The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State

The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State is the authoritative and definitive guide to the contemporary welfare state. In a volume consisting of nearly fifty newly-written chapters, a broad range of the world's leading scholars offer a comprehensive account of everything one needs to know about the modern welfare state. The Handbook is divided into eight sections. It opens with three chapters that evaluate the philosophical case for (and against) the welfare state. Surveys of the welfare state's history and of the approaches taken to its study are followed by four extended sections, running to some thirty-five chapters in all, which offer a comprehensive and in-depth survey of our current state of knowledge across the whole range of issues that the welfare state embraces. The first of these sections looks at inputs and actors (including the roles of parties, unions, and employers), the impact of gender and religion, patterns of migration and a changing public opinion, the role of international organisations and the impact of globalization. The next two sections cover policy inputs (in areas such as pensions, health care, disability, care of the elderly, unemployment, and labour market activation) and their outcomes (in terms of inequality and poverty, macroeconomic performance, and retrenchment). The seventh section consists of seven chapters which survey welfare state experience around the globe (and not just within the OECD). Two final chapters consider questions about the global future of the welfare state.

The individual chapters of the Handbook are written in an informed but accessible way by leading researchers in their respective fields giving the reader an excellent and truly up-to-date knowledge of the area under discussion. Taken together, they constitute a comprehensive compendium of all that is best in contemporary welfare state research and a unique guide to what is happening now in this most crucial and contested area of social and political development.

Francis G. Castles is Professor Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University and at the Center for Social Policy Research (CeS) in Bremen.

Stephan Leibfried is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Bremen, Director of the Collaborative Research Center "Transformations of the State" (TranState) and member of the Unit History and Institutions of the Center for Social Policy Research (CeS) there.

Jane Lewis is Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Founding Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Herbert Obinger is Professor of Comparative Public and Social Policy at the University of Bremen, directs the Unit History and Institutions of the Center for Social Policy Research (CeS) and directs two projects in the Collaborative Research Center "Transformations of the State" (TranState).

Christopher Pierson is Professor of Politics at the University of Nottingham and Director of Teaching and Lead Editor of the British Journal of Politics and International Relations.