Conclusion: Bringing Culture ‘Back In’ to Comparative Social Policy Analysis

Abstract

In this chapter we draw the book to a close, pulling together the key arguments advanced across each chapter. We suggest that there is considerable value in bringing culture ‘back in’ to debates about cross-national variations in social policy and that the exploration of societal values may help us to understand more not only about how and why welfare states differ but also how and why their long-term paths may change over time too. However, there are considerable methodological challenges faced in exploring the culture-welfare nexus empirically and we reflect on some of the key challenges here.