This book challenges the popular thesis of a downward trend in the viability of welfare states in competitive market economies.
With approaches ranging from historical case studies to cross-national analyses, the contributors explore various aspects of the relationships between welfare states, industrial relations, financial government and production systems. Building upon and combining comparative studies of both the varieties of capitalism and the worlds of welfare state regimes, the book considers issues such as:
*the role of employers and unions in social policy
*the interdependencies between financial markets and pension systems
* the current welfare reform process.
It sheds new light on the tenuous relationship between social policies and market economies and provides thought-provoking reading for students and scholars of Comparative Politics, Public Policy, the Welfare State and Political Economy.

This book challenges the popular thesis of a downward trend in the viability of welfare states in competitive market economies.
With approaches ranging from historical case studies to cross-national analyses, the contributors explore various aspects of the relationships between welfare states, industrial relations, financial government and production systems. Building upon and combining comparative studies of both the varieties of capitalism and the worlds of welfare state regimes, the book considers issues such as:
*the role of employers and unions in social policy
*the interdependencies between financial markets and pension systems
* the current welfare reform process.
It sheds new light on the tenuous relationship between social policies and market economies and provides thought-provoking reading for students and scholars of Comparative Politics, Public Policy, the Welfare State and Political Economy.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203166825

1. 1 Problemstellung Es gehoert zu den heute allgemein akzeptierten Erkenntnissen, dass Politik sektoral differenziert ist. Dahinter steht die - vor allem von der Policy-Forschung vermittelte - Einsicht, dass Funktionsprobleme moderner Gesellschaften und darauf abzie- lende Steuerungsversuche keinen universellen Charakter besit- zen, sondern eine hochgradig politikfeldspezifische Pragung aufweisen. Im folgenden wird es darum gehen, die Entwick- lung und den langfristigen Wandel eines dieser Politikfelder zu analysieren, ohne sich dabei auf die Erklarung von Einzelpha- nomenen wie Gesetzgebungsprozessen, der Rolle von Parteien und organisierten Interessen oder auf bestimmte Entwick- lungsphasen (Expansion, Blockade, Transformation) zu be- schranken. Unser Untersuchungsgegenstand ist - bewusst breit gewahlt - die Genese der bundesdeutschen Gesundheitspolitik seit der Nachkriegszeit. Im Mittelpunkt sollen dabei derWan- del von Akteurinteressen und -strategien stehen, die Verande- rungen der institutionellen Handlungsgrundlagen sowie die variierenden Problemanforderungen, mit denen sich die Akteu- re in der Gesundheitspolitik konfrontiert sahen. Ein derart breit gefasstes Untersuchungsziel bedarf eines analytischen Bezugs- rahmens, der sowohl die zahlreichen Beobachtungseinheiten ordnen hilft wie auch sektorale Entwicklungstendenzen sicht- bar macht. Ein solcher analytischer Rahmen soll hier zunachst in Auseinandersetzung mit einigen vorherrschenden politik- wissenschaftlichen Ansatzen entwickelt werden. 14 Innerhalb der empirisch orientierten Politikforschung sind derzeit zwei konzeptionelle Tendenzen erkennbar.

Sixty years of democratic representation in Germany allow us to study the working of a specific type of electoral system, namely a mixed system combining proportional and majoritarian rules, in great detail. Mixed systems have figured as a reference point in many reform debates of the recent past. This is because they appear to combine advantageous traits of proportional and majoritarian rules, such as fairness, proximity between constituencies and representatives, and stable government majorities. Mixed systems have also attracted much scholarly attention of late, because they allow us to study the effects of electoral rules while holding many intervening variables constant. But they also attract interest because the proportional and majoritarian electoral tiers affect each other in ways that differ from what would have resulted under pure PR or plurality. All this makes mixed systems a fascinating object of study, and the German system is its oldest and prototypical exemplar.

This book radically revises established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies and introduces a new perspective on how religion shaped modern social protection systems. The interplay of societal cleavage structures and electoral rules produced the different political class coalitions sustaining the three welfare regimes of the Western world. In countries with proportional electoral systems the absence or presence of state church conflicts decided whether class remained the dominant source of coalition building or whether a political logic not exclusively based on socio-economic interests (e.g. religion) was introduced into politics, particularly social policy. The political class-coalitions in countries with majoritarian systems, on the other hand, allowed only for the residual-liberal welfare state to emerge, as in the US or the UK. This book also reconsiders the role of Protestantism. Reformed Protestantism substantially delayed and restricted modern social policy. The Lutheran state churches positively contributed to the introduction of social protection programs.

This book radically revises established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies and introduces a new perspective on how religion shaped modern social protection systems. The interplay of societal cleavage structures and electoral rules produced the different political class coalitions sustaining the three welfare regimes of the Western world. In countries with proportional electoral systems the absence or presence of state church conflicts decided whether class remained the dominant source of coalition building or whether a political logic not exclusively based on socio-economic interests (e.g. religion) was introduced into politics, particularly social policy. The political class-coalitions in countries with majoritarian systems, on the other hand, allowed only for the residual-liberal welfare state to emerge, as in the US or the UK. This book also reconsiders the role of Protestantism. Reformed Protestantism substantially delayed and restricted modern social policy. The Lutheran state churches positively contributed to the introduction of social protection programs.