welfare reform drive – and of Labour’s attempt to mark out a new ‘Third Way’ for the Centre-Left. But some (for example, Cammack, in chapter 8 of this book) see New Labour’s US-influenced welfare reforms as marking a consensus, not a break with the New Right. This chapter examines whether a policy strategy based on social exclusion and pushing ‘work first’ can sustain a commitment to egalitarian social democratic values, something on which Goes (see chapter 6) casts doubt. While I acknowledge the continuities between Labour and Conservative approaches to welfare reform, I argue that there are important social democratic elements in New Labour policy which cast doubt on a straightforward ‘neo-liberal convergence’ thesis.