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Ideas, Institutions and the Policies of Governments: a Comparative Analysis: Parts I and II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Extract

This paper is about the things governments do and why they do them. It is written in the belief that, while we know quite a lot about decision-making processes in individual countries, we do not know nearly enough about why the governments of different countries make different decisions and pursue different policies. The countries of North America and western Europe are often described as ‘welfare states’, the implication being that the governments of all of them do broadly similar things in broadly similar ways. As we shall see, however, these broad similarities conceal important, wide divergences. These divergences deserve to be explained.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

1 A tiny private sector survives in Germany. On the running of the Bundesbahn, see Ridley, F., ‘The German Federal Railways — A State Administered System’, Parliamentary Affairs, XVII (1964), 182–94.Google Scholar

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12 It is extraordinarily difficult to obtain accurate, comparable information on different countries’ social services; and, even apart from the problem of information, different countries’ social services are exceedingly hard to compare since they differ so widely in their coverage, in their benefits, in the conditions attached to them, and in their administration. Unless otherwise indicated, most of the information in the following paragraphs is obtained from a survey published by the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Social Security Programs Throughout the World, 1969. See also Commission of the European Communities, Comparative Tables of the Social Security Systems in the member States of the European Communities (Situation at 1 July 1970) I-General System.

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36 Quoted by Braithwaite, William J. in Lloyd George's Ambulance Wagon, edited by Bunbury, Henry N. (London: Methuen, 1957), p. 156.Google Scholar

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