Revisiting Global Welfare Regime Classifications

Abstract

This review article revisits the influential work of Gough (2004a, 2004b) on global welfare regimes fifteen years later. The article attempts to explore how far this literature has managed to pave a bridge between comparative social policy and development studies and explores the key contributions it offered in explaining welfare regime classification in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The article then reviews selected publications that have incorporated or applied Gough’s approach and in particular reviews how far scholars developed, complemented and questioned Gough’s approach. The review focuses on the causal properties for capturing the diversity of welfare regime classifications, empirical data, methodologies applied to classify welfare regimes, cases selected, groupings identified and finally how transitions to different welfare regime memberships are explained. In the conclusion, the article discusses findings and implications for global welfare regime classification debates.