Ideas and the Welfare State

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 713-743 ◽  
Author(s):  
LINDA A. WHITE
Keyword(s):  
Child Care ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Care Provision ◽  
Policy History ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Government Involvement ◽  
Future Policy ◽  
The Welfare State

This article examines the legacy of American and Canadian welfare state development to explain surprisingly comparable levels of child care provision. It highlights the ironies of policy history while demonstrating the importance of ideas as independent causal factors in the development of public policies and the effect of their institutionalization on future policy development. Maternalist, nativist, and eugencist imperatives led U.S. governments to intrude in areas normally considered part of the private sphere and led to the adoption of policies to respond to a perceived decline primarily of the White population. These policies provided a normative and institutional basis for future government involvement in child care funding and programs, even after the conditions that led to the original policies changed. In Canada, the lack of large-scale entrenchment of similar ideas constrained an otherwise more interventionist government and made it more difficult for child care policies to find governmental and societal acceptance.

Social Insurance, Distributive Criteria and the Welfare Backlash: A Comparative Analysis

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara A. Rosenberry
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Policy Development Process ◽  
The Welfare State

With some notable exceptions, comparative research on the welfare state falls generally into one of two categories: qualitative and generally descriptive case studies and large-scale quantitative efforts at explanation. Case studies have progressed past the point of being essentially journalistic descriptions of the peculiarities of the policy development process or the policies of a particular society. It is nevertheless true that there has been little progress in moving beyond the case study approach towards building a theory about how and why societies make particular decisions about the priorities and organization of their social welfare efforts. On the other hand, while large-scale aggregate analysis yields theoretical statements about the character of ‘the welfare state’, those conclusions are often so general as to be ‘difficult to relate to… how particular substantive problems have been [and might be] handled.’

Mothers, Markets and the State: A Scandinavian ‘Model’?

1993 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnlaug Leira
Keyword(s):  
Child Care ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Employment Rate ◽  
Care Provision ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Labour Market Participation ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACTIn Denmark, Norway and Sweden mothers of young children have a higher employment rate than have the mothers of other Western European countries. To make high quality childcare universally available is regarded as a national concern, and as part of the welfare state commitment. It is also often regarded as a precondition of mothers' employment. The modes of state intervention and the structure of child-care provision are basically the same in all three countries, yet this paper questions the commonly made assumption that Scandinavian reproduction policies are developed in accordance with one common model. The interrelationship between welfare state, market and family differs between the countries. While in Denmark and Sweden national policies supported the dual role of mothers in production and social reproduction, this was not the case in Norwegian policies in which the concept of the employed mother made only modest impact. Not surprisingly, Denmark and Sweden are more successful in approaching national aims for provision of childcare and also in facilitating mothers' labour market participation.

Concrete Monsters of the Welfare State: Discussions of Brutalist Architecture on Social Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 120633122110193
Author(s):  
Max Holleran
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Municipal Governments ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Welfare State

Brutalist architecture is an object of fascination on social media that has taken on new popularity in recent years. This article, drawing on 3,000 social media posts in Russian and English, argues that the buildings stand out for their arresting scale and their association with the expanding state in the 1960s and 1970s. In both North Atlantic and Eastern European contexts, the aesthetic was employed in publicly financed urban planning projects, creating imposing concrete structures for universities, libraries, and government offices. While some online social media users associate the style with the overreach of both socialist and capitalist governments, others are more nostalgic. They use Brutalist buildings as a means to start conversations about welfare state goals of social housing, free university, and other services. They also lament that many municipal governments no longer have the capacity or vision to take on large-scale projects of reworking the built environment to meet contemporary challenges.

The Welfare State, Turnout, and the Economy: A Comparative Analysis

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 444-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Radcliff
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Economic Voting ◽  
Series Data ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Welfare State

While the economic voting literature is voluminous, comparatively little attention has been paid to the question of how—or whether—the economy affects turnout. I address this issue by examining national elections in 29 countries. Using time series data, the initial findings are replicated by a case study of American presidential and midterm elections since 1896. It is argued that the effect of economic adversity depends upon the degree of welfare state development. This relationship is argued to be nonlinear, so that mobilization occurs at either extreme while withdrawal obtains in the middle range. The importance to democratic theory, the study of elections, and the politics of welfare policy are discussed.

European Integration and an Institutional Theory of Inequality

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Jason Beckfield
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Institutional Theory ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
European Level ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter provides an overview of the book’s main themes. The book argues that European integration has reorganized class struggle to the European level, entrenching a technocratic capitalism that weakens welfare states and raises income inequality. It asks: How have the fruits of European labor been distributed? Who wins and who loses from European integration? How are citizenship rights and economic fortunes being distributed? The remainder of the chapter discusses trends in welfare-state development and income inequality; current approaches to the welfare state and income inequality; and the turn toward to technocratic capitalism that now characterizes the EU’s policy priorities.

The Beginnings of the Nordic Welfare States: Similarities and Differences

1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 9-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stein Kuhnle
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
Compulsory Insurance ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Welfare State

The beginning of our present stage in the development of the welfare state can be traced to Bismarck's large-scale social insurance schemes of the 1880s. The article compares various political and economic macro-characteristics of the Nordic countries at that time, and proposes hypotheses about the timing of legislation in the Nordic nations, and about the likelihood for Nordic imitations of the principle of compulsory insurance. The article discusses why Denmark was expected to become, and in fact became, a forerunner in the Nordic context, and why the principle of compulsory insurance stood a better chance of gaining acceptance in Norway than in Denmark and Sweden.

Understanding Homelessness in Neoliberal City: A Study from Delhi

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-297
Author(s):  
Subhamay Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Structural Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
The City ◽  
The Welfare State

‘Homelessness’ is the worst form of urban poverty, and in the wake of neoliberalism it has become more pervasive in cities across the world. Taking the case of Delhi, the study focuses on the making of homelessness, the connotation of being homeless, and the nature of responses from a governing institution to homelessness in the neoliberal city. The study reveals that large scale slum demolition in the last three decades has rendered thousands of people homeless. They are denied of basic human rights and human necessities. They are not even allowed to reside in the open spaces of the city. Governing actors have bypassed their duties by setting up only a ‘few’ night-shelters in the city, most of which remained unoccupied because of several adversities. The study also reveals that homelessness is the outcome of governance failure and the failure of the welfare state. But the structural problem of homelessness is completely overlooked both in policy and by ‘other’ sections of society.

Widowhood and Ageing in Traditional English Society

1984 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Total Population ◽  
Relative Effectiveness ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Economic Support ◽  
English Society ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACTThe persistence of greater life expectancy among women than men means that widowhood on a large scale is a feature of both pre-industrial and subsequent societies. This paper examines the changing structure of widowhood along with the familial and economic support afforded to women in this category, in the 17th and 18th centuries by contrast with the present day. It indicates, by drawing on parish data for England, that the incidence of the widowed status is today lower in each age group than two hundred years previously, but higher as a proportion of total population. Current widows are however twice as likely to be over 55 and to be heads of households. Further comparisons over time are used to make observations about the relative effectiveness of the parish, kin, and the Welfare State in providing material support.

How Does Decentralisation Affect the Welfare State? Territorial Politics and the Welfare State in the UK and US

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
SCOTT L. GREER
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Central State ◽  
Veto Points ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Welfare State

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.

5. Varieties

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Garland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Welfare Regime ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Developed Country ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Government Involvement ◽  
Welfare State Regimes ◽  
The Welfare State

Every developed country has a distinctive welfare state of its own. Welfare states generally rely on the same basic institutions, but these institutions can operate in different ways. Welfare state programmes are government programmes, but while public authority is necessary to establish, fund, and regulate these programmes, the nature of government involvement varies. Three worlds of welfare have been identified: social democratic; conservative; and liberal. ‘Varieties’ describes the welfare state regimes that developed in Sweden, Germany, and the USA, each of which exemplifies one of these ‘worlds’ of welfare. It goes on to consider briefly the welfare regimes beyond the ‘three worlds’ and how Britain’s welfare regime has changed over time.

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