scholarly journals Beyond Welfare Reform: Can we Build a Local Welfare State?

2017 ◽  
pp. 611-640
Author(s):  
Frank Munger
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare Reform

What's Globalization Got to Do with It? Economic Interdependence and the Future of European Welfare States

2006 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Hay
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Models ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Usa ◽  
State Regime ◽  
European Welfare States ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractThe appeal to globalization as a non-negotiable external economic constraint plays an increasingly significant role in the linked politics of expectation suppression and welfare reform in contemporary Europe. Yet, although it threatens to become something of a self- fulfilling prophecy, the thesis that globalization entails welfare retrenchment and convergence is empirically suspect. In this paper it is argued that there is little evidence of convergence amongst European social models and that, although common trajectories can be identified, these have tended to be implemented more or less enthusiastically and at different paces to produce, to date, divergent outcomes. Second, I suggest that it is difficult to see globalization as the principal agent determining the path on which European social models are embarked since the empirical evidence points if anything to de-globalization rather than globalization. The implications of this for the future of the welfare state in Europe and for the USA as a model welfare state regime are explored.

Reforming the Welfare State: German and European Experiences and Challenges

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-87
Author(s):  
Bernhard Seliger
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Reform Strategies ◽  
European Development ◽  
Western European ◽  
Special Respect ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Welfare State

The rise of the welfare state has been a characteristic feature of Western European development after the second world war, despite quite different economic models in Western European countries. However, dynamic implications of the welfare state made a reform increasingly necessary. Therefore, since the 1980s the reform of the welfare state has been an important topic for Western European states. This paper describes the development of the welfare state and analyzes possible welfare reform strategies with special respect to the case of Germany. It focuses on the interdependence of political and economic aspects of welfare reform on the national as well as international level.

scholarly journals Contesting the austerity and “welfare reform” narrative of the UK Government

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 639-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Wiggan
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Problem Solution ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Uk Government ◽  
Scottish Government ◽  
The Uk

Purpose The “welfare reform” narrative of successive Conservative-led UK Government emphasises public spending reductions, individual responsibility and strengthening of benefit conditionality. The purpose of this paper is to cast light on how this narrative is challenged and disrupted by the Scottish Government through their articulation of a social democratic welfare state imaginary. Design/methodology/approach The study draws together a decentred governance perspective that emphasises ideational tradition for understanding (re)construction of governance (Bevir, 2013, p. 27) with critical discourse analysis to examine how welfare interpretations/representations are carried into the policy and public arena. The Scottish Government documents are deconstructed to interrogate the ideas and form of their emergent discourse and its relation to the independence referendum and welfare governance reform. Findings Responding to changing socio-economic contexts and welfare governance, the Scottish Government has developed a discourse of modernisation rooted in British and Scandinavian social democratic traditions. Fusing (civic) nationalism with social wage and social investment concepts, they conjure up imaginaries of a prosperous, solidaristic, egalitarian welfare state as a feasible future reality, recuperating “welfare” as a collective endeavour and positioning a maldistribution of power/resources between groups and constituent countries of the UK as the “problem”. Originality/value The paper is of value to those interested in how changes to centralised-hierarchical welfare governance can open new spaces for actors at different levels of government to articulate counter-hegemonic discourses and practices. Its originality lies in the analysis of how the Scottish Government has reworked social democratic traditions to weave together a welfare imaginary that directly contests the problem-solution narrative of successive Conservative-led UK Governments.

scholarly journals Representing Attitudes to Welfare Dependency: Relational Geographies of Welfare

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Pykett
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Public Acceptance ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Welfare Dependency ◽  
Media Images ◽  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
End Times ◽  
The Welfare State

This article outlines the recent circulation of media images and discourse relating to characters pre-figured as ‘welfare dependents’ and reaction to Benefits Street. The article provides a brief overview of sociological analyses of such representations of apparently spiralling ‘cultures of dependency’ and proposes an alternative relational geography approach to understanding existing welfare dynamics. It describes a shift from putative welfare dependency, to dependency on geographically uneven employment opportunities, low-wage dependency and dependency on a new migrant division of labour. It then contrasts this relational geography approach with the increasingly behaviourist overtones of contemporary welfare reform, which began under New Labour and have accelerated under the Coalition government since 2010. Such policies are in part reliant on the aforementioned media images in securing public acceptance. The article concludes by speculating on the apparent importance of Benefits Street in marking the possible ‘end times’ for the welfare state as we knew it.

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