Three worlds of welfare state research

This article reviews three important clusters of recent research on the com parative politics of the welfare state. The three clusters focus on politic al economy, gender and social policy, and the investigation of long-term de velopmental processes. The article argues that in each area there has been significant progress and that there are increasing opportunities for intell ectual exchange across these clusters. Research in this important empirical subfield of comparative politics has been pluralistic and eclectic, both m ethodologically and theoretically. Overall, this stance has yielded substan tial benefits.