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In this third of three chapters on the distinctive policy dynamics of particular areas of social provision, Wood looks at labour market regimes in Germany, Britain, and Sweden. The theoretical starting point of the chapter is an examination of path dependence, perhaps the most popular contemporary approach to explaining the persistence of institutions and policies over time. In principle, this offers an enticing explanation of the resilience of national policy trajectories, although the outcomes it explains have a tendency to be overdetermined, and not all mechanisms generating a bias towards the status quo are path‐dependent ones. The theoretical work of this chapter, therefore, lies in deriving alternative (though not mutually exclusive) micro‐level sources of policy continuity over time, and evaluating their relative contributions to the evolution of labour market policy in Germany, Britain, and Sweden. Divided into four substantive sections: Section 1 discusses the theory of path‐dependent institutional and policy trajectories in politics; Sect. 2 presents three distinct sources of policy continuity (employer‐centred, constitutional, and electoral) that are often bundled together as ‘lock‐in mechanisms’ in path‐dependent accounts; Sect. 3 sketches the changing context of labour market policy in Western Europe by looking at national responses to unemployment from 1980 onwards in each of the three country case studies, and providing accounts of labour market policies, employers’ preferences in relation to labour market policies, and constitutional factors and electoral constraints in relation to labour market reform; Sect. 4 is a conclusion and discusses the thesis offered by the chapter — that the trajectory of labour market policy can be accounted for by an employer‐centred theory of preferences.

This chapter argues that an essential consensus obtains within mainstream American politics on the imperatives of national security strategy—the McBama consensus—that both candidates in 2008 articulated. It suggests that there are several reasons to suppose that President Obama will increasingly work within this consensus and in so doing continue the Democratic cooptation of a strategy begun under George W. Bush. How Republicans might prosper in such an environment is considered and a typology of conservative foreign policy persuasions and their attendant prescriptions is analyzed. Continuity in US national security strategy represents a substantial electoral problem for the Republican Party. The chapter asks how the GOP can capitalize on an approach its most recent president created and that Obama has adapted rather than repudiated—though with not much more success.

This chapter addresses the health policy of the Conservative Party. First, it describes the theories of party politics that have some utility in explaining policy change and continuity. In particular, the first concerns the adoption of policy positions by parties and the second explores the influence of changes in party government on government policy. The chapter then examines policy developments between 1997 and 2005. The Conservatives' defeat at the 1997 general election led to a period of introspection and the gradual development of a new health policy. This is followed by an analysis of health policy under David Cameron's leadership of the party. The possible future directions in policy under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition are also discussed. The coalition with the Liberal Democrats adds a further level of complexity.

When the social mobilization and electoral mobilization of the marginalized occur, they represent their political assertion. Why, then, should we care about the type of collective action that mobilizes the marginalized? This chapter argues that variation in welfare provision at the state level turns on a distinction in types of mobilization. When Dalits act collectively as a bloc, this has different consequences for the social sphere as compared to the electoral sphere. In the social sphere, bloc behavior articulates demands, pressurizes bureaucrats and politicians, and monitors the quality of goods and services provided by the state. Democratic accountability is increased. In the electoral sphere, however, bloc behavior has two especially negative effects. First, it transforms Dalits into weak clients, and second, it increases the probability welfare schemes will be disrupted or dismantled with electoral transfers of power. Democratic accountability is decreased.