ABSTRACT
Christian democracy has been one of the most successful political movements in post-war Western Europe yet its crucial impact on the development of the modern European welfare state has been critically neglected. This book describes the origin and development of the Christian democratic movement and presents comparative accounts of the varying degrees of political entrenchment of national Christian democratic parties. Drawing upon cross-national indicators of welfare state development the existence of a distinctively Christian democratic (as opposed to a liberal or social democratic) welfare state regime, called social capitalism, is identified.
