The Welfare Of The Minor National Crisis Theory Research

Claus Offe (1940--), a famous German political sociologist, is the main representative character of the third generation of the Frankfurt School. He inherited the critical social theory tradition of the Frankfurt School, combined Marxism’s critical spirit with structural functionalism and systemic functional theory, and analyzed the contradictions of the late capitalist state systematically; put forward famous theory of crisis of the welfare state.According to the importance of the state theory in the political sociology, and the development status of the "welfare state", this dissertation attempts to elaborates Offe’s theory of crisis of the welfare state systematically, based on studying historical clues and logical structure of Offe’s theory of crisis of the welfare state comprehensive. This dissertation researches the theory essence of offe’s theory of crisis of the welfare state theory in the context of contemporary marxism aboard and the political sociology, and analyses its pros and cons.This dissertation is divided into seven parts, of which the Introduction illustrates the research significance、research status、research framework and innovation of the dissertation. The first chapter analyses the generation, development of the social welfare system and clarifies its respective theoretical thought and then discuss influences on Offe’s theory of crisis of the welfare state which comes from the classic Marxism, the Frankfurt School, continental sociology and Anglo-American sociology. The second chapter analyses process of formation and further development of the theory of crisis of the welfare state specifically. The following three chapters are main contents of Offe’s theory of crisis of the welfare state. Chapter III examines the structural contradictions of the welfare state from the contradiction in capital interests and state policies, the contradiction in organizational power structures, the contradiction in democracy and political, as well as the contradiction in legitimacy and efficiency; Chapter IV interprets crisis of the welfare state from the dimension of systemic functional theory, including Offe’s definition of the systemic crisis of the late capitalist society, the diagnosis of "crises of crisis management " and "ungovernability" in late capitalist.and the analysis of the development trends of the late capitalist system crisis; Chapter Ⅴ explores Offfe’s approach which is out of crisis of the welfare state, that is non-statist strategy and its new social movements. The final chapter analyses and evaluates Offe’s theory of crisis of the welfare state, points out that Offe’s theory of crisis of the welfare state is a social philosophy, is a critical state theory. This dissertation points out the relationship between Offe and the third phase of development of the critical theory in the overall framework of three phases of development of the critical theory; analyses the relationship between Offe’s theory of crisis of the welfare state and the third phase of development of the critical theory; elucidates the contribution of Offe’s theory of crisis of the welfare state to the "political ethics reversal" of the critical theory.