ABSTRACT
So far, this has been a collection focused on Europe. Naturally there has been occasional-sometimes extensive-reference to North America by way of comparison, since Europeans, the British especially, are long accustomed to comparing themselves and their activities with ‘counterparts’ across the Atlantic. However, the fact that there has also been passing reference to Japan (Gould, and Rose in following chapter) is in a sense more significant. The intrusion, as it were, of Japan into European social policy discourse is still quite a novelty.
