CHANGING THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL PROGRAMS - INNOVATIVE CHANGE IN BRITISH AND FRENCH WELFARE REFORMS

The first wave of welfare state reform, which occurred during the 1980 s in Britain and the US, and in the early 1990s in continental Europe, has left most social protection systems to a large extent intact. How ever, some of the changes adopted then have provided new opportunities for reform, that are currently being exploited by the reformers of th e late 1990s. In this second wave of reform, the results achieved migh t be more substantial. The article illustrates this argument with exam ples 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.