Welfare States as Nation States: Some Conceptual Reflections

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Social Coherence ◽  
Container Model

Social policy has treated welfare states as nation states. Contemporary processes seem to have unsettled the spatial, scalar and social coherence of nation-states. This article examines the challenge of rethinking the relationships of nation, state and welfare. It argues for a transnational conception of both the current remakings of nation, state and welfare, and of their past formations. Such a view casts doubt on the value of the container model of the nation-state, and makes visible the constitutive or nation-constructing role of welfare states.

scholarly journals ACTUAL DISCOURE ABOUT TIPES FND DEVELOPMENT TENDENCIES NATIONAL STATE

2013 ◽  
pp. 195-203
Author(s):  
E. G. Ponomareva
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Social Communities ◽  
Nation States ◽  
International Systems

The processes of globalization have determined significant changes in the prerogatives of nation states. In the twenty-first century the state no longer acts as a sole subject having a monopoly of integrating the interests of large social communities and representing them on the world stage. An ever increasing role in the global political process is played by transnational and supranational participants. However, despite the uncertainty and ambiguity of the ways of the development of the modern world, it can be argued that in the foreseeable future it is the states that will maintain the role of the main actors in world politics and bear the responsibility for global security and development. All this naturally makes urgent the issues related to the search for optimal models of nation state development. The article analyzes approaches to understanding patterns, problems and prospects of the development of this institution existing in modern political science. These include the concept of "dimensionality" based on the parameters of scale (the size of the territory) of the states and their functions in the international systems, as well as the "political order". In the latter case the paper analyzes four models: the nation-state, statenation, consociation, quasi-state. The author's position consists in the substantiation of the close dependence of the success of a model of the state on its inner nature, i.e. statehood. On the basis of the elaborated approach the author understands statehood as "the result of historical, economic, political and foreign policy activity of a particular society in order to create a relatively rigid political framework that provides spatial, institutional and functional unity, that is, the condition of the society’s own state, national political system." Thus statehood acts as a qualitative feature of the state.

Complicating the Relationship Between Sport and National Identity: The Case of Post-Socialist Slovenia

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mojca Doupona Topič ◽  
Jay Coakley
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
First Century ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Global Identity ◽  
Sociology Of Sport ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Relationship

Sociology of sport knowledge on national identity is grounded in research that focuses primarily on long established nation-states with widely known histories. The relationship between sport and national identity in postsocialist/Soviet/colonial nations that have gained independence or sovereignty since 1990 has seldom been studied. This paper examines the role of sports in the formation of national identity in postsocialist Slovenia, a nation-state that gained independence in 1990. Our analysis focuses on the recent context in which the current but fluid relationship between sport and Slovenian national identity exists. Using Slovenia as a case study we identify seven factors that may moderate the effectiveness of sports as sites for establishing and maintaining national identity and making successful global identity claims in the twenty-first century. We conclude that these factors should be taken into account to more fully understand the sport-national identity relationship today, especially in new and developing nations.

scholarly journals Social Policy Without Growth: Moving Towards Sustainable Welfare States

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Max Koch
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
Environmental Limits ◽  
Safe Operating

Growth-dependent welfare states contribute to climate emergency. The ecological economics, degrowth, and sustainable welfare literatures demonstrate that to re-embed Western production and consumption patterns in environmental limits, an encompassing social-ecological transformation would need to be initiated very soon. This article focuses on the potential roles of the welfare state and social policy in this transformation, applying the concepts of ‘sustainable welfare’ and ‘safe-operating space’. Based on two Swedish studies, it also provides an empirical analysis of the popularity of selected eco-social policies designed to steer the economy and society towards this space: maximum and basic incomes, taxes on wealth and meat, as well as working time reductions. In analogy to the historical role of the state in reconstituting the welfare-work nexus in the post-WWII era and its present engagement in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, it is argued that a more interventionist state is required to grapple with climate emergency.

11. Federal and local government institutions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Loughlin
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Federal States ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Territorial Organization ◽  
Post War ◽  
Modern Nation State

This chapter focuses on federal and local government institutions. More specifically, it considers the ways in which territorial governance has been understood and implemented within the nation-state model. The territorial organization of nation-states may be either federal or unitary, although each of these categories may be further categorized as being either more or less decentralized. The welfare states of the post-war period represent the culmination of the nation-state-building process and placed emphasis on central control over sub-national levels of government. The chapter begins with a discussion of the modern nation-state and territorial governance, citing the rise of nationalism in unitary states and federal states. It then considers territorial governance in welfare states, along with the classical distinction between federal and unitary states. It also examines trends towards regionalization and decentralization in unitary states before concluding with an assessment of local government and local autonomy.

Nation-state global city tensions in social policy: the case of Mexico City's rising social city-zenship

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hudson ◽  
Anahely Medrano
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Global City ◽  
Global Cities ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Key Issues

Comparative analyses of welfare systems have largely proceeded on the basis that coherent nation-states exist. This assumption was always problematic – as many theorists have acknowledged – but globalisation processes have added a further dimension to this debate, not least because of the increasing power of global cities that act as coordinating hubs for the global economy. Although residing in nation-states, these cities have a special status flowing from their central role in the global economy with often rather different economic, demographic and social contexts. While there is growing literature on global cities, what the rise of these cities means for social policy and for welfare states remains an underexplored issue. Here we outline some key issues the rise of global cities presents for welfare states before proceeding to illustrate both theoretical and practical issues we highlight through a case study of Mexico City.

The Role of the Nation State in International Environmental Policy

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Trittin
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Transnational Corporation ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Environmental Legislation ◽  
International Environmental Policy ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Global Environmental

In this article, the German Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety analyzes the role of the nation state in international environmental policy. With reference to the European Union, he argues that independent national environmental policy no longer exists inside the Union. Brussels now has greater influence on environmental legislation than any nation state in Europe—a development that the minister expressly welcomes. He argues that it has proven highly useful for Union members to speak with one voice at global environmental conferences and to present a united front just like one strong nation state. On the other hand, the communitarization within Europe does not prevent members from becoming front-runners in environmental policy. The minister further calls for changes at the global level to ensure that global environmental institutions and environmental law are given much greater weight. The historic task of nation states today is to introduce global environmental legislation that is more powerful than any nation state or any transnational corporation. The German government therefore strongly favors transforming UNEP into a world environment organization that can stand up to the WTO, the FAO and transnational corporations.

scholarly journals Queering Justice: States as Machines of Oppression

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (Summer) ◽  
pp. 48-59
Author(s):  
Nour Abu-Assab ◽  
Nof Eddin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Arab State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Recent Attention ◽  
Shed Light

In light of the recent attention to the incarceration, surveillance, and policing of non-normative people in the Middle East and North Africa, this article does not seek to offer alternatives to systems of justice. Instead, our argument revolves around the need to turn the concept of justice on its head, by demonstrating that justice within the context of the nation-state is in its essence a de facto and de jure mechanism of policing and surveillance. To do so, this article draws on Michael Foucault’s notion of state-phobia from a de-colonial perspective, intersectional feminist theory, and Hisham Sharabi’s conceptualisation of the Arab-state as neo-patriarchal. This article highlights the need to move away from the post-colonial benevolent imaginary of the state, as a result of people’s desire for self-determination, to a more realistic de-colonial conceptualisation of nation-states that emerged post-colonisation, as sites of oppression. This article will also shed light on the role of civil society in reinforcing the unjust justice sought within nation-state frameworks by drawing on the examples of the recent crackdown on non-normative people in Egypt, and the example of non-normative Palestinians living under occupation. The Egyptian and Palestinian cases are, respectively, one of an allegedly sovereign state that overtly restricts gender and sexual freedom, and another of an occupying state that nominally guarantees gender and sexual rights. These examples are used to demonstrate the theoretical underpinnings of this article, through which we seek to problematise and break binaries of justice versus injustice, and the state versus civil society, in an attempt to queer the concept of justice.

Modernes Regierungshandeln im Zeitalter der Globalisierung

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Structural Changes ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Fundamental Relationship ◽  
New Challenges

In our increasingly insecure world, governance is being confronted with new challenges every day. Rising nationalism, terrorist attacks, an increasing number of populist forms of governance, the egoism of governments, digital change, ‘warlordism’ and anarchy: this is an incomplete list of the problems modern governance is having to face. These problems have to be seen against the background of structural changes caused by the process of globalisation. Among others, they not only affect the fundamental relationship between individuals and society, but also that between the constitutional bodies of a state and the role of the nation state itself. Moreover, they influence both the relationships between states and the sharing of tasks between nation states and supra national bodies. This volume is composed of a series of lectures held at Andrássy University between 2015 and 2017, which describe current trends of change and concentrate on their consequences for states, nations and societies. With contributions by Joachim Bitterlich, Erhard Busek, Hartmut Koschyk, S.D. Fürst Hans-Adam II. von und zu Liechtenstein, András Masát, Dirk Metz, Martin Mosebach, Jean-François Paroz, Ulrich Schlie, Horst Seehofer, Michael Stürmer, Thomas Weber

A Global Political Economy of Care

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Yeates
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Organisation Of Care ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

Care is an important analytical concept in social policy because of what its social organisation reveals about social formations and the nature of welfare states. To date, social policy analyses of care have focused on the social (re)organisation of care within nation states, which are largely treated as ‘sealed’ entities. Consequently these analyses neglect to examine the impact of transnational processes on the socio-organisational shifts observed. This article outlines the contours of a global political economy (GPE) of care with a view to elucidating the transnational dimensions to care restructuring. It focuses in particular on domestic care labour because of the extensive internationalisation of domestic services and its significance for the social relations of production and the division of labour. The discussion reflects on analytical issues for the academic study of social policy and care raised by a GPE approach.

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