Professor Cocozzelli, at the beginning of the semester, told me that the welfare state is a very broad topic to approach. All I knew then was that I wanted to write about the welfare state and its implications. I figured I could do a history and analysis of the three welfare state models--Anglo-American, corporatist, and social democratic--, enough to write a twenty page thesis. The good professor instructed to me to narrow down my topic, what in particular about the welfare state did I what to cover, and furthermore in the context of comparative politics.
I toyed with various other topics as the semester progressed, doing so in light of what I was doing in my other politics courses. At one point, I considered writing a paper exclusively on the Japanese welfare state and the challenges it faced with a declining population. It was not too far off from working I was doing in the Gov't and Politics of the Far East course I took with Professor Metzler. I avoided that topic because it struck as a monster of project to tackle, and frankly I did not know where to begin.
Ultimately, I chose to work with the health care policy of the Anglo-American welfare state. I understood that the Anglo-American welfare state--thanks to a project in Gov't and Politics of Western Europe--is the least generous of all the welfare models. I had the preconceived notion that rightfully so the welfare systems of the US and the UK were restrictive. Government should only provide to those who have demonstrated a great need. Universal health care, I thought, would be something rejected by both Britons and Americans. Not so, as Britons have a national health care system. Thus, in explaining the health care policy of the Anglo-American model I would have to explain the differing political cultures and institutions that divide the US from the UK.
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