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The "World Politics of Social Investment" (WoPSI) project aims at explaining variance in social investment agendas and social investment reforms across democratic countries in different regions of the World. Virtually all capitalist economies grapple with challenges of demographic change, slow economic growth, poor employment performance and increasing poverty rates. In dealing with these problems, a social investment strategy appeals to a wide audience, both political and academic. However, social investment reforms and performances in democratic countries around the globe are highly unequal and remain fragmentary: different countries have implemented different types of policy instruments, with different functions, at different points in time, and to different degrees.

This study moves beyond current perspectives of European Union implementation research to paint a comprehensive picture of the fine-tuning of domestic regulations beyond compliance. It compares the hitherto unexplored veterinary drug regulations of four member states, France, Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom, with those of the non-member Switzerland. It links causal mechanisms back to three differing theoretical assumptions about European integration. These theories are confronted using congruence analysis in a comparative case study design. Evidence is found for historical institutionalism and for the domestic politics hypothesis. The assumption of a neo-functionalist development of regulations is only weakly supported.

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