Author : Walter Korpi
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 394 pages
File Size : 41,5 MB
Release : 1998-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780802071712
Rather than simply asserting that all social policies in all capitalist societies exist to maintain capitalism and serve the long-term interests of the capitalist class, PRT examines the nature and impact of social policies and the level and types of social inequality in a variety of advanced capitalist nations.
Author : Adam D. Sheingate
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 47,94 MB
Release : 2021-05-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1400823935
A long-dominant reading of American politics holds that public policy in the United States is easily captured by special interest groups. Countering this view, Adam Sheingate traces the development of government intervention in agriculture from its nineteenth-century origins to contemporary struggles over farm subsidies. His considered conclusion is that American institutions have not given agricultural interest groups any particular advantages in the policy process, in part because opposing lobbies also enjoy access to policymakers. In fact, the high degree of conflict and pluralism maintained by American institutions made possible substantial retrenchment of the agricultural welfare state during the 1980s and 1990s. In Japan and France--two countries with markedly different institutional characters than the United States--powerful agricultural interests and a historically close relationship between farmers, bureaucrats, and politicians continue to preclude a roll-back of farm subsidies. This well-crafted study not only puts a new spin on agricultural policy, but also makes a strong case for the broader claim that the relatively decentralized American political system is actually less prone to capture and rule by subgovernments than the more centralized political systems found in France and Japan. Sheingate's historical, comparative approach also demonstrates, in a widely useful way, how past institutional developments shape current policies and options.
Author : Christopher Pierson
Publisher : Polity
Page : 505 pages
File Size : 24,78 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0745635555
Includes 20 selections, reflecting the thinking and research in welfare state studies, these readings are organized around a series of debates - on welfare regimes, globalization, Europeanization, demographic change and political challenges.
Author : Gosta Esping-Andersen
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 49,48 MB
Release : 2013-05-29
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0745666752
Few discussions in modern social science have occupied as much attention as the changing nature of welfare states in western societies. Gosta Esping-Andersen, one of the most distinguished contributors to current debates on this issue, here provides a new analysis of the character and role of welfare states in the functioning of contemporary advanced western societies. Esping-Andersen distinguishes several major types of welfare state, connecting these with variations in the historical development of different western countries. Current economic processes, the author argues, such as those moving towards a post-industrial order, are not shaped by autonomous market forces but by the nature of states and state differences. Fully informed by comparative materials, this book will have great appeal to everyone working on issues of economic development and post-industrialism. Its audience will include students and academics in sociology, economics and politics.
Author : Stephan Haggard
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 508 pages
File Size : 14,6 MB
Release : 2008-09-14
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780691135960
Comparing the welfare states of Latin America, East Asia and Eastern Europe, the authors trace the origins of social policy in these regions to political changes in the mid-20th century, and show how the legacies of these early choices are influencing welfare reform following democratization and globalization.
Author : Gabriel J. Loiacono
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 45,31 MB
Release : 2021-04-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0197515452
What was American welfare like in George Washington's day? It was expensive, extensive, and run by local governments. Known as "poor relief," it included what we would now call welfare and social work. Unlike other aspects of government, poor relief remained consistent in structure between the establishment of the British colonies in the 1600s and the New Deal of the 1930s. In this book, Gabriel J. Loiacono follows the lives of five people in Rhode Island between the Revolutionary War and 1850: a long-serving overseer of the poor, a Continental Army veteran who was repeatedly banished from town, a nurse who was paid by the government to care for the poor, an unwed mother who cared for the elderly, and a paralyzed young man who attempted to become a Christian missionary from inside of a poorhouse. Of Native, African, and English descent, these five Rhode Islanders utilized poor relief in various ways. Tracing their involvement with these programs, Loiacono explains the importance of welfare through the first few generations of United States history. In Washington's day, poor relief was both generous and controlling. Two centuries ago, Americans paid for--and many relied on--an astonishing governmental system that provided food, housing, and medical care to those in need. This poor relief system also shaped American households and dictated where Americans could live and work. Recent generations have assumed that welfare is a new development in the United States. This book shows how old welfare is in the United States of America through five little-known, but compelling, life stories.
Author : Steven Klein
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 221 pages
File Size : 17,22 MB
Release : 2020-09-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 110847862X
This theoretically innovative book shows how democratic social movements can use the welfare state to challenge domination in society.
Author : Michele Landis Dauber
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 371 pages
File Size : 40,67 MB
Release : 2013
Category : History
ISBN : 0226923487
Drawing on a variety of materials, including newspapers, legal briefs, political speeches, the art and literature of the time, and letters from thousands of ordinary Americans, Dauber shows that while this long history of government disaster relief has faded from our memory today, it was extremely well known to advocates for an expanded role for the national government in the 1930s, including the Social Security Act. Making this connection required framing the Great Depression as a disaster afflicting citizens though no fault of their own. Dauber argues that the disaster paradigm, though successful in defending the New Deal, would ultimately come back to haunt advocates for social welfare. By not making a more radical case for relief, proponents of the New Deal helped create the weak, uniquely American welfare state we have today - one torn between the desire to come to the aid of those suffering and the deeply rooted suspicion that those in need are responsible for their own deprivation.
Author : Richard Lachmann
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 342 pages
File Size : 26,1 MB
Release : 2013-04-26
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0745659012
States over the past 500 years have become the dominant institutions on Earth, exercising vast and varied authority over the economic well-being, health, welfare, and very lives of their citizens. This concise and engaging book explains how power became centralized in states at the expense of the myriad of other polities that had battled one another over previous millennia. Richard Lachmann traces the contested and historically contingent struggles by which subjects began to see themselves as citizens of nations and came to associate their interests and identities with states, and explains why the civil rights and benefits they achieved, and the taxes and military service they in turn rendered to their nations, varied so much. Looking forward, Lachmann examines the future in store for states: will they gain or lose strength as they are buffeted by globalization, terrorism, economic crisis and environmental disaster? This stimulating book offers a comprehensive evaluation of the social science literature that addresses these issues and situates the state at the center of the world history of capitalism, nationalism and democracy. It will be essential reading for scholars and students across the social and political sciences.
Author : Suzanne Mettler
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 172 pages
File Size : 38,22 MB
Release : 2011-08-31
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0226521664
“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler’s provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them? The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens. Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.” In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market. As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry. Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality. Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms—student aid, tax relief, and health care—to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them. She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans. The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work—or even whether they benefit from them. Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process.
