Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Agents of Reform: Child Labor and the Origins of the Welfare State

by Elisabeth Anderson
Save 5% Save 5%
Current price ₹10,692.00
Original price ₹11,270.00
Original price ₹11,270.00
Original price ₹11,270.00
(-5%)
₹10,692.00
Current price ₹10,692.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Hardcover
  • ISBN13: 9780691220901
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press
  • Publisher Imprint: Princeton University Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 384
  • Original Price: USD 115.0
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 704 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Sociology / General

A groundbreaking account of how the welfare state began with early nineteenth-century child labor laws, and how middle-class and elite reformers made it happen

The beginnings of the modern welfare state are often traced to the late nineteenth-century labor movement and to policymakers' efforts to appeal to working-class voters. But in Agents of Reform, Elisabeth Anderson shows that the regulatory welfare state began a half century earlier, in the 1830s, with the passage of the first child labor laws.

Agents of Reform tells the story of how middle-class and elite reformers in Europe and the United States defined child labor as a threat to social order, and took the lead in bringing regulatory welfare into being. They built alliances to maneuver around powerful political blocks and instituted pathbreaking new employment protections. Later in the century, now with the help of organized labor, they created factory inspectorates to strengthen and routinize the state's capacity to intervene in industrial working conditions.

Agents of Reform compares seven in-depth case studies of key policy episodes in Germany, France, Belgium, Massachusetts, and Illinois. Foregrounding the agency of individual reformers, it challenges existing explanations of welfare state development and advances a new pragmatist field theory of institutional change. In doing so, it moves beyond standard narratives of interests and institutions toward an integrated understanding of how these interact with political actors' ideas and coalition-building strategies.

Elisabeth Anderson is assistant professor of sociology at New York University Abu Dhabi.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us