Disappearing State?

Edited by Francis G. Castles, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Australian National University. He was formerly Professor of Social and Public Policy at the University of Edinburgh, UK

• Contents:Preface1. IntroductionFrancis G. Castles2. Testing the Retrenchment Hypothesis: An Aggregate Overview Francis G. Castles3. Data on the Functions of Government: Where Are We Now?Neil Fraser and Paul Norris4. The Changing Cost of Government: Trends in the State Overhead BudgetRichard Parry5. Sinking Budgets and Ballooning Prices: Recent Developments Connected to Military SpendingThomas R. Cusack6. Expenditure on Public Order and SafetyPaul Norris7. Testing the Retrenchment Hypothesis: Educational Spending, 1960–2002Manfred G. Schmidt8. The Real Race to the Bottom: What Happened to Economic Affairs Expenditure After 1980?Herbert Obinger and Reimut Zohlnhöfer9. A Mortgage on the Future? Public Debt Expenditure and Its Determinants, 1980–2001Uwe Wagschal10. Moving Beyond Expenditure Accounts: The Changing Contours of the Regulatory State, 1980–2003Nico A. SiegelIndex

'Most comparative research on public expenditure retrenchment has concentrated on the welfare state. This exciting and innovative volume takes a new approach. It focuses instead on non-social programmes such as education, defence and economic affairs, demonstrates that this is where the real cost-cutting has taken place and shows, paradoxically, that these cuts have made social spending more politically salient in the public expenditure calculus. This is a book which extends the reach of our understanding of modern public policy at the same time as it extends our knowledge of the reach of the modern state.'