Structures and challenges of Social Security and Welfare in Europe and the United States - a comparative essay

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The following paper is a result of the course 'The American Political System' given by Prof. Slomp at the Faculty of Management of the University of Nijmegen, where the author studies as an exchange student at the moment. In the introduction of the course the students had to think about the most important differences between the political systems of the United States and the European countries. Among other major points the class came to the result that especially the different ways and extents of providing social security and welfare for their citizens can be regarded as one of the most important differences between the American and European systems. Moreover the different models of welfare state p layed an important role in the discussions between European and American exchange students in the last months and a lot of mutual prejudices dealing with the different kinds of welfare capitalism had to be cleared up. For this reason the author chose the topic of social security and welfare in Europe and the States for this assignment. Today systems of social security and welfare are part of every modern democracy in the world and most of the people in the 'western countries' - including the US - count on the social services and provisions given by the state. Over the last 120 years and especially since World War II social and welfare policy has become one of the major cores of modern democracies, without most of them the political systems could be regarded as much more instable today. Nevertheless the differences between the single systems and their historical, economical and social backrounds are still strong, especially between America and Europe. Accordingly to the questions given above, in the following paper the author wants to - give a brief and critical overview of the american system of social security and welfare (Chapter 2), - describe challenges and perspectives of the american system on the basis of two state issues (Chapter 3), - give a short comparison of the general character of the american and european systems of social security on the basis of the course literature, the modell of Esping-Andersen and statistical data (Chapter 4) [...]