Conflict and consensus in social policy development

In the study of welfare state development, we find divergent approaches which assign differing weights to consensus and conflict as well as to various causal factors behind changes in social policy. This paper moves beyond the traditional concentration on social expenditures and tests the role of different causal factors by focussing instead on the development of social rights in the areas of workplace accidents, sickness, and unemployment insurance. Hypotheses derived from competing approaches are tested in relation to the relative development of social rights in these three policy areas and in relation to variation in social rights in accident insurance.