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9781781004005

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'Crouch's new book offers an empirically based up-to-date theory relating governance, egalitarianism, and labor market security in contemporary post-industrial societies. It provides a highly sophisticated, original assessment of modes of governance in Europe in terms of their social and economic performance, drawing on extensive comparison of European countries including the new Eastern democracies. Contrasting in particular neoliberalism and social democracy, Crouch shows that the social-democratic model of state and associational intervention in markets performs much better than its neoliberal opponent, raising the question why it is the latter rather than the former that has become the leading model for the post-crisis capitalist political economy' -- Wolfgang Streeck, Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies, Germany 'In Governing Social Risks in Post-Crisis Europe, Colin Crouch mounts an impressive comparative analysis to uncover the contrasting ways in which different countries have sought to address the exacerbated social risks, both 'new' and 'old', unleashed by the financial and economic crisis. It demonstrates that growing recourse to market forms of governance in social and labour market policy is inversely related to the strength and influence of organised labour across countries and, in turn, to the degree of security provided for workers and their dependents. The three main patterns identified for governing social risks in the current era - neo-liberal, social democratic and traditional - are shown to exhibit a clear lineage reaching back to the early 20th century.' -- Paul Marginson, University of Warwick, UK 'Social risks are presented along a continuum that is not easily packaged between labour market and social policies. Crouch presents us with the concept of tradable risks. But the capacity to trade, or protect against these risks, is sharply demarcated by class positions, politics and resource ownership. This is an important, impressive, comprehensive and original contribution to comparative political economy in its simultaneous analysis of how producers and consumers absorb risks under different macro economic circumstances.' -- Jacqueline O'Reilly, Centre for Research on Management and Employment (CROME), University of Brighton, UK 'In this illuminating book Colin Crouch examines the diverse approaches presented by advanced societies in their attempts to resolve a central dilemma of a capitalist economy: the need to combine buoyant mass consumption with insecure workers, subject to and responsive to, the fluctuations of an unregulated global economy. He demonstrates that the approaches of different national economies have varying degrees of success and diverse implications for social inequality. Through the study of European societies, and comparisons with experience from the rest of the world, Crouch scrutinizes this diversity, and looks at how the 2008 global financial crisis has impacted it.' -- Hans W. Micklitz, Journal of Consumer Policy 'What are the benefits from reading this book? It can be recommended as an attempt to provide a comprehensive account of social policy developments in a wide variety of different countries. It offers an abundance of findings that are all very important for assessing the status quo in the particular welfare state in question.' -- Eberhard Eichenhofer, European Journal of Social Security

'In Governing Social Risks in Post-Crisis Europe, Colin Crouch mounts an impressive comparative analysis to uncover the contrasting ways in which different countries have sought to address the exacerbated social risks, both 'new' and 'old', unleashed by the financial and economic crisis. It demonstrates that growing recourse to market forms of governance in social and labour market policy is inversely related to the strength and influence of organised labour across countries and, in turn, to the degree of security provided for workers and their dependents. The three main patterns identified for governing social risks in the current era - neo-liberal, social democratic and traditional - are shown to exhibit a clear lineage reaching back to the early 20th century.' - Paul Marginson, University of Warwick, UK 'Crouch's new book offers an empirically based up-to-date theory relating governance, egalitarianism, and labor market security in contemporary post-industrial societies. It provides a highly sophisticated, original assessment of modes of governance in Europe in terms of their social and economic performance, drawing on extensive comparison of European countries including the new Eastern democracies. Contrasting in particular neoliberalism and social democracy, Crouch shows that the social-democratic model of state and associational intervention in markets performs much better than its neoliberal opponent, raising the question why it is the latter rather than the former that has become the leading model for the post-crisis capitalist political economy' - Wolfgang Streeck, Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies, Germany 'Social risks are presented along a continuum that is not easily packaged between labour market and social policies. Crouch presents us with the concept of tradable risks. But the capacity to trade, or protect against these risks, is sharply demarcated by class positions, politics and resource ownership. This is an important, impressive, comprehensive and original contribution to comparative political economy in its simultaneous analysis of how producers and consumers absorb risks under different macro economic circumstances.' - Jacqueline O'Reilly, Centre for Research on Management and Employment (CROME), University of Brighton, UK

Author Information

Colin Crouch, Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick, UK, Fellow of the British Academy and External Scientific Member, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany

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