The author aims to develop conceptual refining and theoretical reframing of the productivist welfare capitalism thesis in order to address a set of questions concerning whether and how productivist welfarism has experienced both continuity and change in East Asia.

Social Policy has been a key dimension of dynamic economic growth in East Asia's 'little tigers' and is also a prominent strand of their responses to the financial crisis of the late 1990s. This systematic comparative analysis of social policy in the region focuses on the key sectors of education, health, housing and social security. It sets these sectoral analyses in wider contexts of debates about developmental states, the East Asian welfare model and globalization.

Kennett has made a major contribution to the comparative study of social policy. The book will undoubtedly serve as a major resource for social policy scholars, and the editor is to be commended for taking on what must have been a Herculean task. . . It is to be hoped that the book will be available in many university libraries. It deserves to be widely consulted not only by those interested in international issues but by anyone concerned with the challenges facing the academic field of social policy today. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare This volume makes a heroic effort to transform the abstractions floating around in the literature on comparative social policy research into a more grounded discussion of what the policy controversies are all about. The contributions in the book climb down the ladder of abstraction which asserts that context, institutions and globalization all count, and that the public private discourse has changed. The book attempts to specifically show how these abstractions matter in recent social policy practice and research. Martin Rein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US The current context of social policy is one in which many of the old certainties of the past have been eroded. The predominantly inward-looking, domestic preoccupation of social policy has made way for a more integrated, international and outward approach to analysis which looks beyond the boundaries of the state. It is in this context that this Handbook brings together the work of key commentators in the field of comparative analysis in order to provide comprehensive coverage of contemporary debates and issues in cross-national social policy research. Organized around five themes, this impressive volume explores the contextual, conceptual, analytical and processual aspects of undertaking comparative social research. In the first part, the authors are concerned with de-centring the state and extending the epistemological framework through which cross-national analysis is explored. In Parts II and III, the focus is on the conceptual and theoretical frameworks for analysing social policy cross-nationally, while Part IV examines the day-to-day reality of preparing for and carrying out cross-national analysis. In the final section, the authors highlight continuing and emerging themes and issues which are of particular relevance to understanding the contemporary social world. International in scope, this authoritative Handbook presents original cutting-edge research from leading specialists and will become an indispensable source of reference for anyone interested in comparative social research. It will also prove a valuable study aid for undergraduate and postgraduate students from a range of disciplines including social policy, sociology, politics, urban studies and public policy.

This book challenges the popular thesis of a downward trend in the viability of welfare states in competitive market economies. With approaches ranging from historical case studies to cross-national analyses, the contributors explore various aspects of the relationships between welfare states, industrial relations, financial government and production systems. Building upon and combining comparative studies of both the varieties of capitalism and the worlds of welfare state regimes, the book considers issues such as: *the role of employers and unions in social policy *the interdependencies between financial markets and pension systems * the current welfare reform process. It sheds new light on the tenuous relationship between social policies and market economies and provides thought-provoking reading for students and scholars of Comparative Politics, Public Policy, the Welfare State and Political Economy.

This insightful book addresses the urgent need for robust evidence on recent trends and factors contributing to poverty and inequality in East Asia. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

Since the turn of the millennium, significant social, economic, political and technological transformations have brought policy issues to prominence in East Asian societies. This topical Research Agenda finds East Asian social policy at a critical juncture and analyses the driving forces that are shifting contemporary research and diverse policy responses in the region.

Globalisation, regionalisation, new technology, demography, voters’ expectations and re-structuring of societies are expected to influence welfare state development for years to come. This handbook analyses how different welfare state models and regimes will be able to cope with contemporary and future challenges, providing a variety of evidence based tools that make it essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers alike.

This book offers critical analysis of the search for new governance in Asia, comparing and contrasting the experiences of different Asian societies, including: China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand.

This Element argues that Southeast Asia's failure to develop stronger social protection systems has been, at its root, a matter of politics and power. It has reflected the political dominance within the region of predatory and technocratic elements, and the relative weakness of progressive elements. From the mid-1980s, democratisation, the emergence of political entrepreneurs seeking to mobilise mass electoral support, and the occurrence of severe economic and social crises generated pressure on governments within the region to strengthen their social protection systems. But while such developments shifted policy in a more progressive direction, they have been insufficient to produce far-reaching change. Rather, they have produced a layering effect. Innovations have built upon pre-existing policy and institutional arrangements without fundamentally altering these arrangements, ensuring that social protection systems continue to have strong conservative, productivist and predatory attributes.

China's strong economic growth occurring alongside modernization across the great majority of Asian societies has created what many see as a transnational space through and by which not only economic, social and cultural resources, but also threats and crises flow over traditional political boundaries. The first section of the work lays out a clear conceptual framework. It draws on arguments about nation no longer being the only container of society, about trans-disciplinary thinking, and about knowledge being context-bound. It identifies and discusses distinctive features of China and Asia in the global era. These include population, urbanization and climate change; the continuing reach of Orientalist shadows; cultural politics of knowledge. It closes by arguing how global studies adds value to existing accounts. The second, and longer, section applies this framework through a series of original empirical case-studies in three areas: migration/poverty/gender; culture/education; well-being. Both the conceptual framework and case-studies are drawn from research presented at HKBU since 2011 under the auspices of the Global Social Sciences Conference Series and supplemented by additional papers.