scholarly journals Corporate Institutions in a Weakened Welfare State: A Rawlsian Perspective

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandrine Blanc ◽  
Ismael Al-Amoudi
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Primary Good ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Face ◽  
Primary Goods ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACT:This paper re-examines the import of Rawls’s theory of justice for private sector institutions in the face of the decline of the welfare state. The argument is based on a Rawlsian conception of justice as the establishment of a basic structure of society that guarantees a fair distribution of primary goods. We propose that the decline of the welfare state witnessed in Western countries over the past forty years prompts a reassessment of the boundaries of the basic structure in order to include additional corporate institutions. A discussion centered on the primary good of self-respect, but extensible to power and prerogatives as well as income and wealth, examines how the legislator should intervene in private sector institutions to counterbalance any unfairness that results from the decline of the welfare state.

scholarly journals Privatizing the Welfare State

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 719-719
Author(s):  
Pamela Herd
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Access To Care ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Women's Issues ◽  
Administrative Burden ◽  
Out Of Pocket Costs ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract The growth of the private sector in the Medicare and Medicaid programs is a sea change, leading many to argue that the old age welfare state is effectively becoming privatized. I examine these trends, but focus on the consequences for how older adults experience their interactions with government. In particular, I examine how privatization increases administrative burden for beneficiaries. Older adults must navigate hundreds of choices, leading to significant confusion. Most fail to pick policies that maximize their benefits and reduce their cost. This confusion harms beneficiaries. They end up with suboptimal coverage, with increased out of pocket costs and decreased access to care. The confusion, however, generates profits for insurers. Part of a symposium sponsored by the Women's Issues Interest Group.

scholarly journals Εθνικές προτεραιότητες και ευρωπαϊκές προκλήσεις στη μεταρρύθμιση του συστήματος κοινωνικής προστασίας και απασχόλησης στην Ελλάδα, 1980-2004

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Θεόδωρος Σακελλαρόπουλος ◽  
Χαράλαμπος Οικονόμου
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Deficits ◽  
Employment Policies ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Welfare State

The reforms of social protection and employment policies that took place in Greece over the past three decades were dictated mainly by domestic priorities and needs. Contrary to international tendencies, social protection reforms in Greece obeyed mainly to the need for expansion of the welfare state in new areas, in order to fill the structural and historical social deficits. Policies and initiatives of European inspiration were succesfull only in so far as they pointed towards a direction of further strengthening of the welfare state

Resilient privatization: the puzzling case of for-profit welfare providers in Sweden

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 745-765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Svallfors ◽  
Anna Tyllström
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
For Profit ◽  
The Face ◽  
Organized Action ◽  
Influence Perceptions ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract In this article, we analyse the striking resilience of for-profit care and service provision in what has often been seen as the archetypical social democratic welfare state: Sweden. We focus on the strategic discursive activities of private companies and their business organizations as they try to influence perceptions, organize actors and facilitate communication to defend profit-making in the welfare sector in the face of increasing conflict and opposition. We argue that taking such organized action into account changes dominant perceptions about the characteristics of the Swedish political economy, and carries important lessons for analyses of changes in the organization of the welfare state in general.

Models of the Welfare State

2021 ◽  
pp. 786-802
Author(s):  
Philip Manow
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
The West ◽  
Welfare Capitalism ◽  
European Model ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Research ◽  
The Welfare State

IN 1990, Gøsta Esping-Andersen published The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, a work which has turned out to be the single most important and decisive contribution to welfare state research in the past thirty to forty years. In essence, Esping-Andersen argued that we can observe systematic variation in the character of the developed welfare states of the West, which he grouped into three distinct welfare state models: a Scandinavian social democratic model, a conservative continental European model, and a liberal Anglo-Saxon model. This chapter provides a short description of Esping-Andersen’s three regimes; introduces a fourth, Southern European model, which will then be described in somewhat more detail; and outlines a historical and genealogical account of the development of all four models. Finally, the chapter briefly expands on the comparative perspective with a short discussion on whether the regime concept or the understanding of distinct welfare models can also be applied to other regions, such as Latin America and Asia.

The Politics of the Welfare State: Canada, Sweden, and the United States

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 748-750
Author(s):  
Linda A. White
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Social Indicators ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Global Integration ◽  
Standards Of Living ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Welfare State

The Politics of the Welfare State: Canada, Sweden, and the United States, Gregg M. Olsen, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. vi, 258This book presents a familiar puzzle in comparative politics: how are we to understand variation in the design and scope of social programs and substantive outcomes for citizens in the three welfare states under scrutiny. As Olsen argues, all three cases are “advanced, industrialized, and highly affluent capitalist nations…. and all three nations enjoy average per capita incomes and standards of living that are among the highest in the world” (10). Yet we find great variation on a number of social indicators such as poverty levels, and income and wealth disparities. All three have also “experienced marked increases in inequality and welfare state retrenchment in recent years” (11) but yet “they continue to differ along these dimensions, even in the face of similar domestic strains and other exogenous pressures related to global integration” (11). The question is how do we account for the variation in the use of social policy to assuage inequalities and respond to these exogenous pressures.

The Crisis of the Welfare State and the Politics of the Past in Black Metal and Folk Metal Subcultures

Young ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-84
Author(s):  
Aila Mustamo
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metal ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Black Metal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Common Enemy ◽  
Critical Discourses ◽  
The Welfare State

Anti-modernism has always been a part of the ideology of black metal and folk metal subcultures. In addition to Christianity, a common enemy in the field of modernity is the ‘social democratic’ welfare state. Although at least black metal can be considered as a counterculture, both black metal and folk metal subgenres reflect widely shared ideas from the mainstream. Based on interview material, this article examines how members of black metal and folk metal subcultures participate in the discussion about the welfare state. It gives voice to individuals rarely heard in music media or in the gatherings of the black metal and folk metal scenes. This article brings forward critical discourses about the apolitical tradition of heavy metal subcultures. It discusses ideologies and representations, and reception of ideas shared in metal communities.

scholarly journals The Origins of the British Welfare State

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-433
Author(s):  
Pat Thane
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Legal Structures ◽  
Precise Quantification ◽  
British State ◽  
The Welfare State

George Boyer’s The Winding Road to the Welfare State, which traces the shift in Britain from the early nineteenth-century Poor Law to the post-1945 welfare state, is strongest and most useful in its analysis of the labor market in relation to poverty and insecurity and in its precise quantification of wages, poverty, insecurity, and public relief. It is much weaker when discussing how politics and public opinion shaped social policies; overlooking important areas of British state welfare, the book focuses upon unemployment and old-age policies. Nor is the book really about “Britain.” Most of the statistics and analyses refer to England and occasionally Wales. Scotland, with its different economic, administrative, and legal structures, though constitutionally in Britain, is barely mentioned. Notwithstanding Boyer’s contributions to the picture of how the British welfare state emerged, his version of Britain’s “winding road” falls short of the descriptions and analyses that many British publications have already provided within the past thirty years.

New private sector providers in the welfare state

2019 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-232
Author(s):  
Martin Powell
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
The Welfare State

scholarly journals Performing ‘us’ and ‘other’: Intersectional analyses of right-wing populist media

2020 ◽  
pp. 136754942098000
Author(s):  
Ov Cristian Norocel ◽  
Tuija Saresma ◽  
Tuuli Lähdesmäki ◽  
Maria Ruotsalainen
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
Race And Sexuality ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Empirical Material ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
The Ideal

Finland and Sweden share the ideal of a Nordic welfare state, with gender equality as a central tenet. In both countries, right-wing populist parties have gained prominence in mainstream politics. Despite similar political agendas at the moment, these parties have different political histories, and different modes of expressing their anti-immigration pleas. In this comparative study, we examine how the distinction between ‘us’ and the ‘other’ is performed intersectionally in terms of gender, social class, ethnicity and ‘race’, and sexuality. For this purpose, we examine empirical material collected from the party newspapers of the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats, because their content most closely reflects the ideological tenets of these parties. The chosen timeline stretches from 2007 until 2014 and entails the qualitative close reading of 16 issues of each newspaper. We evidence the dynamic between the intersectional analysis that fleshes out the reproduction of categories of difference, and the comparative analysis with its interest in temporal change and the resulting convergence between the two parties’ ideologies. We conclude that, although the Finns Party previously had a more pronounced anti-elitist rhetoric and resorted to class-based antagonism as a means to garner electoral support, it subsequently moved closer to the anti-immigration agenda around issues of protecting national identity and the welfare state that has characterised the political platform of the Sweden Democrats over the past decade. This temporal awareness allowed us to document the Sweden Democrats’ ideological consistency over the examined timeframe, emphasising the party’s quest to rebuild the (Swedish) ‘people’s home’ and to exclude the racialised Muslim ‘other’.

scholarly journals State Policies Towards Precarious Work: Employment and Unemployment in Contemporary Portugal

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (S24) ◽  
pp. 263-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Varela
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
State Policies ◽  
The State ◽  
Precarious Work ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
The Third ◽  
Short Overview ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractIn the context of the Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations, in this article, we relate the analysis of precarious work in Portugal to the state, in particular, as a direct participant functioning as both employer and mediator. In the second part, we present a short overview of the evolution of casualization in the context of employment and unemployment in contemporary Portugal (1974–2014). In the third section, we discuss state policies on labour relations, particularly in the context of the welfare state. Finally, we compare this present analysis with Swedish research done from the perspective of the state as a direct participant and mediator over the past four decades.

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