Introduction: An Empirical Puzzle

Abstract

This book addresses an empirical puzzle. Common sense and a host of scholarly studies suggest that the welfare state is resilient to attempts to dismantle it. Over the last 15 years or so, a large body of literature has emerged which spells out the theoretical reasons why this should be the case. Despite that, across the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), welfare state retrenchment, even radical retrenchment, has taken place. In a number of countries, benefits — including pensions, unemployment and sickness benefits and social assistance schemes — have been scaled back to some extent, often in the face of massive protests from citizens, the opposition and interest groups. More rarely, these cutbacks have been radical in character. Radical retrenchment, in particular, represents an explanatory puzzle for mainstream accounts of welfare state reform. This puzzle demands detailed as well as theoretically informed research concerning instances of large-scale policy change where the assumption of the literature is that we should encounter ‘policy stability’ or, at least, policy incrementalism.