In interdisciplinary research on welfare state regress in Western Europe, interest has focused on the causes and extent of retrenchment. Causal debates have concerned the role of globalization, post-industrialism, European integration, and partisan politics. The "new politics" perspective views...

Welfare states in the Western countries have had very similar goals, yet the choice of institutions to approach these shared goals has generated protracted power struggles among major interest groups and great cross-country variation in institutional structures. Relating recent debates on new...

Recent issues of Challenge have featured a debate over the successes and failures of the welfare state in Sweden. Walter Korpi fired the first salvo with a defense of the welfare state, and Magnus Henrekson replied at length with a defense of market reforms. Now Korpi offers a brief and final...

Women’s rising labor force participation since the 1960’s was long seen as heralding decreasing gender inequalities. According to influential social science writings this view has now to be revised; “women friendly” policies bringing women into the workforce are held to create major...