Introduction

Over the past three decades, scholars from across a number of social science disciplines have become more and more interested in the forces shaping the policy outcomes of democratic government. Public policies vary over time and across nations. In the years following the Second World War, governments in Western democratic nations have taken a far more activist stance than in earlier periods. This has been true of public policy across the board: economic policy, labour market policy, policies influencing the lives of families and, above all, the set of policies we describe as the welfare state. The broadest measure of the extent of ...