Richard Rose & Rei Shiratori 
Welfare State East and West [PDF ebook] 

A unique, comparative examination of the different ways in which modern democratic societies provide welfare today, these essays focus on the welfare strategies and experiences of the U.S., Japan, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, and Israel. While the objectives of welfare are common to each society, each has its own ideas about the best way for the state, the market, and the household to contribute to the welfare mix. With the economies of many countries under pressure, the question of the proper balance between domestic welfare spending and defense spending is often at the center of the debate. The essays on Japan provide new and useful insights into how a state–not normally considered a "welfare state"–manages to provide a wide array of successful welfare services.