Swedish Austerity: Benefits at Risk

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Eero Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Service Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Working People ◽  
The Right ◽  
Social Service Programs ◽  
The Welfare State

The Swedish welfare state is facing the greatest threat since its inception. Attacks stem from the country's sharp economic downturn since 1989 and the related currency crisis of September 1992. Politicians of the right and left have responded to the economic crisis by initiating cutbacks in social welfare programs and supporting policies that will lead to a massive transfer of income from working people to corporations. The focus on cutting social programs is misplaced. The Swedish economy flourished for decades with the network of social service programs in place; the welfare state cannot be blamed for economic problems that have only recently arisen.

The Rise of Block-Granting as a Tool of Conservative Statecraft

The Forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-247
Author(s):  
Ryan LaRochelle
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Block Grant ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Block Grants ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Political Weapon ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractThis article sheds new light on how conservatism has affected American state development by tracing the history of how block-granting transformed from a bipartisan tool to solve problems of public administration in the 1940s into a mechanism to roll back and decentralize the welfare state that had reached its zenith in the 1960s. By the early 1980s, conservative policymakers had coopted the previously bipartisan tool in their efforts to chip away at the increasingly centralized social welfare system that emerged out of the Great Society. In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan successfully converted numerous categorical grants into a series of block grants, slashing funding for several social safety net programs. Block-granting allows conservative opponents of the postwar welfare state to gradually erode funding and grant more authority to state governments, thus using federalism as a more palatable political weapon to reduce social welfare spending than the full dismantlement of social programs. However, despite a flurry of successes in the early 1980s, block-granting has not proven as successful as conservatives might have hoped, and recent efforts to convert programs such as Medicaid and parts of the Affordable Care Act into block grants have failed. The failure of recent failed block grant efforts highlights the resilience of liberal reforms, even in the face of sustained conservative opposition. However, conservatives still draw upon the tool today in their efforts to erode and retrench social welfare programs. Block-granting has thus transformed from a bipartisan tool to improve bureaucratic effectiveness into a perennial weapon in conservatives’ war on the welfare state.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Klosko
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Security Act ◽  
The Welfare State

With passage of the Social Security Act, in 1935, the American government took on new social welfare functions, which have expanded ever since. The Transformation of American Liberalism explores the arguments American political leaders used to justify and defend social welfare programs since 1935. Students of political theory note the evolution of liberal political theory between its origins and major contemporary theorists who justify the values and social policies of the welfare state. But the transformation of liberalism in American political culture is incomplete. Beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, the arguments of America’s political leaders fall well short of values of equality and human dignity that are often thought to underlie the welfare state. Individualist—“Lockean”—values and beliefs have exerted a continuing hold on America’s leaders, constraining their justificatory arguments. The paradoxical result may be described as continuing attempts to justify new social programs without acknowledging incompatibility between the arguments necessary to do so and individualist assumptions inherent in American political culture. The American welfare state is notably ungenerous in its social welfare programs. To some extent this may be attributed to the shortcomings of public justifications. An important reason for the striking absence of strong and widely recognized arguments for these programs in America’s political culture is that its political leaders did not provide them.

Explaining America and the Welfare State: An Alternative Theory

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary M. Klass
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Empirical Observation ◽  
Service Programs ◽  
Social Service Programs ◽  
Cross National ◽  
The Welfare State

Although research on the welfare state is fundamentally comparative and cross-national, empirical observation of the peculiarities of the American case has structured much of the thinking on the subject. Explaining variations in welfare state policy usually begins with the identification of cross-national variations in the initiation, scope or size of national social service programs such as social security, workman's compensation, unemployment insurance, national medical care and public housing. The coverage of the programs that have been established, the number of programs and the size of the benefits distributed are typically found to be smaller in the United States than in other industrialized democracies. The relative lateness of the United States' adoption of major social welfare programs, along with the low percentage of either Gross National Product or government revenue expended in social service programs, constitutes clear evidence that the welfare state is a function of more than the level of national economic development. To the extent that welfare state research devotes itself to explaining the extreme variations represented by American policy performance, its theory often derives from interpretations made of corresponding peculiarities of American popular ideology, social structure, political institutions and history. As a consequence, explaining the welfare state often depends on how one explains America.

Getting Tough

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julilly Kohler-Hausmann
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
African American ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Penal System ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Social Upheaval ◽  
The U.S

In 1970s America, politicians began “getting tough” on drugs, crime, and welfare. These campaigns helped expand the nation's penal system, discredit welfare programs, and cast blame for the era's social upheaval on racialized deviants that the state was not accountable to serve or represent. This book sheds light on how this unprecedented growth of the penal system and the evisceration of the nation's welfare programs developed hand in hand. The book shows that these historical events were animated by struggles over how to interpret and respond to the inequality and disorder that crested during this period. When social movements and the slowing economy destabilized the U.S. welfare state, politicians reacted by repudiating the commitment to individual rehabilitation that had governed penal and social programs for decades. In its place, they championed strategies of punishment, surveillance, and containment. The architects of these tough strategies insisted they were necessary, given the failure of liberal social programs and the supposed pathological culture within poor African American and Latino communities. This book rejects this explanation and describes how the spectacle of enacting punitive policies convinced many Americans that social investment was counterproductive and the “underclass” could be managed only through coercion and force. Spanning diverse institutions and weaving together the perspectives of opponents, supporters, and targets of punitive policies, the book offers new interpretations of dramatic transformations in the modern American state.

The welfare state criticism of the losers of modernization: How social experiences of resentment shape populist welfare critique

2021 ◽  
pp. 000169932199419
Author(s):  
Arno Van Hootegem ◽  
Koen Abts ◽  
Bart Meuleman
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Social Experiences ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Working People ◽  
Paradoxical Finding ◽  
The Welfare State

This article aims to explain the paradoxical finding that socio-economically vulnerable groups express more economic, moral and social criticism of the welfare state. As these groups generally benefit more from the welfare state and hold more egalitarian world views, their stronger criticism cannot be explained by the traditional frameworks of self-interest and ideology. As an alternative, we highlight the importance of social experiences of resentment as a source of discontent with welfare state performance. Our contribution argues that the dissatisfaction is embedded in a broader welfare populist critique that pits the hard-working people against the deceitful elite and welfare abusers. This welfare populism emerges from experiences of resentment related to the restructuring of group positions in the process of modernization. We differentiate between three types of discontent: economic status insecurity, group relative deprivation and social distrust. By applying structural equation modelling, we test whether resentful experiences mediate the relationship between the social structural position and welfare state criticism. Results indicate that relative deprivation consistently leads to more economic, moral and social criticism. Social distrust, moreover, stimulates a higher level of moral criticism. This study illustrates that resentment is indeed an important element for understanding the paradoxical relationship between social class and welfare state criticism.

scholarly journals Perspectiva bioética del Trastorno por déficit de atención e hiperactividad (TDAH)

Bioderecho.es ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego José García Capilla ◽  
María José Torralba Madrid
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Pharmaceutical Industry ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
The Right ◽  
Siglo Xx ◽  
The Welfare State

La aparición del Estado del bienestar a mitad del siglo XX tuvo consecuencias sanitarias que culminan con el reconocimiento del derecho a la protección de la salud y el deber de asistencia sanitaria del Estado, con una extensión de la medicina a campos desconocidos, medicalizando la vida de las personas. El TDAH es un caso paradigmático, convirtiéndose en una patología psiquiátrica a partir de su inclusión en el DSM-III 1980, con inconsistencias y subjetividad en las clasificaciones. La etiología del trastorno es desconocida, su diagnóstico es subjetivo y dudoso, su tratamiento poco efectivo y con riesgos, incrementando el número de casos diagnosticados y los beneficios de la industria farmacéutica. Desde la Bioética se impone una reflexión sobre los posible daños derivados de la medicalización (no-maleficencia), una prudente actuación de los profesional (beneficencia), respeto al criterio de niños y adolescentes (autonomía) y una perspectiva crítica en relación con el gasto derivado de su diagnóstico (justicia). The emergence of the welfare state in the mid-twentieth century had health consequences that culminated in the recognition of the right to health protection and the duty of health care of the State, with an extension of medicine to unknown fields, medicalizing the life of people. ADHD is a paradigmatic case, becoming a psychiatric pathology due to its inclusion in the DSM-III 1980, with inconsistencies and subjectivity in the classifications. The etiology of the disorder is unknown, its diagnosis is subjective and doubtful, its treatment ineffective and with risks, increasing the number of cases diagnosed and the benefits of the pharmaceutical industry. From the Bioethics a reflection on the possible damages derived from the medicalization (nonmaleficence), a prudent action of the professional (beneficence), respect to the criterion of children and adolescents (autonomy) and a critical perspective in relation to the expense is imposed derived from his diagnosis (justice).

scholarly journals Rethinking Democracy?

2020 ◽  
pp. 237-246
Author(s):  
Leonardo Morlino
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Right To Vote ◽  
The Right ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter addresses two final questions. First, what are the specific and more general perspectives of the democracies we studied in terms of implementation of the two democratic values? The three patterns developed in Chapter 8 cover almost all the existing empirical possibilities in Europe. Moreover, the external challenges faced by democracies in the early twenty-first century directly affect not only the goods to be delivered (possibly a mix of freedoms and equalities) but also resilience and de-consolidation. We can accept action in defence of rights and institutions and the limits of protest lie in the fact that the related actions cannot violate existing laws. A parallel question is how much the repeal of constraints, legal or of another sort, on the incumbent authorities can be pushed. No doubt, interinstitutional accountability is the necessary cornerstone of a working democracy. Second, what could we do to promote a better, doable, reasonable implementation of the two values? The formula of pursuing broader social cooperation would recall neo-corporatist past solutions, today unfeasible, but still appears as the right social recipe that has not yet been overcome. As seen in Chapter 8, we have to restate that there is a close connection between interinstitutional accountability and protection of freedoms, and, although indirectly, of equalities. Among the rights, the most important one in a democracy is the right to vote, which is grounded on other freedoms that concur to form the voter’s own political opinion. The commitment to combat different forms of disinformation needs to continue in order to provide further meaningfulness to the right to vote. Finally, to craft solid majorities in favour of the strengthening of the welfare state beyond the protection of poverty, we do need to promote a European Union able to complement national and European solidarities.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier
Keyword(s):  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Negative Feedback Loop ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do So

Based on recent research, there is probably a negative feedback loop between falling social and political trust and rising political polarization, which this book calls the distrust-divergence hypothesis. The goal of the book, as outlined in the introduction, is to show how liberal institutions can interrupt the feedback loop through policies that increase trust, and that do so in the right way. They do so by recognizing and protecting a range of basic rights that give rise to trust-generating institutions and practices, such as freedom of association, markets, social welfare programs, and democratic governance. Liberal institutions can thereby increase trust, and reduce the destructive aspects of political polarization as a result.

The Transformation of American Liberalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Klosko
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Liberalism ◽  
Social Security Act

With passage of the Social Security Act, in 1935, the American government took on new social welfare functions, which have expanded ever since. As a work of political theory “on the ground,” The Transformation of American Liberalism explores the arguments American political leaders used to justify and defend social welfare programs since the Social Security Act. Students of political theory note the evolution of liberal political theory between its origins and major contemporary theorists who justify the values and social policies of the welfare state. But the transformation of liberalism in American political culture is incomplete. Beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, the arguments of America’s political leaders fall well short of values of equality and human dignity that are often thought to underlie the welfare state. Individualist—“Lockean”—values and beliefs have exerted a continuing hold on America’s leaders, constraining their justificatory arguments. The paradoxical result may be described as continuing attempts to justify new social programs without acknowledging incompatibility between the arguments necessary to do so and individualist assumptions inherent in American political culture. The American welfare state is notably ungenerous in its social welfare programs. To some extent this may be attributed to the shortcomings of public justifications. An important reason for the striking absence of strong and widely recognized arguments for social welfare programs in America’s political culture is that its political leaders did not provide them.

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