Despite an efflorescence of work, much of it in this journal, the study of comparative political
economy suffers from two conspicuous lacunae. The field continues to display the marks of …

This chapter surveys the role of political parties in shaping the welfare state in advanced
democracies in the post-Second World War period. Its first section portrays the theoretical …

We are now in a position to draw a number of conclusions from the analyses in this book,
and to look cautiously into the near future of electoral politics and Social protection in …

Europe's political landscapes are in turmoil, and new radical parties challenge the
established political order. This book locates Europe's contemporary challenges within the …

This article investigates the new party politics of welfare states with a particular focus on
electoral competition. The argument is that welfare state politics are no longer just about …

This paper surveys recent studies that analyse the relation between party politics and the
welfare state in terms different from traditional 'partisan politics' theory. This traditional …

Much has changed in comparative political economy in Europe over the past thirty years,
both in terms of the political economic realities and the scholarly explanations of those …

Contemporary political economy is predicated on widely shared ideas and assumptions,
some explicit but many implicit, about the past. Our aim in this Special Issue is to draw …

A profound shift has occurred in the politics of social spending across advanced capitalist
economies. After a substantial period of cross-party consensus on welfare state spending …

In this paper, I discuss recent developments in political economy. By focusing on the
microeconomic side of the discipline, I present an overview of current research on four of the …