Religion, Class, and the Postwar Development of the Dutch Welfare State

This book examines how the Netherlands managed to create and maintain one of the world’s most generous and inclusive welfare systems despite having been dominated by Christian-democratic or ŸconservativeŒ, rather than socialist dominated governments, for most of the post-war period. It emphasizes that such systems have strong consequences for the distribution of income and risk among different segments of society and argues that they could consequently only emerge in countries where middle class