East Asian Welfare Regimes in Transition: From Confucianism to Globalisation edited by Alan Walker and Chack-kie Wong, Bristol: The Policy Press, 2005, 235 pp., ISBN 1-86134-552-6 (paperback).

This is a timely contribution to the current debate about the role of the state and of welfare systems in economic growth and competitiveness in the context of globalization: a debate which is putting at loggerheads neo-liberal and social-democrat ideologies in determining the best path for the adjustment and survival of both advanced and ‘emerging’ economies. The exceptional growth rates achieved by the ‘Asian tigers’ have exacerbated this debate by shortcut explanatory arguments of these “success stories,” often attributed to Confucianism, but with little in-depth analysis or understanding of the diversity of factors at play, the historical context in which welfare systems have been introduced in these countries, how they evolved and what objectives they served, beyond the obvious traditional ones of addressing poverty, health impairment and other social risks. It is noteworthy that this book is authored by experts from the six countries covered, namely China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, and that it analyses both the common and the diverging features of these countries’ political, cultural and welfare systems and the challenges they have to address. Besides the six case studies, the volume includes two analytical introductory chapters, and a concluding synthesis chapter, focusing on factors that facilitate the understanding of the development of welfare regimes in these countries, particularly the roles played respectively by the State and by Confucianism. Though the latter is acknowledged by the authors as influencing the socio-political approach to social protection, they contend that it is overwhelmingly used by governments to justify their restrictive social policies and as a means for political legitimization of more or less authoritarian regimes. Also of particular pertinence is the analysis of the current pressures for change of existing social arrangements, notably the financial crisis in 1997, globalization and demographic ageing. As indicated in the introduction, the western theory of the welfare-state is located at the interface of two sets of basically conflicting rights: citizen rights, which underlie the democratic institution of society, and property rights, which characterize the market economy. The welfare-state is viewed by western welfare theorists as “functional to the very existence of capitalism because it legitimises the accumulation function of capital” (p. 4). While acknowledging the interdependence between the development of the welfare-state, capital accumulation and economic growth, the editors point out that, since democratic institutions in the western sense are either absent or rudimentary in East Asian countries, this functional institutional analysis cannot explain the emergence of welfare systems in these countries. They say that neither capitalism nor democracy are necessary conditions for constituting a welfare state or explaining its development. Indeed, they claim that the political and economic functions served by welfare states cannot explain the differences between societies and their welfare systems. The role of the state and of the family or community are central to understanding the East Asian context. However, while the western approach tends to consider that East Asian systems provide less social protection against poverty and the reduction of social inequalities, there are other welfare inputs provided by “non-state societal actors” that constitute additional social capital through work, education, training and care that cater for human needs and provide social quality to an extent that would rank these countries’ welfare systems higher in the development perspective than the quantitative assessment made by functionalist western analysts, which relate welfare outcomes to the size of public expenditure or levels of state-granted benefits or redistribution. This is why the authors prefer to use the term “welfare regime” rather than the common “welfare-state regime.” As to the importance of a Confucian model of the welfare-state in …