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Zusatztext Praise for Ageing Populations in Post-industrial Democracies:'The politics of age, and of ageing societies, is finally being discovered as a field worthy of serious attention. Pieter Vanhuysse and Achim Goerres, two of the handful of younger scholars leading this discovery, have assembled a volume that maps out and extends the current boundaries of the field. From grey parties to pension reform, family policy and welfare attitudes, it speaks to issues that are as theoretically productive as they are politically contentious.' - Martin Kohli, Professor of Sociology, European University Institute Florence'The process of population ageing has been compared to a seismic shift which has profound consequences on all aspects of our societies but is too slow to make headlines or matter in daily politics. This book makes a major contribution to spelling out its manifold political consequences and providing a scientific basis for enhancing the public discussion.' - Wolfgang Lutz, Founding Director of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, Vienna Institute of Demography, WU-Vienna)'Ageing Populations in Post-industrial Democracies is an indispensable guide to the current state of play in ageing societies. The essays in this volume are wide-ranging, covering pension politics, pensioners’ parties, political behavior, intergenerational justice, and family policy. The systematically comparative approach means this collection adds up to considerably more than the sum of its very smart parts.' - Julia Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania'This is a terrific collection of essays on demographic change and generational politics, using a variety of research methods. Going beyond simple formulations of greedy older voters and myopic politicians, the carefully-researched chapters in this volume present findings that are sometimes surprising and always thought-provoking. For scholars and policymakers seeking to understand where the study of aging polities is headed over the next decade, this volume is a great place to start.' - Kent R. Weaver, Distinguished Professor of Public Policy, Georgetown University, and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington D.C.'The plurality of approaches and levels of analysis is where the strength of the book lies; it allows the reader to understand the issue at many different levels. The volume provides important findings for those interested in politics of ageing democracies, and the editors do an excellent job of placing the contributions within the larger debates in the literature.' - Tim Meijers, Universite catholique de Louv‘Ageing Populations in Post-industrial Democracies makes a major contribution towards addressing this paucity of data and empirically informed argumentation in an area that has raised so much interest and controversy in recent decades, but until now remained largely unexplored territory in the literature. … the chapters amount to a firm rejection of the ‘grey power’ hypothesis and the ‘war of generations’ stereotype, with the complexity of generational politics convincingly highlighted ... Ageing Populations in Post-industrial Democracies has provided a tantalising invitation for advancing an increasingly important field of scholarship and is essential reading for graduate students and researchers working on this topic.’ - Ageing & Society Journal‘a wide-ranging collection of comparative essays, covering pension politics and regimes, spending patterns, pensioner parties, family policy and intergenerational justice. … (this) volume formulates a number of questions whose salience is on the rise in the wake of the third decade of ‘permanent austerity’ and the consequent intensification of the demographic challenge. Is there a mounting generational cleavage influencing party politics in Western and Eastern countries? … Rather than providing definitive answers, the contributors pro...
Summary
Most advanced democracies are currently experiencing accelerated population ageing. This fundamentally changes not just their demographic composition; it can also be expected to have far-reaching political and policy consequences.
