The economic crises of the 1970s marked the end of the 'Golden Age' of the welfare state and triggered a broad range of cost containment measures in OECD countries. In the healthcare sector, cost containment is difficult to execute as the legitimacy of healthcare systems is based on their ability to provide satisfactory healthcare. Hence, reforms have gone beyond mere retrenchment and the divergent healthcare systems of the heydays of the welfare state, which were characterized by the distinct role of the state in financing, providing and regulating healthcare, have now changed profoundly....

It is often argued that the enhanced consultation of civil society contributes to the democratization of European and global governance. This collection investigates whether this theoretical argument is supported by empirical evidence. Ten original essays analyze current patterns of civil society consultation in 32 intergovernmental organizations.

This volume provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of new arenas of education governance, examining the impact of international organizations and marketization. It explores how education policy is made at international levels, and the consequences for national policy-making.

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 takes a fresh look at a widely debated question in international relations and political communication research: How can public discourses contribute to democratic governance beyond the nation state? The book combines quantitative and qualitative analyses of media content and evaluates them from a democratic theory perspective.

Focusing on the EU, this volume examines the problems multilevel governance causes for democratic legitimacy by placing it in a comparative and theoretical context, and explore how challenges faced by the EU compare with those faced by traditional federal

In spite of the lack of plausible alternatives to liberal democracy, the age of globalization has ushered in serious challenges to the democratic legitimacy of the nation state. The contributors in this collection explore the frontiers of normative and empirical legitimacy research, drawing upon a range of key conceptual and methodological issues.

This book takes a look at the world of accounting and examines business's relationship with the state. It compares the accounting regulations in Germany, the UK and the US to provide evidence that privatization and convergence must be used with caution, at least in the world of accounting.

This collection examines the transformation of the modern Western state in an age of accelerated globalization. Arguing that the state experienced a 'golden age' in the 1960s and 1970s, the contributors explore how and why this configuration of the state is under pressure in the 21st century.

This book explores what the privatization of global rule-making means for democracy. It reconstructs three prominent rule-making processes in the field of global sustainability politics and argues that, if designed properly, private transnational rule-making can be as democratic as intergovernmental rule-making.