Published ten years after the first edition, this new Handbook offers topical, and comprehensive information on the welfare systems of all 28 EU member states and their recent reforms, giving the reader an invaluable introduction and basis for comparative welfare research. Additional chapters provide detailed information on EU social policy, as well as comparative analyses of European welfare systems and their reform pathways. For this second edition, all chapters have been updated and substantially revised, and Croatia additionally included.
The second edition of this Handbook is most timely, given the often-fundamental welfare state transformations against the background of the financial and economic crises, transforming social policy ideas, as well as political shifts in a number of European countries. The book sets out to analyse these new developments when it comes to social policy. In the first part, all country chapters provide systematic and comparable information on the foundations of the different national welfare systems and their characteristics. In the second part, using a joint conceptual foundation, they focus on policy changes (especially of the last two decades) in different social policy areas, including old-age, labour market, family, healthcare, and social assistance policies.
As the comparative chapters conclude, European welfare system landscapes have been in constant motion in the last two decades. While austerity is not to be seen on the aggregate level, the in-depth country studies show that all policy sectors have been characterised by different reform directions and ideas. The findings not only reveal both change and continuity, but also policy reversal as a distinct type that characterises social policy reform. The book provides a rich resource to the international welfare state research community, and is also useful for social policy teaching.
Sonja Blum is Researcher and Lecturer at the Institute of Political Science, University of Hagen, and External Research Fellow at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Münster. Her research focuses on public policy analysis, comparative social policy, family policy, evidence use and learning in public policy. She has published in journals such as Critical Social Policy, European Policy Analysis, Policy Studies, Social Policy & Administration, and Social Politics and is co-editor of the Annual Review of Leave Policies & Related Research.
Johanna Kuhlmann is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Collaborative Research Centre 'Global Dynamics of Social Policy' (CRC 1342), University of Bremen. She received her PhD from the University of Münster. Her current research focuses on public policy analysis and causal mechanisms of social policy dynamics. She has published in journals such as Policy Studies Journal, Review of Policy Research, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, and European Policy Analysis.
Klaus Schubert is Senior Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Münster. His research interests focus especially on comparative social policy, policy analysis, integration research, and pluralism. He has co-edited Challenges to European Welfare Systems (2016), Policy Analysis in Germany (2013), as well as the first edition of the Handbook of European Welfare Systems (2009), and is the co-editor of the journal European Policy Analysis (EPA).
