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The development of the Dutch welfare state in the Netherlands started later than in other Western European countries, but once it started, it grew at a spectacular rate. The development was so rapid that it catapulted the Dutch from being welfare laggards to being welfare leaders. Cox charts the course of this growth, from the nineteenth century to the present, placing the Dutch case within the larger theoretical discussion of welfare states.In so doing, Cox challenges the widely held assumption that welfare programs always represent the policies of the social democratic left. He demonstrates that it was not the left but the more centrist religious parties that built the Dutch welfare state in the 1960s. Even more curious is the fact that these same political forces had resisted the expansion of welfare programs throughout the first half of the twentieth century.In many ways, the Netherlands is a crucial test case for assumptions about the welfare state. Its system is one of the largest in the world, rivaling Sweden's as one that devotes the greatest share of public spending to social welfare. How does it compare to other countries? Do present theories of welfare state development fit the Dutch case? What can we learn from the experience of a small state?Cox makes a signal contribution in clarifying the historical record concerning a little-studied country and in advancing theoretical debate.

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CHOICE Review

The emergence of the Dutch welfare state, seen by many as the most generous and expensive in the West, presents a number of intriguing problems for both theory and empirical analysis. It expanded with extreme rapidity (virtually nonincrementally) in the 1960s, was the result not of left social-democratic "tax and spend" parties but more centrist, moderate religious parties, and occurred in a historically corporatist state structure. There is much in the Dutch case that might mark it as a "deviant" case. Cox thinks not and prefers to rework the theory to increase its abstraction and explanatory power, while building on interesting notions that focus on "borrowing" or "learning" by policymakers (a process partially evident in the US health debate now), religious mobilization, and Dutch corporatism. Focusing on the development of income-maintenance programs, he analyzes the development and growth of the Dutch welfare state. A welcome study on several grounds: a solid discussion of an impressive welfare state in a country not normally studied; securely rooted (as one expects from an expanded doctoral dissertation) in the theoretical literature; interesting contributions regarding the transmission of policy ideas. Finally, Cox initiates a discussion on welfare retrenchment. This fine book contains a wealth of ideas and insights about the Netherlands, the welfare state, and policy growth and is a fine example of comparative theory. Advanced undergraduate through faculty. H. Steck; SUNY College at Cortland

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Robert H. Cox is professor in the School of International and Area Studies and coordinator for European Studies at the University of Oklahoma.