The present study describes and explains the changing role of the state in the Italian healthcare system since the beginning of the 1970s, with a particular focus on developments following 1978 when the healthcare system was transformed from a social insurance system into a national health...

This paper explores the issue area of global public-private partnerships (PPPs) against intellectual property (IP) crimes. It is based on preliminary findings from a PhD research project that included interviews with more than 30 participants of such PPPs from different countries around the...

This paper maps and explains the reactions of four welfare states - Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden - to three global crisis situations - the oil shocks of the 1970s, the worldwide recession of the early 1990s, and the financial crisis from 2008 onwards. Two main conclusions...

States engage in forum shopping when choosing a method for peaceful dispute settlement. As rational actors they weigh their options selecting either bilateral negotiations, a political third party or judicial means. The overarching concern of a government in combination with a forum's...

The essential argument of this paper is that, despite the work of many pioneering scholars, the original agenda of those who came to comparative public policy with a view to demonstrating that the functioning of democratic politics makes a difference remains substantially unfulfilled. The...

This article analyses from a cross-national comparative perspective how deregulation of compulsory education affects two central educational outcomes: efficiency and equality. The conflict between public regulation on the one hand and the market model on the other hand describes one of the most...

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play an active and noteworthy role in governance, both at the national and international level. Three questions arise: First, how do CSOs exercise their advocacy, what repertoires, strategies and resources do they use? Second, to what degree are they...

This article reflects on the important lecture The Welfare State Over the Very Long Run, delivered by Paul Pierson, at the London School of Economics on 8 November 2010, on the occasion of the launch of Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State. Pierson's explanation for what he sees as the...

Starting with a comparative assessment of different welfare regimes and political economies from the perspective of gender awareness and pro-women policies, this paper identifies the determinants of cross-national variation in women's chances of being in a high-status occupation in twelve West...

The European Union began using accounting rules defined by an independent private sector regime as compulsory norms in 2005. Is the incorporation of these International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) into European law a viable solution to combine external technical expertise with...