This book explores two fundamental shifts in the paradigms of governance in Western bureaucracies: the widespread use of privatization, private firms and market methods to run core public services, and the conscious attempt to transform the role of citizenship from ideals of entitlement and security to new notions of mutual obligation, selectivity and risk. Mark Considine examines a key service of the modern welfare state unemployment assistance—to explain and theorize the nature of these radical changes. He has undertaken extensive research in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand—four countries which have been among the boldest reformers within the OECD, yet each adopting distinctively different models and programs.