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Book Review: Understanding the Mixed Economy of Welfare

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
DOI10.1177/138826270700900407
AuthorStephan Köppe
Date01 December 2007
Published date01 December 2007
Subject MatterBook Review
/tmp/tmp-178vsWkaR6O6qt/input Book Reviews
prevailing structures. The German example thus includes reflections on the impact of
the Hartz reforms and in the case of Sweden, the implications of the decentralisation
of former national policies are well captured.
I find the book at its best when the author fully trusts his material, when the
interviewees are made visible, and when more extensive quotations from individual
caseworkers are included in the text. Considering the methods chosen for the study,
there is surprisingly little of this. That is a pity. The impression that the ethnographical
approach (the interviews, the observations) is not followed through is strengthened by
the presentation of the analysis in the form of points on an axis, thus indicating a level
of exactness that, I assume, the results do not have. The difficult link between micro-
level data and macro-level conclusions works, but the strength of the book is in the
contextual, interwoven, account of caseworkers’ decision making in Bremen, Malmö
and California. The European chapters gain from the use of a similar structure with
recurring headings (making the comparative scheme more clear), as compared to the
chapters on the United States.
Overall Jewell’s book is a good read. It is informative, well researched, interesting
and, maybe its main strength, an example of a truly comparative effort. In the field of
welfare law and policy, I hope more will follow Jewell’s example.
sara stendahl
Göteborg University
martin Powell (ed.), Understanding the Mixed Economy of Welfare, bristol, Policy
Press, 2007, 249 pp., Isbn 978–1861–347596
This new textbook in the ‘Understanding Welfare’ series provides new and well-
structured perspectives on the ‘Mixed Economy of Welfare’. Martin Powell has
brought (British) experts in the field together to produce a comprehensive overview of
all spheres of welfare. The book is itself an example of a ‘mixed economy of editing’,
representing a hybrid form between a traditional textbook...

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