Changing the politics of social programmes: Innovative change in British and French welfare reforms

The first wave of welfare state reform, which occurred during the 1980s in Britain and the US, and in the early 1990s in continental Europe, has left most social protection systems to a large extent intact. However, some of the changes adopted then have provided new opportunities for reform, that are currently being exploited by the reformers of the late 1990s. In this second wave of reform, the results achieved might be more substantial. The article illustrates this argument with examples taken from France and Britain. It shows how legislative change in pensions and health care have introduced structural - or innovative - changes which provide a new pattern of opportunities for future, and possibly more radical, reforms.