More Than Anyone Bargained For: Beyond the Welfare Contract

1998 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 141-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Goodin
Keyword(s):  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
The People ◽  
Paid Labor ◽  
Deserving Poor ◽  
Undeserving Poor

From British debates over the 1832 New Poor Law to the near present, the notion of “desert” has long had a clear referent in discussions of social welfare policy. The designation “deserving poor” was reserved for those with legitimate grounds for not supporting themselves through paid employment. Invariably among them were the very young, the very old, and the mentally and physically very disabled—people who literally could not work for a living. Also included were various categories of people who, according to the varying conventions of the day, were socially excused from paid labor—widows in the Victorian era, students in the postwar era, and so on. Anyone who could and should work for a living but refused to do so was traditionally deemed to be among the “undeserving poor.” Those were the people whose “welfare dependency” has long been the target of welfare reformers, most recently Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

War Widows and Welfare Queens

2019 ◽  
pp. 584-605
Author(s):  
Brittany Pearl Battle
Keyword(s):  
Policy Development ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Deserving Poor ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Undeserving Poor

This chapter examines the sociocognitive dimensions of cultural categorizations of deservingness. The social issue of poverty has been a persistent source of debate in the American system of policy development, influenced by conceptual distinctions between the “haves” and “have-nots,” “working moms” and “unemployed dads,” and the “deserving poor” and the “undeserving poor.” Although there is a wealth of literature discussing the ideological underpinnings of stratification systems, these discussions often focus on categorical distinctions between the poor and the nonpoor, with much less discussion of distinctions made among the poor. Moreover, while scholars of culture and policy have long referenced the importance of cultural categories of worthiness in policy development, the theoretical significance of these distinctions has been largely understudied. I expand the discourse on the relationship between cultural representations of worth and social welfare policy by exploring how these categories are conceptualized. Drawing on analytical tools from a sociology of perception framework, I create a model that examines deservingness along continuums of morality and eligibility to highlight the taken-for-granted cultural subtleties that shape perceptions of the poor. I focus on social filters created by norms of poverty, welfare, and the family to explore how the deserving are differentiated from the undeserving.

2. Three waves of neoliberalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-51
Author(s):  
Manfred B. Steger ◽  
Ravi K. Roy
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
British Prime Minister ◽  
Neoliberal Ideology ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Moderate Position

‘Three waves of neoliberalism’ examines the three waves of neoliberalism, starting with the emergence of neoliberalism in the Anglosphere under the conservative leaderships of US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Meanwhile, the second wave of neoliberalism became associated with a new kind of global economic and political cosmopolitanism called market globalism. Identifying themselves with a politically moderate position known as the Third Way, US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair embraced this neoliberal ideology. US President Barack Obama's presidency marked the rise of third-wave neoliberalism by refusing to impose restrictions on the monopolistic practices of emerging e-commerce firms.

Estimates of Ten Multiple Intelligences

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 245-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Furnham ◽  
Thomas Li-Ping Tang ◽  
David Lester ◽  
Rory O'Connor ◽  
Robert Montgomery
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Intelligences ◽  
Male Partner ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
The Self ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Female Partners ◽  
American Students ◽  
Bill Gates ◽  
Nationality Differences

A total of 253 British and 318 American students were asked to make various estimates of overall intelligence as well as Gardner's (1999a) new list of 10 multiple intelligences. They made these estimations (11 in all) for themselves, their partner, and for various well-known figures such as Prince Charles, Tony Blair, Bill Gates, and Bill Clinton. Following previous research there were various sex and nationality differences in self-estimated IQ: Males rated themselves higher on verbal, logical, spatial, and spiritual IQ compared to females. Females rated their male partner as having lower verbal and spiritual, but higher spatial IQ than was the case when males rated their female partners. Participants considered Bill Clinton (2 points) and Prince Charles (5 points) less intelligent than themselves, but Tony Blair (5 points) and Bill Gates (15 points) more intelligent than themselves. Multiple regressions indicated that the best predictors of one's overall IQ estimates were logical, verbal, existential, and spatial IQ. Factor analysis of the 10 and then 8 self-estimated scores did not confirm Gardner's classification of multiple intelligences. Results are discussed in terms of the growing literature in the self-estimates of intelligence, as well as limitations of that approach.

Limits to Dominance?

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Communication Skills ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Capital Building ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Very High ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Policy Vision

This chapter compares the leadership capital of two long-serving UK prime ministers: Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, treble election winners who held office for a decade. Mapping their capital over time reveals two very different patterns. Thatcher began with low levels of capital, building to a mid-term high and final fragile dominance, though her capital fell between elections. Blair possessed very high levels from the outset that gradually declined in a more conventional pattern. Both benefited from electoral dominance and a divided opposition, Thatcher’s strength lay in her policy vision while Blair’s stemmed from his popularity and communication skills. The LCI reveals that both prime ministers were successful without being popular, sustained in office by the electoral system. Towards the end of their tenures, both leaders’ continued dominance masked fragility, ousted when unrest in their parties and policy unpopularity eroded their capital.

Recalling and/or Repressing German Marxism? The Case of Ernst Fraenkel

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
William E. Scheuerman
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Political Theorist ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Us ◽  
Judith Shklar ◽  
Third Way Politics

I spent a few unseasonably hot summer days in 1996 digging around in the German Federal Archives in Koblenz for what later became a lengthy essay on Ernst Fraenkel (1898–1975), the neglected German socialist political and legal thinker. I still recall struggling to justify my efforts not simply as an historian of ideas but also as a political theorist who, at least in principle, was expected to make systematic contributions to contemporary debates. The problem was that Fraenkel had focused his acumen on investigating liberal democratic instability and German fascism, matters that did not seem directly pertinent to a political and intellectual constellation in which political scientists were celebrating democracy's “third wave.” With Tony Blair and Bill Clinton touting Third Way politics, and many former dictatorships seemingly on a secure path to liberal democracy, Fraenkel's preoccupations seemed dated. Even though Judith Shklar had noted, as late as 1989, that “anyone who thinks that fascism in one guise or another is dead and gone ought to think again,” political pundits and scholars in the mid-1990s typically assumed that capitalist liberal democracy's future was secure. When I returned to the US and described my research to colleagues, they responded, unsurprisingly, politely but without much enthusiasm.

scholarly journals “Doing God” in Number 10: British Prime Ministers, Religion, and Political Rhetoric

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Crines ◽  
Kevin Theakston
Keyword(s):  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Public Persona

AbstractThis article analyses British prime ministers' use of religious language and their own religious beliefs in their political rhetoric. This is used to justify policy, support their ideological positions, present a public persona, and cultivate their personal ethical appeal and credibility as values-driven political leaders. The focus is on the use and the nature of the religious arguments of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron. As political leaders, British prime ministers are aware of the need to modify and tailor their language in response to changing audiences and contexts. “Doing God” is a difficult and risky rhetorical strategy for British prime ministers but it increasingly has the potential to yield political benefits.

scholarly journals LORD DENNING AND MARGARET THATCHER, LAW AND SOCIETY

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-180
Author(s):  
Simon Lee
Keyword(s):  
Law And Society ◽  
100Th Birthday ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Chief Justice

“Lord Denning is the best-known and best-loved judge in the whole of our history.” That was the opening of Lord Bingham’s address at the service of thanksgiving for the life of Lord Denning, the former Master of the Rolls, in Westminster Abbey in 1999. Lord Bingham was well-placed to judge. He himself held the offices of Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice and Senior Law Lord. He is an accomplished historian. He ascribed Lord Denning’s renown and reputation to his unique warmth, his popular touch and his longevity. Tom Denning was born in the Victorian era, in 1899, and lived a few weeks beyond his 100th birthday in 1999. He only retired at the age of 82 and then reluctantly. 

Class Resilience

2018 ◽  
pp. 95-122
Author(s):  
Peter Marks
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Classless Society

Alwyn Turner’s compendious study, A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s (2013), ends after 574 richly observed pages seemingly contradicting its title. Turner writes of John Major and Tony Blair, that ‘both had sought to create a classless society, both had failed, with wealth inequality increasing and social mobility decreasing, and both found themselves ill at ease with the kind of classless culture that emerged instead’ (574). Turner adds that Major and Blair (and before them, Margaret Thatcher) had aimed to refashion Britain as a meritocracy, where ability was more pertinent and consequential than family background and traditional networks of social power.

Thatcher, Reagan, and Northern Ireland

2019 ◽  
pp. 139-184
Author(s):  
Andrew Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
British Prime Minister ◽  
The Us ◽  
Speaker Of The House ◽  
The Uk

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 reinforced one of the most famous international alliances, often known as the “special relationship”, and this chapter explores the ways in which Reagan was often caught between the direction of the US Congress, in particular Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and Senator Ted Kennedy, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The changing dynamics of the conflict in Northern Ireland saw electoral politics rise to prominence, particularly following the 1981 hunger strike that saw ten republican prisoners starve to death, with two of the men elected to public office in London and Dublin. The influence of both O’Neill and Reagan on the 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement, a significant moment in the developing peace process, is also examined in this chapter, as is the issue of the extradition of IRA on-the-runs from the US to the UK.

US Social Welfare Policy: The Reagan Record and Legacy

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN O'CONNOR
Keyword(s):  
Family Support ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
George Bush ◽  
Social Provision ◽  
The Social ◽  
Family Support Act ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Right

This paper reviews the Reagan administration's attack on the US welfare system during the 1980s. The paper considers the origins, provisions and impact of Reagan's three major pieces of retrenchment legislation: the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, the Social Security Amendments of 1983, and the Family Support Act of 1988. It is argued that Reagan's record in retrenching welfare was limited in budgetary terms, but was successful in making welfare programmes more restrictive. Reagan's welfare legacy is assessed in terms of his attempts at restructuring social provision and shifting the welfare debate to the right. The paper concludes by asserting that Reagan's critique of, and attack on, social provision was accepted by his presidential successors, George Bush and Bill Clinton.

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