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Introduction
Industry 4.0, Smart Health and e-Government:
increasing digitalisation is about to enter all ar-
eas of the economy and society. This brings
change with it, also for the political institutions
and the welfare states. Digitalisation is chang-
ing not only production and consumption, but
also how participation in politics and society is
organised; how states and governments provide
social services; how participation in the labour
market works; how health care services are de-
livered and so on (Eichhorst and Rinne, 2018);
(Buhr
et al.
, 2016). However, the welfare states
itself, are powerful stimulators for change and
innovation as well. Therefore, a number of fun-
damental questions need to be answered. On
the one hand these questions deal with the ef-
fects that digitalisation might have on the wel-
fare state, i.e. the health-care systems and the
labour market? How far have developments in
individual welfare states progressed? What fur-
ther developments can we expect? On the other
hand, however, we could also ask, how policy
makers will use the welfare state in order to fos-
ter innovation?
In this article, above mentioned questions
will be discussed. The analysis is based on a
study design by Claudia Christ, Marie-Christine
Fregin, Rolf Frankenberger, Markus Trämer, Josef
Schmid and myself (Buhr
et al.
, 2016) that was
conducted on behalf of the Friedrich-Ebert-
Foundation. It focuses on a comparison of seven
welfare states: Estonia, France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. One
objective of this study is to compare the develop-
ment of, as we call it, external and internal mod-
ernisation in different welfare states. It will pro-
vide an insight into comparative welfare state
research, which forms the basis for selecting the
seven European countries under examination.
Digitalisation and the welfare state
With the increasing digitalisation and intercon-
nectedness of business and society in the twen-
ty-first century, the capitalist production regimes
of contemporary industrial societies are chang-
ing fundamentally. On the one hand, these in-
novations create new opportunities for cooper-
ation and production, while, on the other hand,
Digital innovation needs
welfare
Daniel Buhr