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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2006
The Future of the Welfare State: Crisis Myths and Crisis Realities. By Francis Castles. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 208p. $99.00 cloth, $35.00 paper.
As Francis Castles observes, quantitative comparative political economy has generated a “cacophony” of explanations for the welfare state crisis from 1980 to 1998. Political economists have identified causal factors including globalization, de-industrialization, population aging, declining birth rates, weak economic performance, welfare program maturation, political institutions, and partisanship. To Castles, however, these explanations rest on faulty empirical evidence. Methodological problems—in particular, unreliable comparative social expenditure data and overreliance on pooled designs and statistical techniques—have made it impossible to distinguish “crisis myths” from “crisis realities.” His proposed solution is to combine cross-national designs with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's SOCX database on social spending, and he argues that doing so reveals that dominant theories are myths. His sweeping account is a spirited contribution, but it is bound to attract significant criticism.