The Precautionary State

UCL Uncovering Politics · Jan 20, 2023 · 44m

At a time of breakdown in our public health service, unaffordable childcare bills, and a cost of living crisis, questions over how our society should be governed, and what the state should provide, are pressing.

Meanwhile, the response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the vulnerabilities in the energy and food supply chains exposed by the war in Ukraine reveal, some think, state failure to plan ahead and make provision, just in case.

One person who has thought long and hard about what functions the state should exercise, and how it ought to perform them, is Albert Weale, Emeritus Professor of…