For more than a decade, students of social policy have debated the argument that welfare state development is a path-dependent process that makes radical change difficult (see Paul Pierson, Dismantling the Welfare State? [1994]). From this perspective, existing policy legacies create powerful constraints for policymakers seeking to enact retrenchment measures or to alter the functioning of the welfare state. As a result, most reforms tend to reinforce existing institutional patterns instead of changing them in a strong way. In recent years, authors such as Neil Gilbert have challenged this view. In Transformation of the Welfare State, he challenges Pierson's argument through a broad analysis of social policy development in the United States and Western Europe during the 1980s and 1990s.

The book is not a research monograph in the strict sense of the term; it does not feature systematic quantitative analysis or rigorous comparative investigation. What it offers is a stimulating overview of contemporary social policy reform that supports the claim that “the welfare state of advanced industrial nations are undergoing a major transformation…. [The] change is from policies framed by a universal approach to publicly delivered benefits designed to protect labor against the vicissitudes of the market and firmly held as social rights to policies framed by a selective approach to private delivery of provisions designed to promote labor force participation and individual responsibility” (pp. 3–4). Gilbert formulates the concept of “enabling state” to distinguish this new policy approach from the traditional—social demographic—model (p. 44). Overall, his is clearly an argument about cross-national convergence triggered by powerful economic and ideational forces discussed throughout the book. Yet Gilbert argues that such convergence is not always easy to perceive at first glance because policymakers and welfare advocates have minimized the true scope of policy change occurring in many advanced industrial societies. Recent scholarship about the discourse on social democracy in Scandinavian countries is supporting that interesting yet controversial idea (Robert H. Cox, “The Path Dependence of an Idea,” Social Policy & Administration 38 [2004]: 204–19).

The above-mentioned claim that strong social policy convergence is occurring in advanced industrial countries is even more controversial. Other recent books about contemporary social policy reform suggest that powerful institutional logics inhibit policy convergence (Duane Swank, Global Capital, Political Institutions and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States, 2002; Evelyne Huber and John D. Stephens, Development and Crisis of the Welfare State, 2001). Yet, recent quantitative analyses focusing on citizenship rights provide additional support to Gilbert's claim that major change has occurred since the 1980s (Walter Korpi, “Welfare State Regress in Western Europe,” Annual Review of Sociology, 29 [2003]: 589–609). As the debate over the scope and nature of institutional change is still raging, it is hard to take a firm stance in favor of or against Gilbert's central argument. Institutional development is a long-term historical process, and current scholarship about the welfare state could age rapidly, as economic and political shifts may strongly alter the logic of reform in many advanced industrial societies. For that reason, a cautious approach is necessary, and Gilbert's book, although a stimulating account, must be read alongside the above-mentioned contributions, among others. This is especially true because, as suggested here, it offers only limited, nonsystematic empirical evidence to back its claims.

To convince readers that strong institutional change has occurred in contemporary welfare states, Gilbert includes chapters about what he perceives as the main aspects of policy change in advanced industrial societies: the move from social rights to activation policies, the marketization of social policy through the private delivery of social services, and the targeting of social benefits. Beyond these concise empirical chapters, the author formulates a communitarian critique of the “enabling state” grounded in the concept of solidarity. Perhaps for that reason, sociologist and communitarian guru Amitai Etzioni penned a short foreword that advocates a balance between personal and collective responsibility. By and large, the book's normative contribution is rather limited in scope.

The broad theoretical contribution of the book is quite limited, too. The main issue here is that Gilbert does not formulate a systematic model for understanding policy change. Although he stresses the impact of neoliberal ideas on policymaking, for example, he does not explain when and how ideas matter in welfare state development. Mentioning that “social forces are the product of changing values and norms about the relations between welfare and work and the limits of government intervention” (p. 24) makes for a rather abstract statement that fails to clarify the general relationship among policy ideas, economic forces, and institutional change. This is a traditional shortcoming of the literature focusing on the relationship between ideas and social policy, and more efforts are needed to systematically explore that relationship (see Béland, “Ideas and Social Policy,” Social Policy & Administration, 39 [2005]: 1–18). Beyond the discussion about the politics of ideas, other, and more coherent, approaches to policy change have recently been formulated (Jacob S. Hacker, The Divided Welfare State, 2002; Paul Pierson, Politics in Time, 2004; Kathleen Thelen, How Institutions Evolve, 2004).

As compared to such scholarship, Gilbert's book may lack theoretical sophistication. Yet despite its limitations, Transformation of the Welfare State remains an important book that students of social policy and welfare advocades alike should engage with. Arguments about path dependence can become simplistic, and Gilbert is probably right to argue that many scholars, elected officials, and welfare advocates find it convenient to understate the true scope of institutional change taking place in contemporary welfare states. For that reason, this accessible, well-written, and concise book is a provocative contribution to debates that often transcend purely academic considerations to address one of the most crucial political issues of our time: the future of economic solidarity and social protection in advanced industrial societies.