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.

scholarly journals Thinking outside the box: embracing social complexity in aquaculture carrying capacity estimations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotta Clara Kluger ◽  
Ramón Filgueira
Keyword(s):  
Carrying Capacity ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Marine Aquaculture ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Safe Operating

Abstract With ever-expanding marine aquaculture, calls for sustainable development become louder. The concept of aquaculture carrying capacity (CC) emerged 30 years ago to frame development, though so far, most studies have focused on the production and ecological components, leaving aside the social perspective. Often, estimations are carried out a posteriori, once aquaculture is already in place, hence ignoring relevant voices potentially opposing the onset of aquaculture implementation. We argue that CC should be multidimensional, iterative, inclusive, and just. Hence, the evaluative scope of CC needs to be broadened by moving from industry-driven, Western-based approaches towards an inclusive vision taking into consideration historical, cultural, and socio-economic concerns of all stakeholders of a given area. To this end, we suggest guidelines to frame a safe operating space for aquaculture based on a multi-criteria, multi-stakeholder approach, while embracing the social-ecological dynamics of aquaculture settings by applying an adaptive approach and acknowledging the critical role of place-based constraints. Rather than producing a box-checking exercise, CC approaches should proactively engage with aquaculture-produced outcomes at multiple scales, embracing complexity, and uncertainty. Scoping CC with the voices of all relevant societal groups, ideally before aquaculture implementation, provides the unique opportunity to jointly develop truly sustainable aquaculture.

Social Policy Change in Countries without Mature Welfare States: The Case of Turkey

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 83-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayşe Buğra ◽  
Sinem Adar
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The State ◽  
Policy Environment ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Market Relations ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New System

AbstractAs part of the institutional changes in Turkey since the 1980s that laid down the foundations of a market economy, the transformation of the social security system has recently come on the agenda. This article discusses the possible outcome of this transformation by situating the case of Turkey in the context of the contemporary international social policy environment shaped by neo-liberal globalization.It is possible to suggest that throughout the world a new system of welfare governance has recently emerged, which is characterized, first, by a novel emphasis on workfare as opposed to welfare. It modifies, second, redistributive action by the state through diverse partnerships between the state, private sector and voluntary initiatives in the provision of social care and public services. The impact of this new system of welfare governance on social policy is especially important in less developed countries where the role of the state in welfare provision is recently being taken more seriously. With the new emphasis on workfare accompanied by the increasing role of non-state actors, the newly introduced social policy measures might not necessarily consolidate the basis of citizenship rights but they might mainly serve to keep under control the socio-economic insecurity aggravated by the expansion of market relations. This observation is of particular significance for the analysis of the contemporary social policy environment in Turkey that this article presents.

scholarly journals Trans* and gender variant citizenship and the state in Norway

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Surya Monro ◽  
Janneke Van Der Ros
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Identity Recognition ◽  
Gender Variant ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
And Gender

The last decade has seen the expansion of trans* identities that are gender queer, non-binary, androgynous, or multiply-sexed and gendered in Western Europe. These developments mark a shift from a uniformly gender-binaried system to one that encompasses some degree of gender pluralism, as reflected to an extent in policy changes in some European countries. However, gender binarism is still prevalent. This article uses the case of Norway to demonstrate a contrast between the citizenship statuses afforded to transsexual men and women, and the lack of citizenship rights that people with non-binary identities, and other gender-variant people who are not diagnosed as transsexual, face. The article addresses the historical role of the Norwegian state in perpetuating gender binaries, in key areas such as identity recognition. It then explores the ways in which Norwegian social policy is changing towards more trans-sensitive positions.

The Reluctant Planner

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Julia Moses
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Intellectual Biography ◽  
Role Of The State

T. H. Marshall’s claims that the twentieth century was the era of social rights, embodied in education and welfare policy, has found enduring favour with a wide variety of scholars and social commentators. To what extent, however, was his theory of citizenship and social rights a reflection of the specific moment in which he was writing? This chapter places T. H. Marshall’s concept of ‘citizenship’ within its historical context. Through examining his biography, this essay suggests that Marshall’s theory of citizenship was informed by an appreciation for continental, and especially German, conceptions of social policy, the role of the state, and the nature of community. Parsing this aspect of Marshall’s intellectual biography has important implications for our own understanding of British ideas about the purpose, structure, and scope of social policy during the formative middle decades of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals Introduction: Moving Targets Risk, Security, and the Social in Twentieth-Century Europe

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Moses ◽  
Eve Rosenhaft
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Anthony Giddens ◽  
Agent Of Change

According to the sociologists Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, modern societies have become increasingly preoccupied with the future and safety and have mobilized themselves in order to manage systematically what they have perceived as “risks” (Beck 1992; Giddens 1991). This special section investigates how conceptions of risk evolved in Europe over the course of the twentieth century by focusing on the creation and evolution of social policy. The language of risk has, in the past twenty years, become a matter of course in conversations about social policy (Kemshall 2002). We seek to trace how “risk” has served as aheuristic toolfor understanding and treating “social problems.” A key aim of this collection is to explore the character of social policy (in the broadest sense) as an instrument (or technology) that both constructs its own objects as the consequences of “risks” and generates new “risks” in the process (Lupton 2004: 33). In this way, social policy typifies the paradox of security: by attempting literally to making one “carefree,” orsē(without)curitās(care), acts of (social) security spur new insecurities about what remains unprotected (Hamilton 2013: 3–5, 25–26). Against this semantic and philological context, we suggest that social policy poses an inherent dilemma: in aiming to stabilize or improve the existing social order, it also acts as an agent of change. This characteristic of social policy is what makes particularly valuable studies that allow for comparisons across time, place, and types of political regime. By examining a range of cases from across Europe over the course of the twentieth century, this collection seeks to pose new questions about the role of the state; ideas about risk and security; and conceptions of the “social” in its various forms.

Ideas, Institutions and the Policies of Governments: a Comparative Analysis: Part III

1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony King
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Public Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Common

III THE PATTERN EXPLAINED In part I of this paper we described the gross pattern of public policy in our five countries. In part II we looked at how the pattern developed in each of the countries. We noticed that the countries have pursued policies that diverge widely, at least with respect to the size of the direct operating role of the State in the provision of public services. We also noticed that the United States differs from the four other countries far more than they do from each other. These findings will not have come as a great surprise to anybody, although some readers may have been surprised – in view of the common assumption that all major western countries are ‘welfare states’ – to discover just how much the countries differ and what different histories they have had.

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 Acumulação capitalista, Estado e reprodução de força de trabalho: o trato teórico-metodológico da política social

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angely Dias da Cunha ◽  
Bernadete de Lourdes Figueiredo de Almeida ◽  
Elizangela Paulino S. Buriti
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Societal Changes ◽  
Qualitative Nature ◽  
Mode Of Production

Resumo: Esse artigo de cunho qualitativo, de caráter exploratório e descritivo que se alicerça em uma revisão bibliográfica tem o objetivo de analisar o modo de produção capitalista, como acontece o processo de acumulação e reprodução e as inflexões para o papel do estado e da política social, a ênfase é nos períodos marcado por crises que provocam transformações societárias que impactam o mundo do trabalho e das relações sociais. O método crítico-dialético utilizado nessa pesquisa se debruça sobre as categorias mediação, historicidade e dialética com o propósito de desvendar a realidade para além da aparência e aprofundar as análises sobre o capitalismo. Como resultados apontamos que as crises capitalistas provocadas por suas próprias contradições o tem dimensionado o trato teórico-metodológico da política social. Capitalist accumulation, State and workforce reproduction: the theoretical and methodological treatment of the social policy Abstract: This qualitative nature of an article, exploratory and descriptive character which is based on a literature review aims to analyze the capitalist mode of production, as the process of accumulation and reproduction and inflections to the role of the state and social policy, the emphasis is in periods marked by crises that cause societal changes that impact the world of work and social relations. The critical-dialectical method used in this research focuses on the categories mediation, historicity and dialectics in order to unravel the reality beyond appearance and deepen the analysis of capitalism. The results point out that the capitalist crisis caused by its own contradictions has scaled the theoretical-methodological treatment of social policy.

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