'Globalization', institutions and welfare regimes -- The challenge of globalization -- Globalization and welfare regime change -- Towards workfare? : changing labour market policies -- Labour market policies in social democratic and continental regimes -- Population ageing, GEPs and changing pensions systems -- Pensions policies in continental and social regimes -- Conclusion : welfare regimes in a liberalizing world.

Same time, the glaring systemic deficiencies of extant welfare systems-and the psychological toll of welfare dependency--became increasingly apparent, even to welfare's supporters.

How has New Public Management influenced social policy reform in different developed welfare states? New managerialism is conceptualized as a paradigm, which not only shapes the decision-making process in bureaucratic organizations but also affects the practice of individuals (citizens). Public administrations have been expected to transform from traditional bureaucratic organizations into modern managerial service providers by adopting a business model that requires the efficient and effective use of resources. The introduction of managerial practices, controlling and accounting systems, management by objectives, computerization, service orientation, increased outsourcing, competitive structures and decentralized responsibility are typical of efforts to increase efficiency. These developments have been accompanied by the abolition of civil service systems and fewer secure jobs in public administrations. This book provides a sociological understanding of how public administrations deal with this transformation, how people’s role as public servants is affected, and what kind of strategies emerge either to meet these new organizational requirements or to circumvent them. It shows how hybrid arrangements of public services are created between the public and the private sphere that lead to conflicts of interest between private strategies and public tasks as well as to increasingly homogeneous social welfare provision across Europe.

This book breaks new intellectual ground in the analysis of the German welfare state. Bleses and Seeleib-Kaiser argue that we are witnessing a dual transformation of the welfare state, which is caused by the emergence of new dominating interpretative patterns. Increasingly, the state reduces its social policy commitments towards securing the achieved living standard of former wage earners, which in the past had been the key normative principle of social policy in Germany, while at the same time public support and services for families are expanded.

Using an analytical framework based on Foucault's concept of governmentality and through unique case-studies, this volume explores the ongoing transformations taking place in the Swedish welfare state.

De literatuur over welvaartsstaten richt zich vaak op beleidsveranderingsprocessen en de mechanismen die deze veranderingen veroorzaken of tegenwerken. De werkelijke verandering wordt vaak geïnterpreteerd als gevolg van externe crises of als gevolg van de meer geleidelijke beleidsveranderingsprocessen. Dit boek heeft een ander uitgangspunt: de auteurs onderzoeken de bewering dat de sociale en economische veranderingen als gevolg van de overgang naar een postindustriële samenleving de sociale fundamenten van de verzorgingsstaat hebben verzwakt.

Same time, the glaring systemic deficiencies of extant welfare systems-and the psychological toll of welfare dependency--became increasingly apparent, even to welfare's supporters.