The paper reviews paradigms of welfare, principally the industrialization thesis, the
three worlds of welfare and social investment states and shows how these link to wider
public policies and underlying assumptions. It locates explanations in historical and
contemporary contexts. The literature of social policy is seen to be both descriptive and
prescriptive and to have developed in response to key crises. The paper considers
arguments for and against universalism and targeting, and shows how these concepts fit
within theories of welfare. It considers lessons from this review for discussions of how
to develop social security and health systems in emerging economies and indicates the
value of systems that include all or the vast majority of the population, organized
around principles of collective social insurance and recognize the value of caring work.
Proposals have, however, to be set in economic systems with fair, living wages and
progressive income tax structures—goals which run counter to the current trajectory of
financial capitalism.
