IRELAND PLACE IN THE WORLDS OF WELFARE CAPITALISM

Much recent study of welfare states has focused on (1) the development of typologies and (2) theories explaining the development of welfare states. This article seeks to raise some specific questions about the current approaches to the study of welfare states. Using the example o f the Republic of Ireland to highlight deficiencies in existing studie s, it argues that dominant approaches are core-centric and adopt - eit her implicity or explicitly - a modernization approach, thereby margin alizing the experience of peripheral countries and abstracting the dev elopment of welfare states from the world economic system in which it takes place. Looking at the case of Ireland, it is suggested that ther e are a number of factors which have influenced the development of the Irish welfare state but which are frequently not taken into account i n comparative studies. These include the country's colonial and post-c olonial status: the largely agricultural nature of Irish society; the impact of being a dependent peripheral country (including the active r ole played by the state in developing policy); and the role of Catholi cism.