Retrenchment in the American Welfare State

Retrenchment in the American Welfare State PDF

Author: Martin Schuldes

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 736

ISBN-13: 3643901534

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The consolidation of public finance has become the most prevalent topic in recent policy discourse in the US. However, the political debate about fiscal "belt-tightening" stretches back to the last decades of the past millennium, induced by deteriorating economic conditions which followed the first oil price shock in the early 1970s. Retrenchment in the American Welfare State investigates to what extent different welfare state programs in the US were affected by cutbacks during the Republican Reagan era, on the one hand, and during the Democratic Clinton era on the other, and to what extent these cutbacks reveal certain "patterns" of retrenchment, and how the measured discrepancies can best be explained. (Series: Studies in North American History, Politics and Society/ Studien zu Geschichte, Politik und Gesellschaft Nordamerikas - Vol. 30)

Dismantling the Welfare State?

Dismantling the Welfare State? PDF

Author: Paul Pierson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1995-09-29

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1316583538

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This book offers a careful examination of the politics of social policy in an era of austerity and conservative governance. Focusing on the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Pierson provides a compelling explanation for the welfare state's durability and for the few occasions where each government was able to achieve significant cutbacks. The programmes of the modern welfare state - the 'policy legacies' of previous governments - generally proved resistant to reform. Hemmed in by the political supports that have developed around mature social programmes, conservative opponents of the welfare state were successful only when they were able to divide the supporters of social programmes, compensate those negatively affected, or hide what they were doing from potential critics. The book will appeal to those interested in the politics of neo-conservatism as well as those concerned about the development of the modern welfare state. It will attract readers in the fields of comparative politics, public policy, and political economy.

Immigration and Welfare State Retrenchment

Immigration and Welfare State Retrenchment PDF

Author: Dennis C. Spies

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0198812906

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This volume analyses the effects of immigration on welfare spending by focusing on the political alignment of voters and the corresponding welfare policies of governments.

The End of the Welfare State?

The End of the Welfare State? PDF

Author: Stefan Svallfors

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-10-12

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1134621213

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Throughout the world, politicians from all the main parties are cutting back on state welfare provision, encouraging people to use the private sector instead and developing increasingly stringent techniques for the surveillance of the poor. Almost all experts agree that we are likely to see further constraints on state welfare in the 21st Century. Gathering together the findings from up-to-date attitude surveys in Europe East and West, the US and Australasia, this revealing book shows that, contrary to the claims of many experts and policy-makers, the welfare state is still highly popular with the citizens of most countries. This evidence will add to controversy in an area of fundamental importance to public policy and to current social science debate.

Immigration and Welfare State Retrenchment

Immigration and Welfare State Retrenchment PDF

Author: Dennis C. Spies

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-03-30

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0192542249

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Is large-scale immigration to Europe incompatible with the continent's generous and encompassing welfare states? Are Europeans willing to share welfare benefits with ethnically different and often less well-off immigrants? Or do they regard the newcomers as undeserving and their claim for welfare rights as unjustified? These questions are at the heart of what has to become known as the 'New Progressive Dilemma' debate — and the predominant answers given to them are rather pessimistic. Pointing to the experiences of the US, where a multi-racial society in combination with a longstanding history of immigration encounters very limited welfare provision, many Europeans fear that the continent's new immigrant-based heterogeneity may push it toward more American levels of redistribution. But are the conflictual US experiences really resembled in the European context? Immigration and Welfare State Retrenchment addresses this question by connecting the New Progressive Dilemma debate with comparative welfare state and party research in order to analyse the role ethnic diversity plays for welfare reforms in the US and Europe. Whereas the combination of racial patterns and party politics had and still has serious consequences for the US welfare system, the general message of the book is that these are not resembled in the Western European context. While many Europeans are very critical of immigration and willing to ban immigrants from welfare benefits, both the institutional design of European welfare programs and the economically divided anti-immigrant movement prevent immigration concerns from translating into actual retrenchment in the core areas of welfare.

The Rise of the Agricultural Welfare State

The Rise of the Agricultural Welfare State PDF

Author: Adam D. Sheingate

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1400823935

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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.

The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State

The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State PDF

Author: Francis G. Castles

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2012-09-06

Total Pages: 908

ISBN-13: 019162828X

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The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State is the authoritative and definitive guide to the contemporary welfare state. In a volume consisting of nearly fifty newly-written chapters, a broad range of the world's leading scholars offer a comprehensive account of everything one needs to know about the modern welfare state. The book is divided into eight sections. It opens with three chapters that evaluate the philosophical case for (and against) the welfare state. Surveys of the welfare state 's history and of the approaches taken to its study are followed by four extended sections, running to some thirty-five chapters in all, which offer a comprehensive and in-depth survey of our current state of knowledge across the whole range of issues that the welfare state embraces. The first of these sections looks at inputs and actors (including the roles of parties, unions, and employers), the impact of gender and religion, patterns of migration and a changing public opinion, the role of international organisations and the impact of globalisation. The next two sections cover policy inputs (in areas such as pensions, health care, disability, care of the elderly, unemployment, and labour market activation) and their outcomes (in terms of inequality and poverty, macroeconomic performance, and retrenchment). The seventh section consists of seven chapters which survey welfare state experience around the globe (and not just within the OECD). Two final chapters consider questions about the global future of the welfare state. The individual chapters of the Handbook are written in an informed but accessible way by leading researchers in their respective fields giving the reader an excellent and truly up-to-date knowledge of the area under discussion. Taken together, they constitute a comprehensive compendium of all that is best in contemporary welfare state research and a unique guide to what is happening now in this most crucial and contested area of social and political development.