Book excerpt: What is distinctive about the public policy profiles of Australia, Germany, Israel, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States? Integrating a detailed historical examination of individual case studies with the structural analysis that emerges from a comparative approach, experts here contrast national policies by analyzing the extent to which each nation fits into patterns established in cross-national literature. The distinguished contributors include Manfred Schmidt, Michael Shalev, Theda Skocpol, T.J. Pempel, Goran Therborn, and Pat Dunleavy.