Radical Welfare State Retrenchment

This book confronts one of the most fiercely contested issues in current political debates: how is welfare state retrenchment possible in modern democracies despite the welfare state's continuing popular appeal? Starke offers an international comparative analysis of welfare state retrenchment and an in-depth examination of its radical deployments.

This book offers a careful examination of the politics of social policy in an era of austerity and conservative governance. Focusing on the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Pierson provides a compelling explanation for the welfare state's durability and for the few occasions where each government was able to achieve significant cutbacks. The programmes of the modern welfare state - the 'policy legacies' of previous governments - generally proved resistant to reform. Hemmed in by the political supports that have developed around mature social programmes, conservative opponents of the welfare state were successful only when they were able to divide the supporters of social programmes, compensate those negatively affected, or hide what they were doing from potential critics. The book will appeal to those interested in the politics of neo-conservatism as well as those concerned about the development of the modern welfare state. It will attract readers in the fields of comparative politics, public policy, and political economy.

Covers the period from 1970 to 1988.

A comparative analysis of the political attitudes, values, aspirations, and identities of citizens in advanced industrial societies, this book focusses on the different ways in which social policies and national politics affect personal opinions on justice, political responsibility, and the overall trustworthiness of politicians.

This book presents an in-depth analysis of social policy reactions to international economic shocks in four different welfare states, over a 40-year period. It reveals how expansion and retrenchment are shaped by domestic politics and existing welfare state institutions.

A discussion of the case study method which develops an integrative framework for causal inference in small-n research. This framework is applied to research design tasks such as case selection and process tracing. The book presents the basics, state-of-the-art and arguments for improving the case study method and empirical small-n research.