Van Kersbergen and Vis provide a documented outlook and some new insights into the vast literature surrounding the ‘politics of welfare state reforms’. As they suggest: ‘The book is explicitly conceived and designed as a cross between a text- or reference book, that informs the reader comprehensively about the state of the art in the field of the welfare state studies and an academic research monograph that aims to contribute theoretically and empirically to the on-going debate on the politics of welfare state reform’ (p. 4).

The book sets a clear, well-structured agenda, which proposes: a discussion of the main drivers of welfare state development; an original take on welfare regime theory; a critical assessment of welfare state outcomes; the proposition of the ‘open functional approach’; a summary of the internal and external challenges for the welfare state; the integration of prospect theory and the theory of blame avoidance within the open functional approach; and finally an interesting discussion of the welfare state's future in Europe.

More specifically, the first chapter highlights the scope of the book, briefly discussing different patterns of reform and the main functions of the welfare state. The second places the various debates surrounding the crisis of the welfare state into context. Spanning from Marxist to institutional theory, the authors examine the welfare state's resilience and change, ultimately providing a new approach to understanding its transformations over time. According to the authors: ‘[The open functional approach] recognizes the casual effect of political agency and ideas on policy change, but it preserves the notion that it is first and foremost the selectivity of the functional context of political action that controls which political actors are likely to prevail and which reform ideas will matter and how’ (p. 27).

The third chapter critically summarises the main explanations proposed in the literature to illustrate welfare state development. The fourth debates welfare regime theory, illustrating the intellectual roots and the importance of Esping-Andersen's work and its empirical and heuristic utility, but also proposing a sociological critique to the Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism and an accurate explanation of regime variation based on class coalitions. In particular, the authors emphasise that Esping-Andersen confused the ‘typological method’ with both the Weberian ideal typical approach and the study of prototypes – a fundamental issue that contributed to the theoretical shortcomings of subsequent welfare regime literature.

In the fifth chapter, van Kersbergen and Vis discuss the main objectives of the welfare state, namely the protection against social risks and the fight against poverty and inequality. The authors claim that most welfare states are quite good at achieving these goals; however, it is important to note that their results might be dependent on the selection of a particular set of data. These data simply provide an indication of the generosity of welfare state systems for the average production worker. Despite acknowledging the limits of their empirical work and the emergence of new literatures that highlight these issues, the authors do not provide an alternative empirical route for tackling these shortcomings. For me, this stands as the least convincing part of the book. The sixth chapter discusses in detail the ‘open functional approach’, which, according to the authors, should provide a clearer explanation of how and why welfare states change. Simply put, the authors merge a Marxist and a Weberian approach. On the one hand, socio-economic conditions matter, because they constitute functional pressures that actors have to deal with. On the other hand, the response given by the actors might be shaped by different ideas. So, similar ‘functional pressures’ might well produce different types of policy change. The point is made clear with the example of the Dutch reform of disability benefits over the 1990s. From a methodological point of view, I found it particularly appropriate that van Kersbergen and Vis introduce a new theory by discussing a case traditionally conceived as deviant and unclassifiable. Interestingly, and I agree with them, the authors emphasise that the Dutch case is not ‘unclassifiable’, but rather that previous classifications are incomplete because they cannot include all cases.

Chapters 7 and 8 discuss in turn external (mainly globalisation) and internal challenges (the shift to a post-industrial economy and socio-demographic changes) to the welfare state. The ninth chapter is perhaps the most insightful. In it, the authors use their open functional approach in conjunction with Prospect and Blame Avoidance theory to propose an explanation of why certain politicians undertake electorally risky reforms. These two theories complete the approach introduced by the authors in Chapter 6.

In sum, Prospect Theory helps to explain ‘when’ political actors are willing to undertake risky reforms (political actors will be more willing to reform when they feel in ‘a domain of losses’) and Blame Avoidance Theory supports the identification of the causal mechanisms that shape the political response to functional pressures to reform (politicians will basically try to avoid the potentially negative electoral consequences of their reforms). The book ends with a chapter that discusses a question that now dominates public discourse in European societies: ‘Can and Will the Welfare State Survive the Great Recession?’.

The greatest merit of this work is its sheer comprehensiveness. The large number of references points the reader to the most important debates within comparative social policy literature. As lecturer in this field, I believe this book should be adopted as an essential textbook. Indeed, it is rare to find such a complete survey in 200 pages. Additionally, the authors approach two big questions that should interest the entire community of social policy scholars: ‘how’ and ‘why’ welfare states change.

Van Kersbergen and Vis propose insightful answers to these questions by melding old literature together with an original approach grounded on sound empirical evidence. Their ‘open functional approach’ opens a new space of investigation, connecting comparative social policy with other areas of study traditionally considered ‘alien’ to our field, such as behavioural economics and experimental psychology. This book thus represents a truly interdisciplinary achievement.