In today's shrinking world of globalised economic activity and planet-level ecological anxiety, social policy can no longer expect or afford to remain solely within the province of the nation state or perhaps even within the province of regional collections of states. To the extent that the impact of global economics knows no boundaries, then neither should that of its counterpart, 'global' social policy.

However, in practice, social policies remain very much rooted in national and local cultures, not to mention perceived national and local interests. Therefore it remains difficult to see how far, on whose terms, at what cost and to what conceivable effect, forms of transnational social policy - or even of transnational social policy standard-setting - are likely to come into their own.

The present collection explores this problem from an impressive range of practical and theoretical perspectives. As such it constitutes a vital addition to the international - hitherto mainly 'cross-national' - literature on the subject. Thus it should/will be essential reading for teachers, students, researchers and policy makers in search of timely supra-national perspectives; just as it should no less excite the interested general reader