ABSTRACT
Students of comparative political economy have reached a consensus that the world’s advanced industrial societies are not growing any more alike – at least not necessarily. Globalization, technological development, de-industrialization, demographic change, and a host of other factors all press upon welfare states and social institutions. Nevertheless, the result of this pressure is little or no necessary convergence on some common set of norms, institutions, or practices across countries.2 Of course parallels do emerge from one case to the next. Yet these are more incidental than indicative in nature. The subtitle of Scharpf and Schmidt (2000b) captures the essence of the argument: ‘diverse responses to common challenges’.
