Forms of European multi-level administration show an increased 'defibration' of the state through a shift of functioning onto the European level, onto other transnationally acting member states and onto the level of social self-organisation. At the same time a new 'complexity' is to be observed...

This paper describes welfare state transformation in OECD countries since the 1970s against the background of the post-war settlement. Relying on quantitative macro-data and qualitative information from the literature, we show that welfare states have converged, especially regarding various...

For many years, comparative welfare state research has been afflicted with a sort of methodological nationalism in the sense that countries were treated as independent units. In line with the recent "spatial turn" in comparative public policy studies, this paper examines with regard to three...