Warfare and Welfare: Military Conflict and Welfare State Development in Western Countries – Book Panel

Abstract

This panel discusses the book Warfare and Welfare: Military Conflict and Welfare State Development in Western Countries, edited by Klaus Petersen, Herbert Obinger and Peter Starke (OUP, summer 2018). The volume is concerned with the nexus between warfare and welfare. From a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, it addresses the question of whether and how both world wars have influenced the development of advanced welfare states. Distinguishing between three different phases (war preparation, wartime mobilization, and the post-war period), the volume provides the first systematic comparative analysis of the impact of war on welfare state development in the western Western world. The chapters, written by leading scholars in this field, examine both short-term responses to and long-term effects of war in fourteen belligerent, occupied, and neutral countries in the age of mass warfare stretching over the period from ca. 1860 to 1960. The findings clearly show that war is essential for understanding several aspects of welfare state development in advanced democracies.