ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Dutch welfare system in 2018 and unravels three reform sequences of the Dutch welfare system from the late 1990s to date. The analysis of welfare reforms portrays a shifting welfare landscape, where we see on the one hand paradigmatic changes in some areas and on other hand very little change in other areas. Although social protection remains high in the Netherlands, we denote several changes in the last 20 or so years that indicate a development that Hall (1993) calls a paradigmatic change. The fundaments of welfare states have undergone a normative reorientation from a solidaristic and state-provided collective welfare state provision to a participatory state, where citizens actively engage in the labour market and in the co-creation of social service delivery.
