European welfare states are undergoing profound change, driven by globalization, technical changes, and population ageing. More immediately, the aftermath of the Great Recession and unprecedented levels of immigration have imposed additional pressures. This book examines welfare state transformations across a representative range of European countries and at the EU level, and considers likely new directions in social policy. It reviews the dominant neo-liberal
austerity response and discusses social investment, fightback, welfare chauvinism, and protectionism.

It argues that the class solidarities and cleavages that shaped the development of welfare states are no longer powerful. Tensions surrounding divisions between old and young, women and men, immigrants and denizens, and between the winners in a new, more competitive, world and those who feel left behind are becoming steadily more important. European countries have entered a period of political instability and this is reflected in policy directions. Austerity predominates nearly everywhere, but
patterns of social investment, protectionism, neo-Keynesian intervention, and fightback vary between countries. The volume identify areas of convergence and difference in European welfare state futures in this up-to-date study - essential reading to grasp the pace and directions of
change.

1 Peter Taylor-Gooby, Benjamin Leruth, and Heejung Chung: Introduction; 2 Jan-Ocko Heuer and Steffen Mau: Stretching the Limits of Solidarity: The German Case; 3 Peter Taylor-Gooby, Benjamin Leruth, and Heejung Chung: Where Next for the UK Welfare State?; 4 Benjamin Leruth: France at a Crossroads: Societal Challenges to the Welfare State under Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande's Presidential Terms; 5 Jorgen Goul Andersen, Mi Ah Schoyen, and Bjorn Hvinden: Changing Scandinavian Welfare States - Which Way Forward?; 6 Maša Filipoviç Hrast and Tatjana Rakar: The Future of the Slovenian Welfare State and Challenges to Solidarity; 7 Ana M. Guillen and Emmanuele Pavolini: Spain and Italy: Regaining the Confidence and Legitimacy to Advance Social Policy; 8 Maria Petmesidou: Welfare Reform in Greece: A Major Crisis, Crippling Debt Conditions, and Stark Challenges Ahead; 9 Benjamin Leruth: The Europeanisation of the Welfare State: The Case for a 'Differentiated European Social Model'; Peter Taylor-Gooby, Benjamin Leruth and Peter Taylor-Gooby, and Heejung Chung: Liberalism, Social Investment, Protectionism, and Chauvinism: New Directions for the European Welfare State