ANA ARRIBA Postdoctoral Researcher with the Spanish National Research Council (UPC-CSIS), Madrid, SpainANDREAS AUST self-employed Social ScientistFRANK BÖNKER Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) and Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Transformation Studies, GermanyJOHANNES KANANEN Research Assistant on project Welfare Reform and the Management of Societal Change, University of Kent, UKTRINE P. LARSEN Research Assistant on project Welfare Reform and the Management of Societal change, University of Kent, UKLUIS MORENO Senior Research Fellow at the Spanish National Research Council, CSIC, Madrid, SpainBRUNO PALIER CNRS Researcher in Centre d'Études de la Vie Politique Française, Paris, FranceVIRPI TIMONEN Lecturer in Social Policy and Ageing at the Department of Social Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland

• List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements Preface Notes on Contributors Ideas and Policy Change; P.Taylor-Gooby Paradigm Shifts, Power Resources and Labour Market Reform; P.Taylor-Gooby Policy Paradigms and Long-Term Care: Convergence or Continuing Difference?; V.Timonen The Myth of an Adult Worker Society: New Policy Discourses in European Welfare States; T.P.Larsen Changing Ideas on Pensions: Accounting for Differences in the Spread of the Multipillar Paradigm in Five EU Social Insurance Countries; F.Bönker Towards Activation? Social Assistance Reforms and Discourses; A.Aust & A.Arriba Current Employment Policy Paradigms in the UK, Sweden and Germany; J.Kananen The Europeanisation of Welfare; Paradigm Shifts and Social Policy Reforms; L.Moreno & B.Palier Index

'[A] good and enjoyable read...[,] should certainly be considered by anyone interested in welfare reform, ideas, discourses and policy paradigms in Western Europe.' - Social Policy 'This book makes a worthwhile contribution to the debate on the role of ideas in welfare state change...' - Julia S. O'Connor, International Journal of Social Welfare '...an exposition of an extensive and important piece of research carried out within a rigorously comparative methodology and with carefully developed accounts of its findings.' - Robert Sykes, Social Policy& Administration