The Illiberal Welfare State. Defining the Concept

This paper provides a theoretical construction of welfare states in countries with declining democratic institutions. Mainstream welfare state literature overwhelmingly dealt with "Western" liberal democracies, leaving non-democratic regimes out of sight. Based on T.H. Marshall's seminal work, welfare state literature assumed a positive relationship between democratic development and social rights. With the increasing number of countries reversing their former democratic institutions (including the separation of powers and free press) the question whether democratic backsliding leads to a demise of the welfare state becomes ever more compelling. The paper consists of three parts. First, it overviews scholarly literature on the relation between democracy and welfare and suggests a way in which the concept of "illiberalism" can be interpreted in a meaningful way for welfare state research. Second, it provides comparative cases of welfare reforms in countries that turned away from liberal democracy in the past decades, including Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey. Drawing on these cases the paper finally portraits the most important features of the emerging “illiberal welfare state”.