Lecture 2005: Towards a new welfare state?

While the welfare states of rich democracies are widely discussed, at the same time they appear to be doing well. Some take it that in the decades to come they will go on doing so, adapting to new challenges, while others hold that things will shortly change in dramatic ways. The two contributions in this book reflect these different positions. They were presented by their authors on the occasion of the Annual Lecture of the WRR (the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy) on December 8th in The Hague.