The contributions highlight specific areas of comparative social policy including child poverty and well-being, patterns of housing provision and housing inequalities, and social protection in East Asia as well as crime and criminology in a global context.

Contents: Introduction: The Changing Context of Comparative Social Policy Patricia Kennett PART I: THE STATE AND SOCIAL POLICY IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD 1. Hollowing Out the ‘Nation-State’ and Multi-Level Governance Bob Jessop 2. Globalization, Human Security and Social Policy: North and South Andrés Pérez-Baltodano 3. Globalization and the Decline of ‘Social Protection by Other Means’: The Transformation of Welfare Regimes in Australia, Japan and Eastern Europe Ramesh Mishra PART II: CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS 4. Defining Comparative Social Policy Jochen Clasen 5. Conceptualizing State and Society Graham Crow 6. The Ethnocentric Construction of the Welfare State Alan Walker and Chack-kie Wong 7. Translation: Towards a Critical Comparative Social Policy Agenda Noemi Lendvai and David Bainton PART III: COMPARING AND CATEGORIZING SOCIAL POLICY PROVISION AND REDISTRIBUTION 8. Gender, Citizenship and Welfare State Regimes in the Early Twenty-first Century: ‘Incomplete Revolution’ and/or Gender Equality ‘Lost in Translation’ Julia S. O’Connor 9. Structured Diversity: A Framework for Critically Comparing Welfare States? Norman Ginsburg 10. Social Development and Social Welfare: Implications for Comparative Social Policy James Midgley 11. Social Policy Regimes in the Developing World Ian Gough PART IV: THE RESEARCH PROCESS 12. Crossing Cultural Boundaries Linda Hantrais 13. Cross-National Qualitative Research Methods: Innovations in the New Millennium Steen Mangen 14. Quantitative Methods with Survey Data in Comparative Research Jaak Billiet PART V: THEMES AND DEBATES 15. Child Poverty and Child Well-being in Comparative Perspective Jonathan Bradshaw 16. The Contours of the Housing Question Ray Forrest 17. Global Economic Downturn and Social Protection in East Asia: Coping with Crisis and Reducing Poverty Huck-ju Kwon 18. Globalization, Crime and Comparative Criminal Justice David Nelken Index

'This extensively revised edition of A Handbook of Comparative Social Policy provides up-to-date and valuable insights on key concepts and issues, such as globalization, crime, diversity, housing, child poverty, gender inequality, and social policy regimes. To write about these topics, editor Patricia Kennett has gathered an excellent team of researchers, who deal with both the developing and the advanced industrial world. Students of comparative social policy would benefit from engaging with this illuminating Handbook.' --Daniel Béland, Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, Canada