La part de social au Royaume-Uni

Among all the typologies which exist about the Welfare States, most authors classify the united Kingdom as a "liberal state" (Paul Spicker, 2000; Abrahamson Peter, 2000; Kleinman Mark, 2002). For example, Titmuss sees the united Kingdom as a "residual model of social policy" where the needs are met by the state only when the private market and the family have failed and only in a temporarily way. Moreover, Leibfried extends the Titumuss' model by presenting four models but agrees with him by classifying the united Kingdom as a residual welfare model in which the state is a compensator of last resort. Esping-Andersen, in the famous comparative study The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism describes the united Kingdom as a liberal welfare state characterised by means testing and modest universal transfers or social insurance, strict entitlement rules and state encouragement of the market. The typology developed by Korpi and Palme (1994, 1998) seems to suit well with the real situation of the welfare in the united Kingdom: it is categorised as a "basic security model" with the citizenship as the base of entitlement and the "flat-rate" as the principle of benefit level.