Christoffer Green-Pedersen is assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. From theories of expansion to theories of retrenchment
3. A framework for government choice on retrenchment
4. Research strategy and research design
5. Retrenchments in Denmark and the Netherlands
6. Dutch politics and welfare-state retrenchment. How party competition produced consensus
7. Danish politics and welfare-state retrenchment: The difficulties of a right-wing government and the possibilities of a left-wing government
8. The evidence on balance and some quibbles
9. Party politics matter - summary and implications
Appendix
Summary
Notes
References
Index