Focusing on the perspectives of policy-makers, the book's purpose is to closely examine the factors that make for successful/unsuccessful labor market related policy reforms. The aim is to reveal the political aspects, namely the chances, challenges and impediments to designing labor market reforms and to establish the conditions under which successful labor market reforms can be advocated, adopted and implemented (process).

The work includes exclusive interviews with twelve former European prime ministers about the labour market reforms they initiated in their respective countries:

• Wolfgang Schüssel
• Anders Fogh Rasmussen
• Andrus Ansip
• François Fillon
• Gerhard Schröder
• Georgios Papandreou
• Mario Monti
• Jan Peter Balkenende
• Jerzy Buzek
• Iveta Radicová
• Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
• Tony Blair