Peter Taylor-Gooby has been pursuing the ways in which the European welfare state has been transformed since the early eighties. He has made a major contribution to building the theoretical underpinnings for welfare politics, extending the analysis from basic historical, economic, political and social relationships in several directions. He has re-interpreted key social policy concepts such as citizenship, dependency culture and risk and has drawn into the explanatory field more “subjective” factors including public opinion, types of ideas, style of discourse and the role of trust in maintaining welfare institutions.

His writing and editing on the ups and downs of European welfare policies have usually been triggered by some grave events or when he believed that some cumulative change, like retrenchment, was reaching a perilous point (Taylor-Gooby, Reference Taylor-Gooby2002, Reference Taylor-Gooby2004, Reference Taylor-Gooby2005). “After Austerity” is the latest link in this chain. It focuses on the 2007–2009 crisis or recession, its antecedents, immediate and longer-term consequences, governments’ reactions and possible futures. As ever, the concept of Europe is difficult to handle and a review can hardly do justice to the thorny problem of multiple (Western, Central-Eastern, Eastern) Europes. After Austerity is the first book of Peter Taylor-Gooby where he reaches outside Western Europe. Slovenia is included to suggest that European regime-types are all represented. I would have liked a more explicit treatment of the issue. One of the book's main concerns is the convergence or divergence of countries in relation to the European Social Model. But other studies have shown the majority of Eastern countries rejecting convergence and Hungary consciously undermining European integration.

Several theoretical pillars are used to frame the analyses. The countries are categorized in several ways. One is the regime-types of Esping-Anderson and followers (liberal, conservative, social-democrat, etc). They are also situated on an economic scale going from “coordinated” to “liberal” market economies, on a political dimension ranging from consensus to majoritarian democracies, and on a dimension representing change from continuity to intentional discontinuity. Another pillar is based on countries’ inner structure. The traditionally all-important “capitalist” class structure is superseded by various new cleavages. The case studies highlight each country's relevant ones. They may be between rich and poor, labour-market insiders and outsiders, management and workers, denizens and immigrants, on occasion between ethnic groups or between generations, all with countless further variations. Some ruptures may be counterbalanced by new solidarities.

The types of intervention are also clearly classified, distinguishing between “old” and “new” risks (Taylor-Gooby, Reference Taylor-Gooby2004). The former (age, health, employment) were usually covered by social insurance or universal benefits, but their schemes have been undergoing thorough, often paradigmatic, reform in the last decades. “New” risks unfold with globalization, with technical and demographic changes impacting on all spheres of policy. They transform all labour issues, shape the new role of women, change family patterns and, more recently, have induced massive international migration. Interventions may be shaped by neo-liberalism or by less market-friendly intentions. The second group comprises a wide and convincingly distinguished variety of policies including: Neo-Keynesian, anti-cyclical measures; “social investment strategies” to improve life chances, particularly of disadvantaged groups; “predistribution” to prevent in-work poverty, housing poverty, lasting unemployment; “fightback” in various ways to fight off the expansion of neoliberal politics; and measures to handle “welfare chauvinism” born in the wake of the refugee crisis.

The handling of neo-liberalism is less convincing. Since the 1980s, it has become both the dominant ideology and the most likely victorious policy in the majority of European countries. These two aspects are not always clearly differentiated. An attempt is made on p.11 to separate the “logic” and the “practice” but, perhaps unavoidably, it is not consistently applied. Both are based on the idea of more market freedom, less state intervention in taxation, regulation and provisions, and more individual responsibility. The book is mostly devoted to the neo-liberal reforms that comprise welfare state retrenchment characterized by cuts, lowering of standards and many other parametric changes of austerity, and behind them paradigmatic changes, usually increasing inequalities and promoting social disintegration and exclusion. They include various ways of privatization, meaning a shift in the power-relations between owners-employers and employees as well as a shift in ownership and financing from public to private. Weakening solidarities, labour security and labour rights lead to a dual labour market and phenomena like flexicurity or precarity. Another shift replaces universal or social security rights by conditional social right, reviving targeted, means-tested or otherwise conditional and stigmatizing forms of assistance. The above compound interpretation of neo-liberalism is just a summary attempt, included here because it is fragmented in the book. A clearer conceptualization would have helped in two ways, saving repetitions and better clarifying the differences among countries following the neo-liberal course. The country case studies follow the conceptual framework. Most are well organized and offer valuable information about common or similar responses as well as astute innovations.

Any reviewer is, of course, bound to suggest omissions. My main concern is that inequality is not given its due overarching role and place in the book as a general and increasing problem, probably the major one of our times. Also, while new cleavages are systematically scrutinized, I miss the same well-organized overview of old and new forms of exclusion from inadequate access to resources to various forms of segregation and discrimination. Yet the systematic information offered in the book is invaluable. Concepts are well defined and used consistently. The examination of old, new and future trends is topically relevant. The display of conceivable futures is not reassuring, but it gives hope that at least some countries may resist the neoliberal juggernaut.