Peter Starke is a Political Scientist at the University of Bremen, Germany. Recent publications include Radical Welfare State Retrenchment: A Comparative Analysis. Alexandra Kaasch is a Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Sheffield, UK. Previously she held a post-doctoral research position at the University of Bremen, Germany. Franca van Hooren is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Comparative Social Policy at the University of Bremen, Germany. She obtained her PhD from the European University Institute, Italy.

• Introduction 1. The Politics of Crisis Response 2. How the Countries Compare 3. The Oil Shocks of 1973 and 1979: Keynesianism and Beyond 4. Recession in the 1990s: The Resistible Rise of Neoliberalism 5. Managing the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and its Aftermath: The Role of Social Policy Conclusion

"The great virtue of this book is that it brings together good empirical evidence and analysis of how welfare states respond to and manage crises over time, from a variety of settings." - Peter Taylor-Gooby, Professor of Social Policy, University of Kent, UK