Introduction to the Handbook on Austerity, Populism and the Welfare State

This chapter sets the scene for the book, including the reasons for the choice of concepts and how and why the link between these are important elements in order to understand societal development in welfare states. It also argues that the presentation and discussion of the development in a variety of different welfare states regimes can be important in order to understand the impact of ideas, ideologies and variations in policies and decisions in a range of countries. Furthermore, that the analysis of countries and groups of countries gives one kind of information, but analysis across a number of different sub-sections of the welfare states aims at making it possible to understand in a broader way why there might have been austerity/retrenchment in certain parts of the welfare states, but not necessarily in others. This also includes why populism can have had an impact in certain social policy areas, although not in all of them, as some welfare areas also have, from time to time, strong support from populist parties. Lastly, there is a short overview of the individual chapters.