PETER STARKE is a Senior Researcher at the Transformations of the State Collaborative Research Centre, University of Bremen, Germany. He has published on comparative welfare state change, including work on social policy convergence and the politics of welfare state retrenchment.

• PART 1: RETRENCHMENT REVISITED Introduction The Politics of Retrenchment PART 2: NEW ZEALAND: AN EXTREME CASE From the Post-War Settlement to the First Cutbacks Radical Retrenchment and Restructuring Retrenchment in New Zealand: Empirical Pattern, Causes, Consequences PART 3: RETRENCHMENT IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Putting an Extreme Case in Perspective: Retrenchment Across Countries Explaining the Cross-National Pattern Conclusion

'This is a book which uses qualitative and comparative methods to illuminate current social policy trends...it ends up contributing importantly to our understanding of the factors underpinning the social policy consensus of our times.' - Francis G. Castles, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University 'As somebody who has been working in social policy for many years, I found this well-written book gave me many new insights. It provides an excellent outsider's view of the strengths, weaknesses and development of the New Zealand social security system.' - Robert Stephens, Social Policy Journal of New Zealand 'This book has much to offer...[it] deserves a prominant place on the bookshelf with studies on retrenchment' - Journal of European Social Policy