The Social Democratic Welfare State in a Neo-Liberal Context, does it Fly? - On Social Policy Convergence.

Sammanfattning: This thesis is a theory-testing analysis of the free-market commercial neo-liberal welfare-regime convergence hypothesis, stating that welfare regimes in a globalized international economy will converge towards the liberal welfare regime. Given the structural settings of the EU context, the cases of Denmark, Finland and Sweden, i.e. the social-democratic welfare regime within EU, constitute ?most likely? cases of the convergence theory. The analysis is divided into three legs after dissecting the ?x?(globalization)- and ?y?(welfare regimes)-variables of the hypothesis. Firstly, employing G. Esping-Andersen's conceptualization of welfare regimes, I analyze the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 to lay down a point of reference which will facilitate further analysis. Secondly, the mid-term review and re-launch of the Lisbon Strategy of 2005 are analyzed to establish the direction of development at the regional/regime level. Thirdly, economic performances of social-democratic welfare states in relation to the convergence-theory predictions are analyzed in order to evaluate the precision of the convergence theory at the national level. The analyses manifest important shortcomings with the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy and economic performances in contradiction with the predictions of the convergence hypothesis. This leads me to conclude that the convergence theory, in present-day EU, has been falsified.