The Family, the Welfare State and Community Care: Political Rhetoric and Public Attitudes

1984 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick West
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
New Right ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
The Family ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Family State ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACTWithin the political arena, most sharply articulated by the new Right, the family and welfare state have been counterposed as ideological opposites with implications for the relative responsibility each should be accorded in respect of a policy of community care. On the basis of evidence from a survey conducted in three locations in Scotland, this paper examines the extent to which the ideological positions of Left and Right are reflected in public attitudes towards these issues. The results show that with the exception of certain groups of ‘ideologues’, individual citizens tend not to structure their attitudes in accordance with overarching ideologies, nor are their attitudes in any consistent way organized along partisan lines. In respect of the family/state polarity, there is only a faint echo of the broad rhetoric of political parties and on more concrete issues like care for dependent persons none at all. The overall picture supports the view that the family and welfare state as they are confronted by people in their everyday lives are much less ideological opposites than intermeshed in an overlapping complex of values, needs and interests.

Public Attitudes to Dependency and the Welfare State

2004 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bradshaw ◽  
Emese Mayhew
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The Welfare State

Ripples from the First Wave: The Monarchical Origins of the Welfare State

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 992-1016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen McDonagh
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Public Provision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Parental Roles ◽  
The People ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Welfare State

Before the welfare state, people were protected from disabilities resulting from illness, old age, and other infirmities by care work provided within the family. When the state assumes responsibility for care-work tasks, in effect it assumes parental roles, thereby becoming a form offamilial governmentin which the public provision of goods and services is analogous to care work provided in the family. My research pushes back the origins of the state’s obligation to care for people to a preindustrial form of government, hereditary monarchies—what Max Weber termed patrimonialism. It explicates how monarchs were cast as the parents of the people, thereby constituting kingship as a care work regime that assigned to political rulers parental responsibility for the welfare of the people. Using historical and quantitative analysis, I establish that retaining the legitimacy of monarchies as the first form of familial government in the course of Western European democratizing makes it more credible to the public and to political elites to accept the welfare state as the second form of familial government. That, in turn, promotes a more robust public sector supportive of social provision. The results reformulate conceptions of the contemporary welfare state and its developmental legacies.

scholarly journals MPs' Attitudes to Welfare: A New Consensus?

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
HUGH BOCHEL ◽  
ANDREW DEFTY
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
New Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Mixed Economy ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Welfare State

The post-war ‘consensus’ on welfare was based largely in the perceived agreement of leading politicians of Conservative and Labour parties on the role of the mixed economy and the welfare state. However, from the late 1970s economic and demographic pressures and ideological challenges, particularly from the New Right, led to cuts in spending on welfare, increased private involvement and an emphasis on more individualistic and selectivist approaches to provision. Recently some scholars have begun to discuss the emergence of a ‘new liberal consensus’ around welfare provision. Drawing upon interviews with 10 per cent of the House of Commons, this article examines the extent to which a new political consensus upon welfare can be identified. In addition to analysing responses to questions on welfare issues, it considers the extent to which MPs themselves believe there to be some degree of consensus in approaches to welfare. It also considers whether any consensus exists merely in the political language used in relation to welfare issues, or whether there is a more substantive convergence.

scholarly journals Välfärdsstatens logik? Erfarenheter från färäldrar med kognitiva och ekonomiska svårigheter

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stina Fernqvist ◽  
Elisabet Näsman
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Informal Support ◽  
Financial Situation ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Cognitive Difficulties ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family Based ◽  
The Welfare State

The logic of the welfare state? Experiences from parents with cognitive and financial difficultiesPrevious research has shown that parents with cognitive difficulties (neuropsychiatric impairments and/or intellectual disability) often are at risk of poverty. The same is reported from the Swedish welfare state, and such financial hardship may have a profound effect on family life. How these parents experience poverty and how their experiences can be related to cognitive difficulties and notions of poverty is addressed in this article. Their ability to cope in everyday life partly relies on whether, or how, existing support caters to the specific needs of these individuals. This article draws on research on poverty, disability and family. Based on interviews with parents with cognitive difficulties, these questions are discussed: how does their financial situation affect family life? How do they experience support from relatives and professionals? What kind of support is available from the welfare state, and to what extent does this support comprise perspectives on family and children? How do the parents experience informal support from their own family? How can this problem complex be localized in legislation and practice? The findings discussed here suggest that these parents often associate their experiences of poverty with the limitations caused by their impairments. Parents further state that they often rely on their own agency to get proper support, which can be very difficult, and question how support for these parents could be handled differently, in terms of both legislation and practice. The findings also show that support from society is often mediated on an individual level through initiatives from social workers and other persons working near the family, which highlights the absence of systematic support directed towards these parents.

scholarly journals Socio-political choice of Russia in the context of ideologies

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 107-121
Author(s):  
Vladimir Prorok
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
The State ◽  
Value Orientations ◽  
New Right ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Russian President ◽  
Vladimir Putin ◽  
The Welfare State

In the article, the author analyzes the differences in value orientations and the specifics of the party-political systems of Western countries and Russia, the features of the basic values of the United Russia party and the value orientations of Russian citizens. The problem of borrowing and using successful foreign experience and finding one's own way of development has always been in the center of Russian political discourse. Today conservative as well as liberal approaches prevail in politics in Western countries, until recently they were present in the form of the ideology of the new right. In Russia the dominant “United Russia” party has been in power since 2003 and it positions itself as an all-encompassing or "catch-all" party. However, there are liberal and conservative wings in United Russia. The second one is closer to the ideological platform of the parties of the new right, which in practice in politics abandon the model of the welfare state. According to the surveys, in Russia the neoliberal values recorded in the program documents of United Russia do not meet the expectations of the majority of Russians who demand an active social policy. This contradiction, according to the author, is connected with the decline in popularity of the pro-presidential United Russia, which Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to stop by supporting social programs, while relying on some members of United Russia and the ONF. United Russia won the elections to the State Duma in 2021, but the influence of socially oriented political parties in society and the state is increasing.

scholarly journals Beyond Positive and Negative: New Perspectives on Feedback Effects in Public Opinion on the Welfare State

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius R Busemeyer ◽  
Aurélien Abrassart ◽  
Roula Nezi
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Dynamic Feedback ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Positive And Negative Feedback ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract The study of policy feedback on public attitudes and policy preferences has become a growing area of research in recent years. Scholars in the tradition of Pierson usually argue that positive, self-reinforcing feedback effects dominate (that is, attitudes are commensurate with existing institutions), whereas the public thermostat model developed by Wlezien and Soroka expects negative, self-undermining feedback. Moving beyond the blunt distinction between positive and negative feedback, this article develops and proposes a more fine-grained typology of feedback effects that distinguishes between accelerating, self-reinforcing and self-undermining, specific and general, as well as long- and short-term dynamic feedback. The authors apply this typology in an analysis of public opinion on government spending in different areas of the welfare state for twenty-one OECD countries, employing a pseudo-panel approach. The empirical analysis confirms the usefulness of this typology since it shows that different types of feedback effects can be observed empirically.

The Persistence of Poverty under Welfare States and the Prospects for its Abolition

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Walker
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
New Right ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Main Factor ◽  
The Welfare State

This article examines the relationship between poverty and the welfare state and attempts to answer the question as to why poverty has persisted under all welfare states. Several major reasons for the persistence of poverty are advanced, and the author argues that the main factor underlying the failure to abolish poverty is the conflict between economic policy and social policy. The challenge to welfare states from the New Right is examined—particularly the contention that welfare states themselves create poverty and dependence—in the light of evidence of the impact of the Thatcher government's policies in Britain. Finally, the author proposes an alternative approach to the abolition of poverty, one that is based on the integration of economic and social policy.

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