The last 15 years have seen governments in a number of mature welfare states attempting to reintegrate people out of work for reasons of sickness and disability into employment, principally through changes to the value and conditions of incapacity benefits and the provision of active labour market programmes. Whilst the academic interest in these changes has been considerable, this thesis begins by arguing that these studies hitherto have been satisfied to categorise these emerging regimes according to a familiar Work-first v Human Capital Development activation typology (for example, Peck & Theodore, 2001), or a variation upon that, according to the presence or absence of different activation services. They largely do not apply the insights that the broader activation literature has provided in recent years, particularly those on the governance of activation. Instead, this thesis proposes that it is better to examine recent changes through the lens of institutionalisation: how well-embedded employment-related support for sick and disabled claimants has become in the structure and functioning of welfare-to-work regimes for sick and disabled benefit claimants. Though not a concept much used in academic analysis of Active Labour Market Policy (ALMP), a case is made for the value of looking at, firstly, how well activating sick and disabled claimants becomes a national government labour market policy priority and secondly, how well the organisation and governance of active labour market programmes for this group support this, in additional to analyses of the services themselves. Working from what is already known about the factors that can influence a workless benefit claimant's access to employment support, the contention of such a framework is that the successful embedding of an activation strategy for sick and disabled claimants into national Labour Market Policy (LMP) is a function of the interaction of a range of factors. Crucial here is the distinction between ALMP for these claimants, and for other activation target groups – there is good evidence to believe that the changes made to activation governance to promote active work-search for the unemployed may, however unintentionally, militate against a comprehensive system of support for 'non-employed' jobseekers considered to be further from the labour market, claimants of incapacity benefits included. Alongside this framework, a case is made for being much clearer and more precise in describing what measures apply to which parts of the incapacity benefit claimant pool. In most countries, this is a very diverse population with several distinct sub-sets with different levels of distance from the labour market, ranging from those with very severe disabilities or health conditions; others with multiple employment barriers not all stemming directly from their condition (outdated skills, for example), and those whose employability is high, their disability or health condition notwithstanding. As a small number of studies have pointed out (Evans, 2001, for example), activation regimes – defined in this study as the set of services that are provided to help nonemployed sick and disabled benefit claimants back to work; and how these are organised; delivered; targeted and financed – 'sort and select' claimants, applying different types or more or less intensive support for different categorisations of claimants. An activation regime for the claimant group can thus be very inclusive or rather narrow, depending on the extent to which these sub-pools are catered for. To demonstrate the value of this framework in reaching a more accurate understanding of the nature of these emerging regimes relative to extant approaches, a cross-national comparison of activation of sick and disabled claimants in Denmark and the United Kingdom is offered. Whilst they are considered to be very nearly diametrically opposed in a number of key ways – their approaches to activation; benefit generosity and broader welfare regime contexts – when looked at using the institutionalisation framework, they emerge as more similar than expected. Regardless of their quite different starting points, they experience many of the same challenges in creating a system in which the employment activation of the full extent of the claimant group is a priority and where a sick or disabled benefit claimant's right to back-to-work support is secure.

Quality of life is one of the main concerns in long-term care amongst ageing populations in many countries. This problem is historically unique and increases the demand for research material. This thesis looks at how different societies promote or fail to promote successful ageing of long-term care of older people, and considers how countries may learn from one another in their search for solutions. The three countries studied (England, the Netherlands and Taiwan) correspond to Esping-Anderson's three types of welfare system (Esping-Anderson, 1990). In addition, the Asian-European dimension has been employed as it is a neglected one. Data sources included conceptual, empirical and statistical documents on long-term care of older people. Moreover, this research used identical qualitative cross-national research methods on three levels in each country: national, county and municipal. A total of 142 interviews were carried out in 2004. This aim of this study was broadly to rank the three welfare systems where there were clear differences but to qualify this by pointing out the complexities and difficulties of mixed economy comparisons. The overall conclusion is that the Netherlands provides higher quality care to older people, thus confirming Esping-Andersen's finding about the superiority of social democratic systems. In reviewing current policies and research in needs and successful ageing, this qualitative comparative study has focused on needs, social inclusion, power and autonomy, care resources as well as partnership as crucial concepts in care systems and discovered good practice in each and lessons to be learnt.

Over the last five decades, a rich literature on the welfare state has developed. Multiple theories and models seek to explain the contemporary welfare state, including structural functionalist, structural-Marxist and Marxist perspectives, culturalist approaches, pluralist analyses, neo-institutionalist theories, power resources theory, Harold Wilensky and Lebeaux’s dual model, Richard Titmuss’s tri-polar model, and Gøsta Esping-Andersen’s tri-polar model, all designed to account for the emergence of and variations among welfare states. However, these theories and models originated within the developed world, and empirical examinations of these theories are largely restricted within this part of the world. The welfare state literature is too confined to the West today. This study examines key welfare state theories and models in the contexts of developing and least developed nations employing a combination of quantitative, qualitative, and comparative methodologies. It suggests that social policies and programs in the developing nations can be systematically understood in the light of mainstream Western theories and models of the welfare state. Therefore, in addition to challenging current practices that limit the study of the welfare state within particular geographical areas, the research presented here provides rationale for increased efforts to understand welfare policies and programs in developing nations. This will increase our knowledge about the applicability of theories in the developing world and will enrich the understanding of the developed world, and thus contribute to the advancement of welfare state scholarship. / February 2016