This ground-breaking book investigates the work of policy professionals. They consist of political actors who, although not elected to office, are nonetheless employed to affect policy and politics on a partisan basis. Through an analysis of the influence and power they wield, this book sheds light on how the growth of this group represents a major transformation of the organization of politics and policy making in advanced democracies. Taking a comparative, longitudinal perspective, Stefan Svallfors examines a combination of rich qualitative and quantitative data from countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland and Latvia in order to explore what skills policy professionals deploy, the motivations that drive them, and the demand and use for their skills in various organizations. He links his analysis to fundamental questions about the current state and future of democracy, demonstrating that the work of policy professionals is key to understanding how contemporary political influence and democratic accountability function. Politics for Hire will be a stimulating read for scholars and advanced students in political science, public administration, public policy and sociology. It will also provide useful insights for those working in politics and governance seeking to understand the impact and influence of policy professionals.

Throughout the world, politicians from all the main parties are cutting back on state welfare provision, encouraging people to use the private sector instead and developing increasingly stringent techniques for the surveillance of the poor. Almost all experts agree that we are likely to see further constraints on state welfare in the 21st Century.

Gathering together the findings from up-to-date attitude surveys in Europe East and West, the US and Australasia, this revealing book shows that, contrary to the claims of many experts and policy-makers, the welfare state is still highly popular with the citizens of most countries. This evidence will add to controversy in an area of fundamental importance to public policy and to current social science debate.

Throughout the world, politicians from all the main parties are cutting back on state welfare provision, encouraging people to use the private sector instead and developing increasingly stringent techniques for the surveillance of the poor. Almost all experts agree that we are likely to see further constraints on state welfare in the 21st Century.

Gathering together the findings from up-to-date attitude surveys in Europe East and West, the US and Australasia, this revealing book shows that, contrary to the claims of many experts and policy-makers, the welfare state is still highly popular with the citizens of most countries. This evidence will add to controversy in an area of fundamental importance to public policy and to current social science debate.

European Welfare Production is of interest to researchers in quality of life research, economists and political scientists interested in welfare regimes and comparative social welfare research, and administrators in social planning and social work.

The aim of this book is to identify the variation in welfare regimes (distribution of responsibilities for welfare delivery between the labour market, the family and the welfare state) and the corresponding welfare outcome at the micro level. The research agenda of this report sets out from the tradition of the "social indicator movement," and recent regime research. Combining the data on welfare production' provides insight into the way living conditions are monitored between the labour market, welfare state and family at national level. It also provides insight into the combined welfare efficiency' of these institutions, with special focus on distributional features.

The aim of this book is to identify the variation in welfare regimes and the corresponding welfare outcome at the micro level. The research agenda of this report sets out from the tradition of the 'social indicator movement', and recent regime research. This volume is of interest to researchers in quality of life research, economists and political scientists interested in welfare regimes and comparative social welfare research, and administrators in social planning and social work.

The welfare state is a trademark of the European social model. An extensive set of social and institutional actors provides protection against common risks, offering economic support in periods of hardship and ensuring access to care and services. Welfare policies define a set of social rights and address common vulnerabilities to protect citizens from market uncertainties. But over recent decades, European welfare states have undergone profound restructuring and recalibration.
This book analyzes people's attitudes toward welfare policies across Europe, and offers a novel comparison with the United States. Occupied with normative orientations toward the redistribution of resources and public policies aimed at ameliorating adverse conditions, the book focuses on the interplay between individual welfare attitudes and behavior, institutional contexts, and structural variables. It provides essential input into the comparative study of welfare state attitudes and offers critical insights into the public legitimacy of welfare state reform.

"Drawing on survey data, this remarkably coherent volume is a must read for anyone interested in the politics of the welfare state in advanced capitalist countries. How do welfare systems and other national-level institutions affect the salience of social class for individual attitudes? In addressing this question, the contributors also explore how the process of welfare-state retrenchment over the last twenty years has affected the salience of social class. Methodologically, the volume provides state-of-the-art examples of how to model the interaction of individual-level and system-level effects. The volume offers up many fascinating insights about the determinants of individual attitudes towards inequality and the public provision of social welfare."
--Jonas Pontusson, Princeton University
"The Political Sociology of the Welfare State assembles innovative analyses about mechanisms linking political institutions, social cleavages, and citizen orientations. The general approach is new and original: it highlights feedback effects of institutions and public policies in comparative perspective. The rigorous and systematic attempt to combine micro- and macro- data makes this book a 'must-read' for all those interested in the future development of political sociology." --Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Professor of Political Science, Social Science Research Center, Berlin, Germany

Analyzing Inequality summarizes key issues in today's theoretically guided empirical research on social inequality, life course, and cross-national comparative sociology. It describes the progress made in terms of data sources, both cross-sectional and longitudinal; the new instruments that make inequality research possible; new ways of thinking and explaining; and empirical findings or important contributions of rigorous empirical research to our understanding. The chapters, each written by a distinguished social scientist, are of interest to both scholars and students. This is the only book to date to take stock of the state of the art in stratification research, examining data, methods, theory, and new empirical findings. Analyzing Inequality offers an unusually and impressively broad coverage of substantive topics in the field.

"Svallfors shows not only that class matters to social attitudes, but also that national institutions shape class differences in social attitudes, sometimes in unexpected ways. His analysis is carefully crafted and his interpretation of the results is remarkably judicious. This wide-ranging book is truly a tour de force and deserves to be read by all social scientists interested in comparative analysis of advanced industrial societies."--Jonas Pontusson, Princeton University
"In this excellent overview of how social classes differ in their social attitudes, Svallfors shows that less inequality in conditions often goes
together with large differences in attitudes among classes. His discussion and explanation of this paradoxical condition should interest social scientists, students, and the interested public."--Robert Erikson, Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University

Analyzing Inequality summarizes key issues in today's theoretically guided empirical research on social inequality, life course, and cross-national comparative sociology. It describes the progress made in terms of data sources, both cross-sectional and longitudinal; the new instruments that make inequality research possible; new ways of thinking and explaining; and empirical findings, or important contributions of rigorous empirical research to our understanding. The chapters, each written by a distinguished social scientist, are of interest to both scholars and students. This is the only book to date to take stock of the state of the art in stratification research, examining data, methods, theory, and new empirical findings. Analyzing Inequality offers an unusually and impressively broad coverage of substantive topics in the field.