Providing a new cross-national and international narrative on how global competition has reshaped welfare states this book captures the complexity of social policy reform process that have taken place over the past 25 years.

Introduction: Social policy in an era of competition ~ Dan Horsfall and John Hudson; Section I: Global competition as the context for welfare The competition state thesis in a comparative perspective: The evolution of a thesis ~ Dan Horsfall; Changing labour markets, changing welfare across the OECD: The move towards a social investment model of welfare as a response to competition ~ Naomi Finch, Dan Horsfall and John Hudson; From social regulation of competition to competition as social regulation: Transformations in the soci?-economic governance of the European Union ~ Antonios Roumpakis and Theo Papadopoulos; Housing and mortgage markets in the everyday: How globalisation came home ~ Stuart Lowe; Section II: The impact of intensifed competition on local governance; Exporting healthcare services: A comparative discussion of UK, Turkey and South Korea ~ Neil Lunt; Global competitiveness and the rescaling of welfare: Rescaling downwards whilst competing outwards? ~ Chris Holden and John Hudson; Section III: The reframing of welfare discourses in an era of competition; Rewriting the contract? Conditionality, welfare reform and the rights and responsibilities of disabled people ~ Peter Dwyer; Global `vulnerabilities’: New configurations of competition in the era of conditionality? ~ Kate Brown; Convergence of government ideology in an era of global competition: An empirical analysis using comparative manifesto Data ~ Stefan Kühner; Crisis, austerity, competitiveness and growth: New pathologies of the welfare state ~ Kevin Farnsworth and Zoë Irving; Section IV: Conclusions Conclusion: Social policy in an era of competition ~ Dan Horsfall & John Hudson.

Advances an empirical base for understanding the contemporary welfare states in an era of heightened competition;

Develops new narrative that goes beyond the ‘competition state’ model;

An extensive edited collection exploring the links between competition, conditionality and cognition at its core.