This comparative study explains how public policies in welfare states have been affected by social and economic factors including secularization, globalization, and changes in the preferences and ideologies of citizens. Illuminating developments across Europe with insights drawn from their case study of the Netherlands, the authors show that policymakers must continually balance the changing and often conflicting interests of multiple institutions and social forces. Their insights make essential reading for academics and students interested in the institutional development of social...

Published in cooperation with the Social Policy Association, Social Policy Review is an annual volume that draws together international scholarship at the forefront of research on social policy. This edition provides a diverse overview of the best in social policy scholarship, with specially commissioned reviews of crucial pension, health care, conditionality, and housing debates. A themed section on personalized budgets examines the introduction and consequences of funding personalization in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Norway and considers the impact of such funding on...

This comprehensive textbook explores the policy process from a multitude of perspectives, including rationalism, culturalism, institutionalism and from a political point of view. This allows students to discover key concepts from the policy science literature and gain a deeper understanding of how public policy is discussed academically and shaped empirically.