Abstract
Published in 2005, Torben Iversen, tries in his book ?Capitalism, Democracy and Welfare', to build a general explanation on why within a group of countries labeled western type democracies there are such differences regarding economic equality and welfare protection. With an integrated framework and extensive research the author draws two groups of countries which decided to take a different economic and social path to manage their societies. Iversen argues that by the early 1970s, advanced economies had divided into two broad categories: "one with generous social protection, specific skills, and competitive advantages in established product markets, and one with low social protection, general skills, and comparative advantages in new product markets". The first group, labeled as "coordinated market economies" or "social market economies"3, represents Nordic and continental European countries. The second, called "liberal market economies", describes Anglo-Saxon states. The question that interests us today is why these two groups of similar types of democracy adopted different approaches to labor market and social protection.
