ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the institutional change of welfare states toward an analysis of the politics of institutional change, and integrates the policy process and the political arrangements of the state into analytical framework. Many comparative studies on welfare reforms include Germany in their samples, only to find that variables such as socio-economic functionalism, power resources, policy feedback approaches or formal models of party competition inadequately explain Germany's recent reform trajectory. In particular, it is high time to bring back the role of the government to the center of analysis in order to understand the workings and motives of the most genuine policy entrepreneur in the field. Moreover, the framework essentially builds on the theories crucial insights: In order to understand outcomes of policy formulation and implementation, it is paramount to lay bare precisely the policy subsystem, as policy advocacy coalition framework (PAC) scholars forcefully demonstrated. The chapter demonstrates how the findings of the historical analysis differ from important core assumptions.
