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

Ten 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 U.S.--reveals that federalism can facilitate and impede social policy development. Development is contingent on several time-dependent factors and this study suggests that federalism may actually protect the welfare state, and welfare states may enhance national integration.

The influence of the state on human lives is more comprehensive and sustained than that of any other organizational construct. It steers the economy, fights crime, provides education, sustains democracy, enters wars, guarantees social welfare, collects taxes, and deploys some forty percent of the gross national product. Transformations of the State� defines the multi-faceted modern state in four intersecting dimensions: resources, or control of the use of force and revenues; law, or jurisdiction and the courts; legitimacy, or the acceptance of political rule by the populace; and...

In this exciting new book, Rieger and Leibfried argue persuasively for the need to understand developments in welfare and social provision alongside the processes of globalization. In the two decades following the Second World War, the massive expansion of the welfare state system arguably allowed Western governments to expose their societies to uncontrollable external risks associated with the deregulated global economic environment. The authors contend that the combination of changes in welfare and technological innovation provided the necessary conditions for globalization by limiting some...

As the European Union grows and matures, its movement toward a single market has been the primary focus of attention. However, other policy areas have been greatly affected by the process of European integration. This volume deals with the development of social policy in the EU. The authors examine the substance of particular policies, such as industrial relations, immigration, agriculture, and gender equality. They emphasize the distinctive nature and dynamics of integrating policy in a " multi-tiered" system--one in which individual member states share policymaking...