Introduction: Reforming the welfare state and the implications for accountability in a comparative perspective

This special issue is linked to an international research project on Reforming the Welfare State: Democracy, Accountability and Management headed by Professor Per Laegreid. The project aims to examine the ways in which reforms in three areas of thewelfare state in three countries have affected accountability relations. The articles are revised versions of papers presented at a workshop at the European Studies Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, in December 2011 on ‘Researching accountability, conceptual and methodological challenges’, convened by Dr Paola Mattei. Our main focus is on administrative reforms and to what extent they have affected accountability relations in specific sectors – hospitals, the welfare administration, and immigration – inNorway, Denmark andGermany.However, we also cover education reforms in Europe and administrative reforms in Central and Eastern Europe with respect to their impact on accountability relations. A main justification for comparing reforms in these welfare state sectors is that they cover major areas of welfare provision. The sectors display important variations in bureaucratic capacity, specialization and representation of users and citizens. It is therefore of interest to establish whether differences among sectors are more important than differences among countries. There has been a discussion about the Scandinavian model of welfare state administration, specifically about whether it still exists or whether it is breaking up. We have chosen to address this question by comparing two Scandinavian countries with Germany and by also referring to other European countries. The analysis will provide policy-makers as well as scholars studying welfare reforms and public administration with important insights into how reforms may be designed and introduced in a way that does not undermine the political sustainability of long-established welfare state institutions. This collection of articles represents a coherent special issue on the impact of welfare state reforms in Europe