In this unique and provocative contribution to the literatures of political science and social policy, ten leading experts question prevailing views that federalism always inhibits the growth of social solidarity. Their comparative study of the evolution of political institutions and welfare states in the six oldest federal states - Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, the US - reveals that federalism can facilitate and impede social policy development. Development is contingent on several time-dependent factors, including degree of democratization, type of federalism, and the stage of welfare state development and early distribution of social policy responsibility. The reciprocal nature of the federalism-social policy relationship also becomes apparent: the authors identify a set of important bypass structures within federal systems that have resulted from welfare state growth. In an era of retrenchment and unravelling unitary states, this study suggests that federalism may actually protect the welfare state, and welfare states may enhance national integration.

In this unique and provocative contribution to the literatures of political science and social policy, ten leading experts question prevailing views that federalism always inhibits the growth of social solidarity. Their comparative study of the evolution of political institutions and welfare states in the six oldest federal states - Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, the US - reveals that federalism can facilitate and impede social policy development. Development is contingent on several time-dependent factors, including degree of democratization, type of federalism, and the stage of welfare state development and early distribution of social policy responsibility. The reciprocal nature of the federalism-social policy relationship also becomes apparent: the authors identify a set of important bypass structures within federal systems that have resulted from welfare state growth. In an era of retrenchment and unravelling unitary states, this study suggests that federalism may actually protect the welfare state, and welfare states may enhance national integration.

This open access book consists of 39 short essays that exemplify how interactions between inter- and trans-national interdependencies and domestic factors have shaped the dynamics of social policy in various parts of the world at different points in time. Each chapter highlights a specific type of interdependence which has been identified to provide us with a nuanced understanding of specific social policy developments at discrete points in history. The volume is divided into four parts that are concerned with a particular type of cross-border interrelation. The four parts examine the impact on social policy of trade relations and economic crises, violence, international organisations and cross-border communication and migration. This book will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in the field of social policy, global history and welfare state research from diverse disciplines: sociology, political science, history, law and economics.

This open access book consists of 39 short essays that exemplify how interactions between inter- and trans-national interdependencies and domestic factors have shaped the dynamics of social policy in various parts of the world at different points in time. Each chapter highlights a specific type of interdependence which has been identified to provide us with a nuanced understanding of specific social policy developments at discrete points in history. The volume is divided into four parts that are concerned with a particular type of cross-border interrelation. The four parts examine the impact on social policy of trade relations and economic crises, violence, international organisations and cross-border communication and migration. This book will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in the field of social policy, global history and welfare state research from diverse disciplines: sociology, political science, history, law and economics.

This is the comprehensively-revised second edition of a volume that was welcomed at its first appearance as 'the most authoritative survey and critique of the welfare state yet published'. Its fifty-one chapters have been written by acknowledged experts in the field from across Europe, Australia, and North America. Some chapters are brand new; all have been systematically revised, and they are right up to date. The first seven sections of the book cover the themes of Ethics, History, Approaches, Inputs and Actors, Policies, Policy Outcomes, and Worlds of Welfare. A final chapter is devoted to the future of welfare and well-being under the imperatives of climate change. Every chapter is written in a way that is both comprehensive and succinct, introducing the novice reader to the essentials of what is going on while providing new insights for the more experienced researcher. Wherever appropriate, the handbook brings the very latest empirical evidence to bear. It is a book that is thoroughly comparative in every way. The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, second edition, is a comprehensible and comprehensive survey of everything that it is important to know about the welfare state in these troubled times. It is an indispensable source for everyone who wants to know what is really going on now, and what is likely to happen next.

Die Nationalratswahlen im Herbst 1999 haben die politische Landschaft OEsterreichs einschneidend verandert. Im Februar 2000 wurde die neue OEVP/FPOE-Koalition unter Bundeskanzler Wolfgang Schussel vereidigt. Die Autoren zeigen, dass dieser Machtwechsel sowohl in programmatischer Hinsicht als auch auf Ebene der politischen Entscheidungsprozesse und der realisierten Massnahmen zu einem Bruch mit den fur die Nachkriegsjahrzehnte charakteristischen Politik- und Entscheidungsmustern in der Sozialpolitik gefuhrt hat.

Das Wirtschaftswachstum ist ein Schlusselindikator fur wirtschaftlichen Erfolg. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht den Einfluss politisch-institutioneller Faktoren auf die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung im weltweiten Vergleich sowie fur 21 wirtschaftlich fortgeschrittene OECD-Demokratien. Im weltweiten Vergleich werden wirtschaftliche Freiheits- und Eigentumsrechte sowie politische Stabilitat als zentrale Bedingungen fur dauerhaftes Wirtschaftswachstum identifiziert. In den OECD-Landern liegt die politische Dimension wirtschaftlichen Wachstums in der Staatstatigkeit, wobei der konsistenten Vernetzung unterschiedlicher Politikfelder eine wichtige Bedeutung zukommt.

Der Band vermittelt Aktuelles und Grundlegendes zum Verstandnis politischer OEkonomie. Didaktischer Leitgedanke ist der Zusammenhang zwischen Politik und wirtschaftlicher Leistungsfahigkeit in demokratisch verfassten OECD-Landern.

Mit diesem Sammelband mochten die Autoren und Herausgeber zur SchlieBung ei ner Lticke in der deutschsprachigen Politikwissenschaft beitragen. In den angel sachsischen Landem nimmt die Politische Okonomie einen zentralen Platz sowohl in der Wirtschafts- wie auch in der Politikwissenschaft ein. Allerdings dringen dort Oko nomen zunehmend in traditionelle Arbeitsgebiete der Politikwissenschaft vor, ebenso wie sich Politikwissenschaftler ftir zuvor genu in okonomische Fragestellungen, wie etwa die Determinanten der Arbeitslosigkeit, zu interessieren begonnen haben. Dieser Prozess hat wesentlich zur gegenwlirtigen Diskussion tiber die Standortbestimmung des politikwissenschaftlichen Zugangs zu politisch-okonomischen Fragen beigetra gen. 1m deutschsprachigen Raum ist die Untersuchung der Interaktionen zwischen Politik und Wirtschaft immer noch durch eine Abschottung der Disziplinen unter einander charakterisiert. Insgesamt gesehen werden die unterschiedlichen Starken des jeweiligen Zuganges kaum wahrgenommen. Ein Ziel dieses Buches ist daher, die spezifischen Starken des politikwissenschaftlichen Ansatzes zur Analyse des VerhaItnisses von Politik und Wirtschaft besser sichtbar zu machen. Dieser Band richtet sich an fortgeschrittene Studierende und an interessierte Fachkolleginnen und -kollegen, die sich einen kompakten Oberblick tiber Theorien und Forschungsstand zum Einfluss politisch-institutioneller StellgroBen auf die wirtschaftliche Leistungsfahigkeit demokratisch verfasster Industrielander verschaf fen wollen. Urn den Zugang zum Themenfeld fUr Studierende zu erleichtern, wer den zentrale Fachbegriffe in einem Glossar erlautert. Die praxisbezogene Relevanz des Bandes resultiert aus dem zunehmenden ge sellschaftlichen Bedarf nach einem Benchmarking der unterschiedlichen Wirt schafts- und Sozialpolitiken der westlichen Demokratien. Die Erkundung der poli tisch-institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen fUr wirtschaftlichen Erfolg und Misser folg kann hierzu einen wichtigen Beitrag leisten."

The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State is the authoritative and definitive guide to the contemporary welfare state. In a volume consisting of nearly fifty newly-written chapters, a broad range of the world's leading scholars offer a comprehensive account of everything one needs to know about the modern welfare state. The Handbook is divided into eight sections. It opens with three chapters that evaluate the philosophical case for (and against) the welfare state. Surveys of the welfare state's history and of the approaches taken to its study are followed by four extended sections, running to some thirty-five chapters in all, which offer a comprehensive and in-depth survey of our current state of knowledge across the whole range of issues that the welfare state embraces. The first of these sections looks at inputs and actors (including the roles of parties, unions, and employers), the impact of gender and religion, patterns of migration and a changing public opinion, the role of international organisations and the impact of globalization. The next two sections cover policy inputs (in areas such as pensions, health care, disability, care of the elderly, unemployment, and labour market activation) and their outcomes (in terms of inequality and poverty, macroeconomic performance, and retrenchment). The seventh section consists of seven chapters which survey welfare state experience around the globe (and not just within the OECD). Two final chapters consider questions about the global future of the welfare state.
The individual chapters of the Handbook are written in an informed but accessible way by leading researchers in their respective fields giving the reader an excellent and truly up-to-date knowledge of the area under discussion. Taken together, they constitute a comprehensive compendium of all that is best in contemporary welfare state research and a unique guide to what is happening now in this most crucial and contested area of social and political development.

Transformations of the Welfare State gives a new twist to the longstanding debate on the impact of economic globalization on the welfare state. The authors focus on several small, advanced OECD economies in order to assess whether (and how) the welfare state will be able to compete under conditions of an increasingly integrated world economy.
Small states can be seen as an 'early warning system' for general trends, because of their dependence on world markets and vulnerability to competitive pressures. The book's theoretical part innovatively integrates the literature on the political economy of small states with more recent research on the impact of globalization on social policy to generate a set of ideal-typical policy scenarios. In the main body of the book, the authors systematically test these scenarios against the experience of four countries: Austria, Denmark, New Zealand, and Switzerland.
The comparative, in-depth analysis of reform trajectories since the 1970s in four key policy areas; pensions, labor market policy, health care, and family policy provides, according to the authors, substantial evidence of a new convergence in welfare state patterns. They go on to argue that this amounts to a fundamental transformation of the welfare state from the old Keynesian welfare state positioned 'against the market' to a new set of supply-side policies 'with' and 'for' the market. Yet one of the big lessons to be learned from this timely study is that the transformation does not match the doomsday scenario predicted by neo-classical economists in the 1990s. There is no evidence of a 'race to the bottom' of social expenditure and standards of social protection, nor of a convergence towards a 'liberal' social policy model. Looking to the possible future of the welfare state in an era newly marked by profound uncertainty, the authors sound an optimistic note for states of any size.

Dieses Handbuch gibt einen UEberblick uber den aktuellen Stand der Sozialpolitikforschung. Es beleuchtet aus vergleichender Perspektive die historische Entwicklung der Sozialpolitik, ebenso wie aktuelle Herausforderungen, Reformtrends und ihre Auswirkungen. Schliesslich informiert das Handbuch uber die Theorien des Sozialstaates und die Methoden der Sozialpolitikforschung. Der Inhalt * Geschichte der Sozialpolitik * Theorien der Sozialpolitik * Varianten und Typologien des Sozialstaats * Methoden der Sozialpolitikforschung * Herausforderungen der Sozialpolitik * Politikfelder * Resultate und Wirkungen der Sozialpolitik Die Herausgeber Dr. Herbert Obinger ist Universitatsprofessor fur vergleichende Staatstatigkeitsforschung an der Universitat Bremen. Dr. Manfred G. Schmidt ist Universitatsprofessor fur Politische Wissenschaft an der Universitat Heidelberg.