Democracy, Justice, and the Welfare State: Reconstructing Public Care. By Julie Anne White. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. 173p. $35.00, cloth, $17.95 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 469-470
Author(s):  
Russell L. Hanson

Modern welfare states offer cash payments, public housing, medical assistance, food subsidies, and a wide range of social services to needy individuals. The assistance is rendered by professional social workers and administrators who have the authority (and responsibility) to determine who is needy, what their needs are, and how those needs can be met equitably and efficiently. This top-down approach is both ineffective and paternalistic, according to Julie Anne White, who advocates a system of care based on democratic delib- eration rather than bureaucratic rationality.

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
SCOTT L. GREER

AbstractThe relationship between political decentralisation and the welfare state is much studied, and large-scale studies have repeatedly found that decentralised states have less generous welfare states. How do we fit that with other studies that emphasise the potential of decentralisation to raise welfare standards? This article argues that decentralisation, as a variable, is too broad and it is more efficient to focus on the structure of veto players in the central state, intergovernmental relations and intergovernmental finance. Those are the actual mechanisms that connect decentralisation to the welfare states, and they can all vary independently of decentralisation. It uses recent changes in the United States and United Kingdom as examples. The fragmentation and average weakness of the US welfare state is mostly due to a federal government riddled with internal veto points that permits considerable interstate variation and low overall average provision, while tight central control on finances in the UK means that most variation is in the organisation, rather than levels, of social services.


2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 456-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Finke ◽  
Amy Adamczyk

AbstractThe Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) currently archives over 500 local, national, and international data files, and offers a wide range of research tools to build surveys, preview data online, develop customized maps and reports of United States church membership, and examine religion differences across nations and regions of the world. The ARDA also supports reference and teaching tools that draw on the rich data archive. This research article offers a brief introduction to the quantitative data available for exploration or download, and a few of the website features most useful for research and teaching. Supported by the Lilly Endowment, the John Templeton Foundation, the Pennsylvania State University, and the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, all data downloads and online services are free of charge.


Author(s):  
David Garland

The newly-emergent welfare states shared a distinctive set of features that set them apart both from the old poor laws and from state socialism. ‘The Welfare State 1.0’ identifies these defining features and describes how welfare states are structured. Welfare states generally have five institutional sectors: social insurance; social assistance; publicly funded social services; social work and personal social services; and economic governance. The WS 1.0 forms that predominated from the 1940s until the 1980s are described. Another feature of the welfare state landscape is sometimes called the ‘hidden welfare state’; it consists of welfare benefits that are channelled through the tax system or through private employment contracts.


2020 ◽  
Vol 691 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-173
Author(s):  
Lihi Lahat

Many welfare states have increased their regulatory role, but little attention has been given to historical changes in the regulatory role of government ministries. This study embraces a mezzo perspective and explores the regulatory role of the Welfare Ministry of Israel in the field of personal social services, asking the following questions: 1) What are the changes in regulatory expectations versus practices over the last five decades? and 2) How can we explain these changes and their outcomes? The study is based on the qualitative analysis of comptroller reports and other resources. It reveals a growing gap between society’s expectations of the Ministry as a regulator and the Ministry’s capacities over five decades. Notably, it points to the variety of regulatory spaces that have appeared in a regulatory welfare state. The Israeli case is relevant for other countries that have experienced processes of outsourcing and privatization in the welfare state and whose ministries had to change their role.


Author(s):  
David Garland

There are three general conceptions used for the welfare state: the first characterizes the welfare state as welfare for the poor; the second focuses on social insurance, social rights, and social services; and the third highlights economic management and the role that the ‘government of the economy’ plays in every welfare state. ‘What is the welfare state?’ explains that welfare states are varied, complex, and difficult to define. There is no simple theory that clearly expresses what they do, no simple vision that neatly captures what they are for. The welfare state is a damage-limiting, problem-solving device rather than anyone’s ideal social relationship.


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