The "Politics of the Welfare State" provides a thorough, comparative analysis of the welfare states in Canada, Sweden and the US detailing the emergence, growth, and recent unravelling of welfare states as well as the variation among them. Beginning with an overview of major welfare typologies and models and a detailed account of the welfare states in the three nations, the book moves on to cover the central theoretical approaches to welfare state analysis. The text concludes with a discussion of recent developments, which have transpired in the current era of globalization.