Making and Breaking Social Capital

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Staffan Kumlin ◽  
Bo Rothstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Since the debate about the importance of social capital and civil society for the quality of democracy began, Scandinavia has caused problems. Observers have been bewildered by an allegedly paradoxical coexistence of a wealth of social capital and extensive welfare-state arrangements. Some theorize that large welfare states make engagement in voluntary associations unnecessary, making the production of social capital more difficult. However, empirical research shows Scandinavia to have comparatively high levels of social capital. To solve this paradox, the authors address how the causal mechanism between variation in the design of welfare-state institutions and social capital works. The empirical analysis, based on Swedish survey data, suggests that the specific design of welfare-state policies matters for the production of social capital. Contacts with universal welfare-state institutions tend to increase social trust, whereas experiences with needs-testing social programs undermine it. The policy implication is that governments, by designing welfare-state institutions, can invest in social capital.

scholarly journals Invited Commentary: Social Cohesion, Depression, and the Role of Welfare States

2019 ◽  
Vol 189 (4) ◽  
pp. 354-357
Author(s):  
Mikael Rostila
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
State Theory ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Neighborhood Disorder ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract In this issue of the Journal, Baranyi et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2019;000(00):000–000) examine the longitudinal associations of perceived neighborhood disorder and social cohesion with depressive symptoms among persons aged 50 years or more in 16 different countries. An important contribution of their article is that they study how neighborhood-level social capital relates to depression in different welfare-state contexts. Although the authors provide empirical evidence for some significant differences between welfare states in the relationship between social capital and depression, they say little about potential explanations. In this commentary, I draw attention to welfare-state theory and how it could provide us with a greater understanding of Baranyi et al.’s findings. I also discuss the potential downsides of grouping countries into welfare regimes. I primarily focus on the associations between social cohesion and depression, as these associations were generally stronger than those for neighborhood disorder and depression. Finally, I provide some suggestions for future research within the field and discuss whether the findings could be used to guide policies aimed at increasing social cohesion and health.

The Changing Shapes of Latin American Welfare States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyne Huber ◽  
Zoila Ponce de León
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Cash Assistance ◽  
The Welfare State

Latin American welfare states have undergone major changes over the past half century. As of 1980, there were only a handful of countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay) with social policy regimes that covered more than half of their population with some kind of safety net to insure adequate care during their old age and that provided adequate healthcare services. With few exceptions, access to social protection and to healthcare in these countries and others was based on formal employment and contributions from employees and employers. There were very few programs, and those few were poorly funded, for those without formal sector jobs and their dependents. The debt crisis and the ensuing neoliberal reforms then damaged the welfare state in all countries, including these leading nations. Deindustrialization, shrinking of the public sector, and cuts in public expenditures reduced both coverage and quality of transfers and services. Poverty and inequality rose, and the welfare state did little to ameliorate these trends. With the turn of the century, the economic and political situation changed significantly. The commodity boom eased fiscal pressures and made resources available for an increase in public social expenditure. Democracy was more consolidated in the region and civil society had recovered from repression. Left-wing parties began to win elections and take advantage of the fiscal room which allowed for the building of redistributive social programs. The most significant innovation has been expansion of coverage to people in the informal sector and to people with insufficient histories of contributions to social insurance schemes. The overwhelming majority of Latin Americans now have the right to some kind of cash assistance at some point in their lives and to healthcare provided by their governments. In many cases, there have also been real improvements in the generosity of cash assistance, particularly in the case of non-contributory pensions, and in the quality of healthcare services. However, the least progress has been made toward equity. With very few exceptions, new non-contributory programs were added to the traditional contributory ones; severe inequalities continue to exist in the quality of services provided through the new and the traditional programs.

‘I am not alone’: Understanding public support for the welfare state

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 768-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klarita Gërxhani ◽  
Ferry Koster
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Subjective Assessment ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
General Belief ◽  
Cross Country

This article explores to what extent and how individuals’ welfare state attitudes relate to their subjective assessment of the available social support. Using various sociological and sociopsychological theories the authors first provide a theoretical analysis of the micro–macro links between perceived social support (micro), social trust in support availability (macro) and public attitudes towards welfare states (micro). An empirical test based on a large cross-country dataset of 31,122 respondents in 25 European countries shows that the more welfare is provided by the state, the less of it is desired in countries where individuals have the general belief that they can rely on each other for support. Importantly, only when considered jointly, do welfare state provision and social trust in support availability become essential in explaining welfare state attitudes.

scholarly journals Typology of welfare states: quality criteria for governance and ecology

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Koziuk ◽  
Oleksandr Dluhopolskyi ◽  
Yurij Hayda ◽  
Oksana Shymanska
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Clustering Methods ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Government Efficiency ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Welfare State

In the 21st century, in addition to the generally well-known indicators of material well-being, in the modern paradigm of the welfare state, the quality of the ecological environment is gaining an ever-increasing role. Besides that, the modern definition of welfare state takes into account not only environmental dimension, but also the quality of institutions through the governance system that affects the supply of environmental goods. The study provides the classification of countries according to indicators that can ensure the identification of welfare states and the assessment of the classification role of the criteria for environmental state.The strong direct correlation between environmental state and government efficiency has been established. The results of the classification of the studied countries obtained by k-means clustering methods indicate the possibility of using the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), Government Effectiveness Index (GEI) and government expenditures indicators as complementary attributes to the classical criteria for the welfare state.The level of country EPI can be regarded as an important complementary criterion for the welfare state. The country environmental state is much more determined by the government efficiency, the quality of state institutions and their activities, rather than by an extensive increase in the funding of such institutions and environmental measures.

scholarly journals Healthcare in the light of the concept of welfare state regimes – comparative analysis of EU member states

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorota Kawiorska
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Key Dimensions ◽  
Welfare State Regimes ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

This  paper  addresses  issues  related to health care in the context of the debate about the typology of welfare state regimes and comparative studies conducted in reference to the debate. Particular attention has been paid to the phenomenon of decommodification as one of the key dimensions that define welfare regimes identified in the literature associated with this debate. The study presents a health decommodification index, on the basis of which an attempt has been made to assess the decommodification potential of health care, taking into account the situation in the 28 EU Member States in 2012. The identification of a widely understood accessibility of publicly funded health care as a basic measure for assessing the decommodifying features of health programs is an important result of the empirical analysis. The study has also confirmed the views expressed in the literature about the existence of practical obstacles standing in the way of developing a universal typology of welfare states.

Redistribution and the Quality of Government: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Bilyana Petrova
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract The welfare state literature has largely ignored the impact of a country's quality of government on its levels of redistribution. Using cross-sectional time-series analysis of twenty-one Central and Eastern European countries, this article shows that environments characterized by higher levels of corruption, rampant bureaucratic inefficiency and ineffective enforcement of the rule of law are associated with lower levels of redistribution. Poor government directly affects the supply side of the redistribution process by hindering countries’ ability to allocate funds to redistribution and deliver them to their beneficiaries. Contrary to existing demand-oriented perspectives, the proposed causal mechanism does not blame lower redistribution on the lack of public support for the welfare state. Rather, it focuses on the capacity of states to adopt and implement inequality-reducing policies. The results are robust to numerous extensions and model specifications.

Social Capital

2019 ◽  
pp. 642-645
Author(s):  
Kenneth Newton
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Democratic Government ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
Intractable Problems ◽  
Social Traps

Social capital, which is built upon trust, social networks, and the coordination of collective action, is said to be the glue binding society together and the lubricant that facilitates frictionless democratic government. General social trust—trust in strangers and people unlike ourselves—helps to breed political trust and vice versa, and together they help to build and maintain democratic government, the norms of civic engagement, and confidence in government institutions. This chapter examines the theoretical and practical problems to be resolved. Do the causal arrows run upwards from individuals to institutions or downwards from institutions to individuals? If the bottom-up approach is accepted, then social engineering must concentrate on raising levels of education and wealth. The top-down approach requires building state institutions that are impartial, corruption-free, and transparent. Either way, the intractable problems of bootstraps and social traps must be solved.

Quality of Government and Welfare State Support

2021 ◽  
pp. 722-736
Author(s):  
Staffan Kumlin
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
State Support ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract: Research on citizens’ support for government redistribution, social protection, and public services (shorthand: welfare state support) has been late to examine quality of government explanations. Slowly but surely in the 2000s, however, scholars have compensated a previous neglect. This literature provides examples of how research on welfare state attitudes is expanding beyond the much-studied rich Western welfare states. In terms of substantive questions, scholars increasingly seek to answer questions such as: Are citizens’ assessments of various “quality of government” aspects positive or negative across space and time? Are assessments multi- or unidimensional? What aspects of quality of government do citizens assess? Are evaluations rooted in relevant information and objective facts? Finally, how do quality of government factors affect normative support for the welfare state and its constituent policies and aspects?

scholarly journals ROLE OF TRUST IN KAZAKHSTAN SOCIETY

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
G.K. Atabayeva ◽  
◽  
G.O. Abdikerova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Structural Element ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Social

Trust is the basis of self-knowledge and the realization of a person in a complex system of social relations. Therefore, it is necessary that all people understand the essence of this phenomenon. The purpose of the study is to reveal the potentials of trust as a social phenomenon, and to substantiate its role in improving the quality of social relations in Kazakhstani society. The main problem is the insufficiently high level of trust among people in the interpersonal and institutional aspects. Problems arise due to the low level of development of civic values, and the emergence of behavioral patterns that do not comply with the social norms of civil society. Trusting relationships between social actors can develop by improving the basic aspects of successful socialization in the process of creating a competitive nation, such as education, healthcare, culture and social Security. The main tasks of the problem under study are directly related to the disclosure of the essence of social trust, its role in harmonizing social and social relations, in improving the social capital of modern Kazakhstan. Studies of foreign and domestic scientists allow us to understand the conceptual foundations of trust, the interaction strategy of social groups, the prospects for the development of civil society, as well as the features and specifics of the social capital of modern societies, models of civil behavior of the population. Trust plays an important role in building a civil society, is its main institution, as well as the main component of social capital and effective social relations. Today, quality information is reflected in the human mind and affects its social behavior. Therefore, great attention must be paid to the quality of the information provided, and their usefulness to citizens. Types of trust are also characterized by the quality of social relations. The study of trust in modern society is primarily due to the need to disclose its potential resources; secondly, the substantiation of its important role as a structural element of interpersonal and institutional social relations of a particular society. The need to reduce poverty growth in society, distrust and social risks are important challenges facing modern societies

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