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Bolukbasi, H. Tolga. "From budgetary pressures to welfare state retrenchment? : economic and monetary union and the politics of welfare state reform." Thesis, McGill University, 2006. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=102789.
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This study examines the relationship between economic and monetary integration culminating in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and welfare state trajectories focusing on the cases of Belgium, Italy, and Greece in the 1990s. The conventional wisdom on this relationship expected that EMU would lead to across-the-board downsizing of the European welfare states through imposing macroeconomic austerity in general and budgetary restraint in particular. The study questions the validity of this prediction which is represented by the austerity hypothesis. Based on an analysis of social expenditure data in the run-up to EMU the study reveals that spending levels remained largely stable and therefore that the welfare states of the EMU-candidates largely escaped radical retrenchment. Avoiding significant and systematic expenditure retreat was possible not only in the face of powerful fiscal pressures but also during a period when policymakers had the opportunity to justify even the most draconian measures in the name of achieving EMU membership. Hence the study addresses the following puzzle: How could Europe's welfare states largely avert across-the-board downsizing during the 1990s despite fiscal pressures they faced on the road to EMU? Through an examination of episodes of welfare reform in three critical cases (Belgium, Italy, and Greece) which needed to go through drastic budgetary cutbacks for EMU membership, the study shows that the Maastricht criteria did compel successive governments in these member states to propose radical welfare reforms, vindicating the conventional wisdom's expectations. In episodes of welfare reform, however, governments discovered that their reform capacities were largely limited due to domestic opposition from an alliance of entrenched interests. The convergence period was marred with recurrent mass mobilization of unions against welfare reforms which forced governments to scale back their original ambitions or scrap them altogether. This shows that the expectations of the conventional wisdom that EMU would actually lead to massive retrenchment of Europe's welfare states, however, are not borne out by the evidence on welfare state trajectories in the 1990s.
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Sprick, David Matthew Skidmore Max J. "Puzzling in the administrative (welfare) state devolution and Medicaid waiver reform /." Diss., UMK access, 2004.
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Thesis (Ph. D. )--Dept. of Political Science and School of Business and Public Administration. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2004."A dissertation in political science and public affairs and administration." Advisor: Max J. Skidmore. Typescript. Vita. Title from "catalog record" of the print edition Description based on contents viewed Feb. 28, 2006. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 435-458). Online version of the print edition.
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Boesenecker, Aaron P. "Defining work and welfare the politics of social policy reform in Europe /." Connect to Electronic Thesis (CONTENTdm), 2009. http://worldcat.org/oclc/461265191/viewonline.
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Kwak, Hyokyung. "THREE ESSAYS ON WELFARE POLICIES IN AMERICAN STATES: EXPLAINING AMERICAN WELFARE STATES IN THE POST-WELFARE REFORM ERA." UKnowledge, 2019. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/msppa_etds/33.
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This dissertation consists of three empirical studies that address questions regarding state welfare policy making in the post-welfare reform era. The first empirical study pays close attention to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) as a federal block grant program, which is a big departure from most previous TANF studies, to ask why American states differ in their decisions to allocate federal block grants across specific programs. Drawing on research on fiscal federalism and state and cross-national welfare politics, the study uses cross-sectional time-series data covering 50 states over the fiscal years 2004-2016 to examine factors that have an impact on state child care spending under the TANF block grant. The results show that several political factors and one socio-economic factor impact states’ TANF child care spending in the hypothesized direction. Most importantly, the study finds that a specific state government’s TANF policy designed to encourage work matters in an interesting way. States’ emphasis on work of TANF recipients, measured by the existence of the TANF job-search rule, exerts a positive, independent effect on the percentage of state TANF child care spending, but the positive marginal effect of implementing the job-search rule becomes negative as the percentage of female state legislators passes 28%. The study shed lights on our general understanding of the factors that influence state allocations of federal block grants for an understudied but increasingly important policy program in the American states—child care.
The second empirical study examines whether the selection of indicators of welfare policy commitment makes any difference for the findings in studies of the determinants of state welfare policy. If so, what difference does it make? While scholars of state welfare politics have long been making efforts to find better explanations for variation in welfare policy across American states, the literature as a whole has paid little attention to how differently scholars operationalize state welfare policy even though they examine a variety of welfare policy measures. To address these questions, I estimate a series of different panel data models with different measures of state welfare commitment for the period after the welfare reform of 1996. Comparing the results across these models shows that the choice of dependent variable measures affects the estimation results, thereby suggesting that empirical findings are dependent upon the measure we use. This finding not only shows that scholars need to be cautious in interpreting their results but also opens up a new puzzle as to why a factor affects a particular welfare measure but not others.
The last empirical study addresses the question: do the effects of party politics differ across welfare policies? In answering this question, the study draws on the literature on deservingness and social construction of target populations and hypothesizes that party politics would play a differential role in explaining the generosity of different welfare policies depending on the perceived deservingness of target populations. To test this hypothesis, I estimate three models each for TANF, Supplemental Security Income-State Supplements (SSI-S), and Medicaid generosity covering the period after the welfare reform. I find that party politics still remains as an important predictor of state welfare generosity, especially where welfare policy for the deserving poor and mixed population in terms of its deservingness is concerned. Also, there are differential effects of party politics across the welfare policies examined, but sometimes in an unexpected direction. This study provides a valuable addition to the literature in that it updates and enriches our understanding of welfare politics.
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Armato, Jessica A. "Welfare reform at the state level a study of state waivers during the first three years of the Clinton administration and other developments /." Instructions for remote access. Click here to access this electronic resource. Access available to Kutztown University faculty, staff, and students only, 2000. http://www.kutztown.edu/library/services/remote_access.asp.
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Thesis (M.P.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2000.Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2928. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as preliminary leaves. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-70).
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Edwards, Sarah Elizabeth. "The significance of social enterprises in the reform of the British welfare state." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2003. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/192763/.
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Increasingly, the United Kingdom Government is looking towards the social economy to deliver welfare services. The social economy, and specifically social enterprises, are envisaged by New Labour as having the ability to train and employ those disadvantaged in the labour market; engage individuals and communities in service provision and urban renewal; and, provide a model for future forms of welfare service provision. This research investigates the links between the social enterprise and the welfare reforms initiated by New Labour. In addition, the research considers the implications of an expanded role for social enterprises in welfare from the perspective of social enterprise practitioners. Using a grounded theory research design, and qualitative research methodologies, those running social enterprises in the cities of London and Bristol were interviewed (during the summer of 2001). This data, alongside policy documents, ministerial speeches, newspaper articles, think tank publications, and interviews with policy-makers and advocates for the social enterprise sector, provide the evidence presented here. The research develops a definition of the social enterprise as an organisation that uses a commercial venture as a tool to achieve social change. It is shown that the term 'social enterprise' refers to a diverse range of organisations that differ in legal and organisational structure and social mission, but which are linked by the common purpose of service delivery. The research reveals a subtle but important difference between social enterprise activity, and social enterprise as a business model. In spite of their diversity, it is demonstrated that a typology of social enterprises can be constructed by using the attributes identified by those running such organisations. This typology takes into account a diverse range of attributes that coalesce to form this hybrid social institution, instead of considering their organisational structure or social mission as defining features, as has been the case in the past. Using discourse analysis, social enterprises are shown to be significant within welfare reform because they embody the attributes that advocates for reform wish to promote. Social enterprises are shown to embody the postmodern attributes of'empowerment' and tailored localised service provision, alongside the politically attractive attributes of'enterprise', 'effectiveness', and 'efficiency'. These attributes offer 'challenges' to existing forms of public and third sector welfare provision. Through these challenges, the discourse of social enterprise is instrumental in current changes in welfare, not only in changing the practices of service delivery, but more significantly, in changing the culture and the way in which 'solutions' in welfare are sought. The thesis demonstrates how the notion of social enterprise is intertwined with broader academic debates concerning the scale and scope of the emerging postmodern welfare state, and the social enterprise is shown to be emblematic of those changes in welfare at a theoretical level. At a practical level, the social enterprise appears to be unlikely to have significant impact on the mainstay of the welfare state. However, it is suggested here that policy-makers need to take greater consideration of the 'appropriateness' of applying the social enterprise model in welfare than is the case at present.
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Powell, Scott R. "Shifting the Employment Burden: The Social and Economic Foundations of Welfare State Reform." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1325176807.
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Kearney, Melissa Schettini 1974. "Essays on public policy and consumer choice : applications to welfare reform and state lotteries." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8413.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2002.Includes bibliographical references.
This thesis investigates individual decision-making in response to government policies, in particular, state lotteries and the welfare "family cap." Despite considerable controversy surrounding the use of state lotteries as a means of public finance, little is known about their consumer consequences. Chapter one investigates two central questions about state lotteries and consumer behavior. First, do state lotteries primarily crowd out other forms of gambling, or do they crowd out non-gambling consumption? Second, does consumer demand for lottery games respond to expected returns, as maximizing behavior predicts, or do consumers appear to be misinformed about the risks and returns of lottery gambles? Analyses of multiple sources of micro-level gambling data demonstrate that lottery spending does not substitute for other forms of gambling. Household consumption data suggest that household lottery gambling crowds out approximately $43 per month, or two percent, of other household consumption, with larger proportional reductions among low-income households. Demand for lottery products responds positively to the expected value of the gamble, controlling for other moments of the gamble and product characteristics. This suggests that consumers of lottery products are not misinformed and are perhaps making fully-informed purchases. Chapter two investigates the nature of consumer choice under risk in the context of state lottery betting. Economists have traditionally modeled consumer preferences according to expected utility theory, but a recent body of literature challenges this model.
(cont.) An empirical test of the expected utility hypothesis finds that, in general, it is a reasonable description of observed consumer choices. However, the data offer some evidence in support of non-linear probability weighting in consumer preferences. The second application studied in this thesis is welfare reform. A number of states have recently instituted family cap policies, under which women who conceive a child while receiving cash assistance are not entitled to additional cash benefits. Chapter three investigates how fertility behavior responds to this change in government expenditure policy. The analysis takes advantage of the variation across states in the timing of family cap implementation to determine if these policies are discouraging women from having additional births. The data consistently demonstrate that the family cap does not lead to a reduction in births. This finding of no effect is robust to the incorporation of lead and lag effects, to considering separately total and higher-order births, and to limiting the sample to demographic groups with high welfare propensities.
by Melissa Schettini Kearney.
Ph.D.
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Crafton, William Allen. "The rise of moral reform : consensus politics in the American welfare state, 1977-1988." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.612941.
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Tait, Irvine Wallace. "Voluntarism and the state in British social welfare 1914-1939." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1995. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5065/.
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The New Right's critique of the welfare state has generated considerable interest in the history of alternative forms of welfare provision. Recent work has focused upon the continued existence of voluntarism alongside the growth of twentieth century state welfare. In doing this, it has reacted against the tendency of post-war social welfare writing to concentrate exclusively on the statutory social services. This thesis, therefore, adds to a growing body of writing on inter-war voluntary social action. However, it differs from the work of others by focusing upon the interplay of voluntary and statutory sectors in the face of war, industrial unrest and mass unemployment: in other words the upheavals of the early twentieth century. The main body of the research not only deals with the part played by both sectors in the delivery of social services, but also places voluntarism in a wider social context by exploring its ideological response to working-class assertiveness. Indeed, the belief in a British national community with interests that transcended class or sectional divisions was a common feature in voluntarism's attitude towards the above challenges and their implications for social stability. Thus, by highlighting the class objectives of the middle-class volunteer, this thesis avoids treating voluntary groups as simply the deliverers of social services in partnership with the state. As middle-class organisations operating within civil society, the charities covered in the pages ahead are placed alongside the state and capital in the defence of the existing economic and social order. Differences may have existed amongst charities over the correct mix in the statutory-voluntary welfare mix, but, as this thesis seeks to prove, this should not blind us to voluntarism's commitment to an over riding class interest.
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Coelho, Karen. "Timed Out: Temporal Struggles between the State and the Poor in the Context of U.S. Welfare Reform." University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/110078.
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1999 Dozier Award WinnerWelfare reform, in its attempts to order the lives of women on cash assistance, uses time as a means of controlling women. Single mothers living in poverty experience, perceive and use time in ways that the state welfare bureaucracy fails to recognize and/or refuses to work with. Poverty is anchored in a historical and cyclical dynamic based on low valuations of people's time, structured by race, class and gender. This essay shows how specific temporal sequences, orderings and flows are implicated in the etiology of poverty, forming cumulative feedback loops that challenge the linear trajectory of the welfare-to-work model. It argues that the welfare state bureaucracy practices a powerful politics of time, consisting in the imposition of forms of order and rigid temporal structures on the highly contingent and unpredictable lives of the poor. These temporal devices of control, rather than facilitating women's efforts to move from dependence to self-reliance, only exacerbate their struggles to manage the vagaries and irregularities of time in their lives. Time thus constitutes a locus of struggle in the welfare relationship, between women on welfare and the welfare agency.
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Belfrage, Claes Axel. "The neoliberal restructuring of the welfare state : pension system reform in Sweden : a critical case study." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2008. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/7307/.
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This thesis draws on the 'critical case' of Sweden and focuses on the provision of pensions to assess the extent to which the post-war social democratic regime and adherent meanings and practices in daily life have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. The Swedish economy of the late 1990s, still distinctly social democratic, although retrenched and increasingly 'financialised', was not stable. The 1999 pension reform has further privatised financial risk and hence potentially advanced neoliberalism. By subjecting the ability to consume, in working-life as well as m retirement, to financial market performance, the rate of growth of inequity 1s accelerated. The systemic infrastructure and the knowledge-formation required for this pension system to function as intended as well as be accepted as legitimate seem however to be lacking. The system engineers, following neoliberal ideas, sought to fulfil the objective of institutionalising a mass investment culture in the everyday by promoting the notion of risk as potentially profitable if managed well. Yet, as argued in the thesis, due to their politico-ideological preferences, they underestimated the resilience of existing demographic and geographical cleavages formed by the traumas and desires provoked by economic restructuring and financialisation in the post-war period. By analysing subject-formation in the everyday, the thesis shows that for a finance-led accumulation regime to be stable in Sweden, these cleavages and inadequacies have to be regulated. The new pension system in Sweden thus points to the tendential microfoundational limits of the projects of neoliberalism and financialisation.
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Mattei, Paola. "The modernisation of the welfare state in Italy : dynamic conservatism and health care reform, 1992 to 2003." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2005. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2903/.
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An institutional pattern of administrative inertia and resistance has traditionally characterised the reform of the Italian State. It is widely held that the historical development of the state has contributed to this immobilisme. The effect of the Italian system of party government on bureaucratic autonomy is also blamed for the failure (until recently) of attempts to reform the Italian state. However, definite changes affecting welfare administration in Italy reveal a radical departure from the status quo, as a result of particular reform mechanisms and the strategies of elites in handling blockages during the process of legislative implementation of delegating laws designed to introduce ambitious reform programmes. 'Dynamic conservatism' is the novel theoretical approach elaborated here to study policy change in such stalled administrative systems, and it offers an explanation of how it becomes possible to break historically determined immobilisme. The case of healthcare reforms in Italy in the 1990s has marked an impressive departure from traditional administrative practice. The thesis argues that two key innovations have been accomplished: first, the emergence of public managers charged with extensive policy leadership at the top of regional welfare administration, increasingly legitimised by expertise and technical knowledge rather than political entrepreneurialism; secondly, the reconfiguration of traditional centre- periphery relations, triggered by the territorial disturbance caused by regionalisation. The consolidation of policy change, underpinned by the paradigm of the entrepreneurial state, was most noticeable at regional level. Such change was achieved, however, only by handling beforehand two major blockages: first, the opposition of political parties during the parliamentary process to the reconfiguration of the relationship between politics and administration; secondly, the adversarial response of interest groups to policy change.
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Green, Donna L. "The sustainability of the social democratic welfare state in recessionary periods : a case study of Barbados 1974-1994." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2014. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/72937/.
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This thesis examines the factors and forces which contributed to the continued existence of Barbados’ social democratic welfare development model, despite changes in the global economy which favoured neoliberal policies promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This is achieved through an assessment of three World Bank funded education projects which were negotiated and implemented from 1974 to 1994. During this period the Government of Barbados also entered into three stabilisation programmes and a structural adjustment loan with the International Monetary Fund. These periods create the ideal analytical platform to investigate the impact of, and resistance to, the neoliberal ideology espoused by the World Bank and the IMF on Small Island Developing States. The thesis therefore contributes to the dearth of information on the welfare states in developing countries and highlights the importance of understanding the socio-political history, especially the role of colonialism, when assessing the emergence of social policy and planning in the global South. A thorough investigation of this period (1974 to 1994) was conducted, and the data collected from interviews and public archives disclosed that in times of crisis the social democratic welfare state model is challenged but it is the labour unions who strategically organise themselves to confront what they perceive as a movement away from the core principles of the model. They confront both the local policymakers and the international financial institutions. This study therefore demonstrates that even in difficult times some level of agency can still be expressed. This however, in the case of Barbados, did not happen at the level of the technocrats but from the level of organised labour. The case of the labour movement in Barbados, specifically the teachers’ unions (Barbados Union of Teachers and the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union) demonstrated that at the height of the neoliberal agenda organised labour was and still is significant in determining the direction of state policy.
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Kühner, Stefan. "Welfare state change and its determinants : a critical evaluation of macro-quantitative approaches to model institutional constraints on welfare reform in advanced industrialised democracies (1980-2001)." Thesis, University of York, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.442355.
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Duru, Edward K. "The liberal welfare state and the politics of pension reform : a comparative analysis of Canada and the United Kingdom." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2006. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4351/.
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The provision of state pensions in the advanced countries faces two significant and reinforcing challenges. Demographic change and global economic pressure impact the provision of public pensions by increasing social spending and depending on the method of financing, the base of government’s revenues from which these programmes are funded. Countries belonging to the liberal welfare model, such as the UK and Canada, hold a common view on the primacy of the market and actively adapt measures that keep social benefits modest. Yet the reforms adopted by the UK and Canadian government reveal divergence. This presents a puzzle as the welfare state literature predicts convergence. Canada with its small domestic market and open economy has greater exposure to risks of globalisation than the UK, but it is the UK and not Canada that adopted the more radical reforms. To explain this puzzle, this thesis examines four cases: two different pensions’ schemes in each of the two countries – Canada and the UK. The thesis argues that the concentration of political authority is central to explaining the variation, although not the sole factor.
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Gendera, Sandra Social Policy Research Centre Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences UNSW. "Tansnational Care Space Zentraleuropa. Arbeits- und Lebensbedingungen von irregulär beschäftigten Migrantinnen in der häuslichen Pflege." Awarded by:Universit??t Wien. Fakult??t f??r Sozialwissenschaften, 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/39281.
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Hicks, Timothy Matthew. "Strategic partisan policy-seekers." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:fcaf867b-33d0-4ce8-805d-b8c5253984fd.
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This dissertation begins from a desire to explain situations in which left-wing parties appear to adopt policies that are more typically associated with right-wing thinking. A standard explanation for such behaviour is that relatively weak left-wing parties are drawn to adopt those policies as a way of getting elected — commonly expressed as convergence on the median voter. The puzzle, however, is that this explanation often seems to fall foul of the empirical reality that left-wing parties adopt these policies when they are relatively strong, not weak. The explanation for this advanced here is that parties, seeking to improve outcomes for their constituencies both now and in the future, often operate in political environments which lead them to assign a high probability that today’s policy choices will not survive the predations of government by opposing parties tomorrow. Where this is the case, there is incentive to pursue policies that are less efficient, but which have inbuilt political defence mechanisms: with the main such mechanism focused upon here being the power of organised public sector labour. The effect of partisanship is, therefore, conditioned by expectations about the future political power of parties. Where left-wing parties expect to be weak, they will tend to adopt the highly statist, bureaucratised, nationalised policies that are traditionally associated with the Left as these will tend to embody large amounts of organised labour that will be a counter to future right-wing governments. Where left-wing parties expect to be strong, the costs associated with such policies come to outweigh the benefits, with the result that they do not need to pursue such ‘left-wing’ policies. These ideas are developed heoretically within an institutionalist framework, yielding a synthesis between the historical and rational choice institutionalisms. Empirically, the theoretical framework is applied to the development of welfare states and to the issue of privatisation of state-owned enterprises.
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Hammer, Elisabeth, and August Österle. "Welfare state policy and informal long-term care giving in Austria. Old gender divisions and new stratification processes among women." Institut für Sozialpolitik, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, 2001. http://epub.wu.ac.at/820/1/document.pdf.
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Grönroos, (fd Johansson) Per. "Pension Reform in Continental Europe : A comparative study of pension reform in Germany and France during the years ofausterity 1990-2010." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-159219.
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As demographic and economic contexts have shifted, the need for pension systems to reform has increased. Often, however, these systems have proved difficult to change – especially in continental Europe. Despite this, Germany, by many considered particularly reform resistant, succeeded in reforming its pension system; while France, with its strong executive power, has not. As research has yet to find a consensus on what factors makes welfare retrenchment possible, this field requires more attention. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to analyse the developments of the German and French pension systems, from 1990-2010, and to unearth what factors made successful reform possible in Germany while it failed in France. Using a comparative case study, all major pension reforms in the two countries during the time period, are analysed from four institutionalist perspectives. The results point to three main factors explaining Germany’s successful reform. Firstly, the shock brought on by the reunification of East and West Germany forced politicians to act. France on the other hand, experienced no such shock. Secondly, the subduing of the unions removed the main veto player against reform. In contrast, the French unions, whose political power lies in their ability to call for manifestations and shift public opinion, could not be outflanked. Lastly, the new liberal ideas that permeated German politics around the turn of the century provided a locus for change that was lacking in France. These results suggest the importance of external pressure, veto players and ideational factors to major welfare reform.
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Johansson, Krafve Linus. "Valuation in Welfare Markets : The Rule Books, Whiteboards and Swivel Chairs of Care Choice Reform." Doctoral thesis, Linköpings universitet, Tema teknik och social förändring, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-117896.
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This thesis takes an interest in how values attain a specific meaning in market reforms of welfare provision. The study builds on exploring how values are enacted rather than treating them as universal and stable. The aim of the thesis is to contribute conceptually to the understanding of how market-making activities in the welfare state bureaucracy handle the values at play in welfare reform. The empirical case is the governance of a so-called care choice system in a Swedish county council. The methodology for the study is “shadowing” of public officials working to formulate a so-called rulebook for care centres. The analysis describes how these officials handle a variety of values when designing the rulebook. How they choose to organize their work – the methods used to collect data about care centre performance, what governance tools they employ, how they arrange their work roles, and how they construct the rulebook – leads to value shifts and determines the meaning of values in practice. The officials’ work practice is political in the sense that it actively shapes the values enacted in the care choice reform. Therefore, it is of great importance to spur a broader debate about the organization of such governance practices, while there is a need to problematize simplistic images of what market reforms of welfare entails in practice. The thesis proposes that an “ecological” – i.e. a situated, reflexive, and malleable – approach to handling of contending values may contribute to such debates.Avhandlingen intresserar sig för hur värden får sin praktiska innebörd i marknadsreformer av välfärdstjänster. Studien bygger på att undersöka hur värden blir lokalt iscensatta snarare än att behandla dem som universella och stabila. Syftet med studien är att utveckla begrepp för att förstå hur marknadsskapande styrning av välfärd hanterar de motstridiga värden som står på spel i välfärdsreform. Det empiriska fallet utgörs av styrningen av det s.k. vårdvalet i ett svenskt landsting. Metoden är ”skuggning” av tjänstemän som jobbar med att formulera en s.k. regelbok för vårdcentraler. Analysen beskriver hur dessa tjänstemän arbetar med att hantera olika typer av värden när de konstruerar regelboken. Hur de väljer att organisera sitt arbete – vilka metoder de använder för att samla in data om vårdcentralernas prestationer, vilka verktyg de använder för styrning, hur de ordnar sina arbetsroller, samt hur de konstruerar regelboken – leder till värdeförskjutningar och styr vilka uttryck de olika värdena får i praktiken. Tjänstemännens arbete är politiskt såtillvida att det aktivt formar de värden som får utrymme i vårdvalsreformen. Därför är det av stor vikt att skapa en bredare debatt kring organisering av sådan styrning, samtidigt som det kräver att man problematiserar förenklade bilder av vad marknadsreformer i välfärden betyder i praktiken. Avhandlingen föreslår att ett ”ekologiskt” – dvs. ett situerat, reflexivt och föränderligt – perspektiv på hanteringen av motstridiga värden i marknadsreformer kan bidra till en sådan debatt.
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Reis, Fátima dos. "A REFORMA DO ESTADO BRASILEIRO NO PERÍODO DE 1995 A 2002: reconfiguração da administração e dos serviços públicos e seus reflexos na Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG)." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás, 2011. http://tede2.pucgoias.edu.br:8080/handle/tede/3834.
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This research is dedicated to the study of State reformation in Brazil in the period from 1995 to 2002, carried out from strains on Country adaptation to contemporary capitalism dynamics. It has at aim to understand reorganization of public administration in Brazil inside logics of State Reformation implanted during the studied period. With basis on theoretical and empirical references, are discussed the actions concerned to process of Brazilian public administration reconfiguration and, therefore, of civil service as well as the resources limitations in the period, especially in the Universidade Federal de Goiás ((UFG) - Goias Federal University. The study discusses particularly the actions concerned to administration reform, to civil servants Social Welfare reformation and resources limitations policy to Higher Education federal institutions. First, this research is characterized by an accurate bibliographical revision about the theme, looking for making explicit the socioeconomic and political determinations on the basis of capitalist State reformation, as well as its theoretical references, to understand the economic and ideological foundations of the reforms carried out during that period. In a second moment, the study intended to make clear, by means of documental analysis, how the administration reform, the Social Welfare of civil servants reformation, and the resources limitation policy have reflected over UFG. The data allow to affirm that the implantation of the neoliberal reform of Brazilian State reflected in a significant way over the administration of UFG at the extent that both social Welfare of civil servants and administration reforms as well as the limitation of resources destined to the university have generated a shortage of servants and finances to face the existence of that institution while an important public service answerable for federal public higher education in the State of Goiás, Brazil.
A presente dissertação é voltada para o estudo da reforma do Estado no Brasil no período de 1995 a 2002, desencadeada a partir das pressões de organismos internacionais como Banco Mundial e Fundo Monetário Internacional- FMI, para a adaptação do país à dinâmica do capitalismo contemporâneo. Tem o objetivo de compreender o processo da reorganização da administração pública no Brasil na lógica da reforma do Estado implantada no período. Discute, com base em referências teóricas e empíricas, os reflexos das ações do processo de reconfiguração da administração pública brasileira e, por conseguinte, do serviço público, bem como do contingenciamento de recursos no período de 1995 a 2002, em especial na Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG). Discute, em especial, as ações atinentes à reforma administrativa, à reforma da previdência social do servidor público e ao contingenciamento de recursos para as instituições federais de ensino superior (IFES), no período de 1995 a 2002. A pesquisa caracteriza-se, primeiro, por uma revisão bibliográfica acurada sobre a temática buscando explicitar as determinações socioeconômicas e políticas que fundamentaram o processo de reforma do Estado capitalista, bem como seu referencial teórico, com a compreensão dos fundamentos econômico-ideológicos do processo das reformas realizadas no período estudado, com destaque ao processo de globalização. Em segundo, tenta evidenciar, por meio de análise documental, como a reforma administrativa, a reforma da previdência do setor público e o contingenciamento de recursos se expressaram na Universidade Federal de Goiás. Os dados permitem afirmar que a implantação da reforma neoliberal do Estado brasileiro refletiu-se de maneira significativa na administração da Universidade Federal de Goiás, na medida em que tanto a reforma da previdência dos servidores públicos e a reforma administrativa quanto o contingenciamento dos recursos financeiros a ela destinados geraram um déficit de pessoal e de recursos financeiros para fazer face à própria existência dessa instituição como importante serviço público responsável pelo ensino superior público federal no Estado de Goiás.
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Sweet, Arabia. "The Impact of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 on Black Marriage Rates: A Comparative Case of Mississippi and Michigan." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 2017. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/cauetds/99.
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This study examines the relationship between the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 and black marriage rates at the federal level and in Mississippi and Michigan. This study was based on the premise that the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 negatively influenced black marriage rates over time. A case study analysis approach was used to analyze data gathered on welfare reform for Mississippi, Michigan and the federal level. The researcher found that overall, the goals of welfare reform were largely unmet. The conclusions drawn from the findings suggest that welfare reform failed because the policy was poorly written.
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Carolo, Daniel Fernando da Soledade. "A reforma da previdência social de 1962 na institucionalização do Estado-Providência em Portugal." Master's thesis, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/710.
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Mestrado em Economia e Política SocialEste estudo procurou analisar a importância da Reforma da Previdência Social de 1962, no âmbito do desenvolvimento do esquema da Previdência Social no Estado Novo, e contribuir para a compreensão da institucionalização do Estado-Providência em Portugal. Neste sentido procedeu-se à análise de dois períodos históricos distintos: i) o período anterior à Reforma, justificando a sua necessidade e importância enquanto ruptura com alguns princípios corporativos do esquema da Previdência Social instituída em 1935; ii) o período posterior à Reforma, que inclui as evoluções no período após o 25 de Abril de 1974, indispensável na identificação das continuidades que persistem no modelo actual de Estado-Providência. Em função dos elementos recolhidos, foi possível extrapolar algumas conclusões quanto aos impactos desta reforma e, consequentemente, quanto à sua importância na configuração do actual sistema de Segurança Social e modelo de Estado-Providência em Portugal: 1) ao progresso da Previdência Social correspondeu um reforço da intervenção do Estado no período do Estado Novo, no sentido de uma transformação gradual em Estado-Providência, à semelhança de outros países europeus, em que a Reforma da Previdência Social de 1962 constitui a referência fundamental; 2) O processo de desenvolvimento do sistema português assentou numa lógica complexa de rupturas, mas numa linha de continuidade com modelos anteriores; 3) Defesa de uma perspectiva interpretativa crítica sobre a continuidade do modelo de previdência social corporativa e respectivas limitações, o que revela a ausência e necessidade de uma reforma do sistema.
This study aimed the evaluation of the relevance of the Social Security Reform of 1962 in the development of the Social Welfare scheme during the "Estado Novo" regime, and also contributes to a better understanding of the development of the Welfare State in Portugal. It focus on two distinct historical periods: i) the period prior to the reform, which was claimed as essential to rupture some corporative principles of the social security scheme established in 1935. ii) the after the reform period, with the developments made after the 25th April 1974, crucial to identify continuities still present in the Welfare State model. The research allowed some conclusions concerning the impact of the reform in the present configuration of the Social Security system and the Welfare State model in Portugal: 1) The progress of social security lead to a reinforcement of state intervention during the "Estado Novo" regime, making it quite similar to other European Countries models, being the social security reform the main historical core of the process; 2) The development of the Portuguese system was made trough a complex path of ruptures, also mixed with the continuity of prior models; 3) A critical interpretive analysis of the continuity of the corporatism welfare model and its respective limitations reveals the lack of and the necessity for a reform of the system.
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Borja, Ruena, and Ana Brunes. "A critical look at immigrants who could have been disqualified from supplemental security income as a result of welfare reform." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1998. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1808.
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Rigby, David. "Nascent geographies of austerity : understanding the implications of a (re)new(ed) Welfare-to-Work discourse." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2016. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/21764.
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Following the 2008/9 global financial crisis and ensuing economic uncertainty, the roll out of austerity politics has seen significant welfare retrenchment and a recalibration of the state-citizen relationship which can arguably be characterised by a process of punitive Neoliberalism. Nevertheless, the impacts of austerity politics are proving to be geographically uneven: spatially, there is significant evidence that the northern and western parts of Britain, particularly towns and cities therein, are especially prone to the punitive impacts of neoliberal austerity politics, while socially, some parts of society (e.g. the young, the disabled) find themselves exposed to the worst effects of austerity. Conducted under the period of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat UK Coalition Government (2010-2015) this thesis starts by considering the degree to which punitive austerity policies are economically necessary or driven by political ideology. Alongside this it determines whether austerity politics is a (re)new(ed) approach to welfare provision and the state-citizen relationship. The empirical parts of the thesis examine the tactics and strategies utilised by those conducting (the state), implementing (welfare providers and employers), and recipients (people and employees) of welfare-to-work policies, before considering what adaptations, innovations, co-operation, resistance and coping strategies are being employed by these stakeholders in response to austerity politics. In the final part, I argue that whilst many of the neoliberalised policies devised by the Coalition Government have been a renewal and reinvention of those already in place, this is part of a broader trend which is marked by the emergence of a more punitive Neoliberalism associated with a work-first welfare regime.
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Nyqvist, Anette. "Opening the Orange Envelope : Reform and Responsibility in the Remaking of the Swedish National Pension System." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm : Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-8240.
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Brofferio, Aja. "Reforming Foster Care in California." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2014. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/863.
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The foster care system is responsible for taking care of society’s most vulnerable children and it is important that the system can be reformed as needed to meet the needs of these children. Institutional reform litigation is an ineffective method of improving the child welfare system and should no longer be relied upon. Although widely used institutional reform litigation is not efficient or effective in improving the foster care system. Litigation is unsuccessful in achieving reform because it does not embrace collaboration, cooperation, or communication but instead fosters a hostile environment in which the agencies under court mandate are expected to enact change. In 2006, two new organizations were established in California, the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care and the California Child Welfare Council. Both of these organizations created recommendations for improving foster care. Unlike institutional reform litigation, these two organizations worked collaboratively with various agencies and government branches in order to come up with recommendations that were feasible. These two organizations provide a method of reform that is less myopic and more supportive, allowing for meaningful improvements within California’s foster care system.
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Černá, Pavlína. "Krize a perspektivy sociálního státu." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2009. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-15682.
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The diploma thesis deals with the crisis of the welfare state, which is causing problems in the public finance and deteriorating economic situation in many countries. Compares two groups of similar economic level OECD countries which spend the highest and the lowest social expenditure in percentage of GDP. Observes differences in their economic and demographic situation. The thesis also deals with the causes of the crisis and provides an example of successful economic reform, which significantly reduced growth of the welfare state and started a very successful economic period. The results of the analysis and the example of the reform provide some proposals for the welfare state cisis solution throught liberal way.
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Whorton, Lindsay. "Teachers' unions, education reform, and the irresistible force paradox : a comparative analysis of Finland, Switzerland, and the United States." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:aa30fd6f-9d3a-4522-8273-71bb8ccb9178.
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In education policy, the irresistible force paradox—what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?—resonates with many characterisations of the dynamics of education reform and the role of teachers’ unions in reform processes. According to many theories of teachers’ unions in the United States, the paradox is resolved in favour of the immovable object: strong teachers’ unions are alleged to block necessary reforms, hampering school effectiveness and efficiency. This research tests these claims about teachers’ unions, and their impact on reform outcomes—particularly, performance-related pay. Despite teachers’ unions’ supposed opposition to performance-related pay (PRP), there are a number of cases—both within and beyond U.S. borders—where PRP has been implemented. By exploring some of these ‘exceptional’ cases, this research outlines the conditions under which reform is likely to occur, and a more specific explanation of reform ‘failure’. It finds that, though education reform is often portrayed as a power struggle between reform proponents and opponents, there are multiple pathways through which reform may occur. Overpowering unions might be one route, but reform can also be secured through cooperation and compromise. These insights have significant implications for theories of teachers’ unions’ strength, preferences, and policy impact. The findings demonstrate that the insufficiency of existing theoretical accounts. Neither union preferences nor power are simple, monolithic, or predictable, and teachers’ unions do not and cannot block reform at all times and in all places. Beyond theory, these findings carry weighty implications for practitioners regarding the role of unions in public policy decision-making.
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Singh, Hena. "The quest for gender equality & gender justice in India : interrogating the role of the state, from independence to the era of neoliberal reform." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2018. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/8699/.
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This research investigates the varying ways in which two different groups of women workers have been impacted by the neoliberal reforms undertaken by successive Indian governments from the 1990s onwards. The point of departure, substantiated by extant research, is that globalization has been structurally disadvantageous to women, specifically the 'rolling back' of the state has meant that some of the significant gains achieved by and for women in the post-independence period in India have also been 'rolled back' or are being eroded. However, the ways in which women have been impacted by neoliberal globalization in the Indian context varies according to a range of factors including class, occupation, levels of education and specific skills and location (urban or rural). A central contention of the thesis is that the Indian state has played a crucial role in improving the status of Indian women and must continue to make strategic interventions in social and economic relations to ameliorate gender disadvantage and empower women. To that end it also interrogates the role of the Indian state in the quest of gender equality and gender justice in the period from independence up-to the era of neoliberal reforms. The thesis accepts the point that in the context of globalization, the state can no longer be considered a wholly autonomous actor and yet, it remains the major institution charged with the delivery of welfare and social justice to its citizens. As such, the thesis concludes with recommendations for a strategy for empowerment which is both 'top down' and 'bottom-up'; meaning that the delivery of development and social welfare, justice to women specifically necessarily entails negotiating and mediating between 'global' forces (specifically international economic organizations and development agencies) and the needs and demands of citizens as they are articulated at regional and local levels.
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Tivayanond, Prapaporn. "Developmental welfare in Thailand after the 1997 Asian financial crisis." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:031d2eb3-84ba-4687-9e9f-a0fc7bbb985a.
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This thesis explores continuity and change in the developmental welfare approach in Thailand following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It examines both the exogenous and endogenous forces that generated change as well as both the ‘process’ and the ‘content’ of transformation or responses to the crisis. It uses the One Tambon One Product (OTOP) policy as a case study to explore these changes. The principle research question is: To what extent did the post 1997 crisis policy on social protection in Thailand represent a shift from its existing institutional path of developmental welfarism? Extending from this overarching question are subsidiary questions, which guided the thesis. They include: To what extent did the OTOP policy address the social protection gaps that became apparent in the Asian financial crisis? To what extent did the OTOP policy benefit its target population? The thesis uses historical institutionalism (HI) and the role of ideas as the analytic frameworks in analyzing change. The thesis argues that the exogenous shock of the 1997 financial crisis contributed to some departure from the institutional path of developmental welfarism in Thailand. However, the change did not follow the conventional punctuated equilibrium (PE) model under the HI framework in the sense of moving from one equilibrium to another after an exogenous shock. Rather, the radical change that took place after the exogenous shock was gradual. The new set of institutional arrangement prompted significant ideational and institutional transformations. They involved both intended and unintended consequences of incremental shifts in the forms of ‘layering’ ‘drift’ and ‘conversion’ (Streeck and Thelen, 2005). In addition, the thesis argues that the transformation in Thailand after the 1997 financial crisis lies in an intermediate order of change that is found between shifts in policy instrument and a wholesale ‘paradigm shift’ (Hall, 1993). Here, apart from having introduced a new policy such as OTOP, the Thai government engaged in a broader rethinking of Thailand’s developmental welfare path. Moreover, the study finds that the structure of economic development in a developing country context can both promote and impede social protection, rather than only subordinate the latter. The claim is based on the finding that the expansion of economic policy goals in Thailand supported local development and increasing inclusiveness of the informal sector after the 1997 financial crisis. Finally, the thesis argues that social protection delivery or lack thereof reflects contestation of ideas as well as material interests. Both the state and the policy beneficiaries in the OTOP context pushed for their interests when there were gaps between policy formulation and implementation. As a result, changes occurred both in the policy goals and in who benefited from OTOP.
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Ovseiko, Pavel Victor. "The politics of health care reform in Central and Eastern Europe : the case of the Czech Republic." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d8f1c4d3-9dda-4a2b-94d1-5afcb0cf5c87.
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This thesis examines the political process of health care reform between 1989 and 1998 in the most advanced sizable political economy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) – the Czech Republic. Its aim is to explain the political process bringing about post-Communist health policy change and stimulate new debates on welfare state transformation in CEE. The thesis challenges the conventional view that post-Communist health care reform in CEE was designed and implemented to improve the health status of the people, as desired by the people themselves. I suggest that this is a dangerous over-rationalisation, and argue that post-Communist health care reform in the Czech Republic was the by-product of haphazard democratic political struggle between emerging elites for power and economic resources. The thesis employs the analytical narrative method to describe and analyse the actors, institutions, ideas and history behind the health policy change. The analysis is informed by welfare state theory, elite theory, interest group politics theory, the assumptions of methodological individualism and rational choice theory, and Schumpeter’s doctrine of democracy. Its focus is on the interests of health policy actors and how they interacted within an unhinged, but fast-consolidating, institutional framework. The results demonstrate that, while historical legacies and liberal ideas featured prominently in the rhetoric accompanying health policy change, in Realpolitik, these were merely the disposable, instrumental devices of opportunistic, self-interested elites. The resultant explanation of health policy change stresses the primacy of agency over structure and formulates four important mechanisms of health policy change: opportunism, tinkering, enterprise, and elitism. In conclusion, the relevance of major welfare state theories to the given case is assessed and implications for welfare state research in CEE are drawn.
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Jeannet, Anne-Marie. "Immigration and public opinion in Europe : the case of the 2004 enlargement." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:acb77b39-d90d-427b-afa6-bfe6a406a8e3.
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After the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, large numbers of Central and Eastern Europeans moved to work in Western Europe. The aim of this thesis is to use the case of migration after the enlargement to further our understanding of the relationship between immigrant group size and natives’ attitudes. Recent scholarly debates raise questions about how immigration affects European societies and the political durability of European welfare states. This research puts forward two questions: Does an increase in Eastern European immigration after the enlargement explain differences in civic attitudes in Western Europe? And second, does this relationship (if any) depend on national contextual factors? The relationship between immigration and three categories of public attitudes are examined: attitudes towards immigration, attitudes towards welfare and attitudes of trust. This thesis draws on ethnic competition theory, which postulates that group competition over resources provokes the natives to perceive immigration as a threat to their own or their group’s interests. To test this theory, this study uses data from the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2010 to build multi-level pooled time series models. The results find only partial support for ethnic competition theory. When a greater proportion of E-8 migrants live in the country, individuals tend to have more positive views about immigration. The results also show that this positive relationship is weakened when national economic conditions are more precarious. Additionally, the results do not find that E8 migration is negatively related to Western European attitudes regarding trust or welfare. This implies that as more immigrants arrive, Europeans can potentially acknowledge immigration’s economic and cultural benefits. Moreover, these results challenge pessimistic scholarly predictions that immigration erodes trust and support for welfare in Europe. This thesis offers two academic contributions. First, it considers the case of E8 migration, which has been ignored by existing comparative attitudinal studies about immigration. Second, focusing on post-enlargement migration helps this thesis to overcome common empirical obstacles such as cross-country differences in immigrant composition and admission criteria.
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Gomez, Angela. "Charitable Choice in Florida: The Politics, Ethics and Implications of Social Policy." Scholar Commons, 2003. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1375.
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This dissertation research is a study of the anthropology of policy with welfare reform in general and charitable choice in particular as its focus. The study begins with the notion that policies work as instruments of governance and consequently have social and political implications. These policies are examined by exploring the manner in which Catholic Charities and policy makers in Florida are responding to the charitable choice mandate and how their views are shaping local policies.
The study is framed within anthropological principles pertaining to economic, humanistic and philosophical tenets. The study provides a historical background of poverty, the development of the welfare state in the United States as well as some of the social, economic, and political factors that shape social policies.
Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives from Catholic Charities, government agencies, legislative committees, and faith-based organizations, and through document reviews. Data were analyzed qualitatively and were managed using the software Atlas.ti. Analysis of the data show that while there is increased convergence between the state and faith-based organizations (FBOs), there is some hesitancy on the part of religious organizations to assume full responsibility for the poor, particularly without having any funding guarantees. The data also suggests that through the implementation of charitable choice religious organizations face the risk of becoming highly dependent on the state and therefore loose their voice and the possibility of lobbying for the poor. Furthermore, the data suggests that there are some aspects of the implementation of charitable choice that have not received congressional approval and may eventually jeopardize the entire faith-based initiative.
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Dawson, Walter. "The CLASS act and long-term care policy : the politics of long-term care financing reform in the United States." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:fa5269a1-8ce2-4105-b643-f9c2fffb23d8.
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This thesis seeks to contribute to the knowledge base about social policy in the United States, using long-term care (LTC) financing policy reform as an illustrative example. Specifically, this thesis explores LTC financing reform efforts during three U.S. Presidential administrations: Bill Clinton (1993-2001), George W. Bush (2001-2009), and Barack Obama (2009-2010). Within this historical framework, the LTC provisions of the Health Security Act of 1993, the development of the Community Living Assistant Services and Supports or 'CLASS' Act during the Bush Administration, and the legislative success of the CLASS Act as a part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 provide comparable cases to compare the drivers of social policy. Drawing on the explanatory frameworks of the welfare state such as ideology, historical institutionalism, and an actor-centered approach to policy analysis, this thesis argues that successful path-departing legislation is difficult to achieve due, in part, to the presumed high costs of social programs and the complex institutional framework of the American political system. Policy outcomes result from the interaction between the complex processes and dynamics of the political system through which policy change (or the failure to change) actually occurs. The fact that the CLASS Act was politically successful, yet administratively inoperable as designed, reinforces the argument that social policy outcomes in the United States are reflective of a complex, enduring struggle of competing ideologies. This continual struggle, coupled with a heightened concern over cost control and fiscal austerity, helps to ensure that policies which are legislatively successful within the institutional architecture of the American political system are unlikely to produce major expansions of the welfare state. Social change is therefore highly difficult to achieve, even in the face of significant unmet social needs. Comprehensive reform of U.S. LTC financing arrangements will remain an elusive goal for the foreseeable future. Instead, incremental, highly pro-market solutions are likely to be the types of policies promoted in the years of ahead.
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Tortola, Pier Domenico. "Federalism, the state and the city : explaining urban policy institutions in the United States and in the European Union." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c7fc59b8-474d-45db-b5ae-e1c95f2e44fc.
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This thesis contributes to the growing EU-US literature by comparing and explaining the evolution of urban policy in these two federal systems. The thesis begins with a puzzle: after introducing two similar and equally short-lived regeneration schemes—Model Cities (MC) (1967) and URBAN (1994)—the US and the EU followed different paths: the former replaced MC with the durable Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) in 1974, while the latter ended urban policy by ‘mainstreaming’ URBAN in its regional policy in 2006. To solve the puzzle I formulate a two-part argument: first, I explain the similarities between MC and URBAN as resulting from three factors: a favourable political context, holistic urban policy ideas, and centre-periphery mistrust. I then explain subsequent trajectories by looking at the interplay of policy and politico-constitutional institutions. While both MC and URBAN were unable to ‘stick’ because of their inherent weaknesses, the result of their demise depended on the existence of a federal ‘city welfare’ state. In the US, the Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) embodied this state, and channelled Nixon’s attacks on MC into the creation of the structurally stronger CDBG. In the EU, conversely, DG Regio could not provide a comparable anchor for urban policy: when URBAN was attacked by regions and cities, the DG just reverted to its ‘business as usual’ by mainstreaming the programme. I test my argument with a macro-historical comparison of the two cases and four in-depth city studies—Arlington, VA and Baltimore, MD on the US side, and Bristol, UK and Pescara, Italy on the EU side—aimed at analysing micro-level institutional dynamics. In both parts of the study I use a wide range of sources: secondary and grey literature, statistical sources and, especially, archival material and elite interviews. At both levels of analysis the test confirms my argument.
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Naczyk, Marek P. "The financial industry and pension privatization in Europe : shareholder capitalism triumphant?" Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c867023b-1b9a-41c9-8e46-6d4ac835cc61.
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The thesis examines the political dynamics behind the contemporary trend towards pension privatization in Europe. Its aim is to develop a theoretical model that can explain not only why governments have increasingly replaced their public pay-as-you-go systems with private fully-funded schemes, but also why there is considerable diversity both in the extent and in the content of pension privatization. Private pension funds can indeed be governed by a variety of institutional arrangements and can have very different types of links with the financial system. They do not necessarily contribute to a financialization of the economy. The thesis takes issue with the idea that pension privatization would be primarily the result of a new pensions orthodoxy promoted by international organizations such as the World Bank or of an electoral strategy that consists in attracting the votes of the middle class. I argue that the driving force behind the more or less dramatic rise of funded pensions in Europe is a series of lobbying campaigns launched by the financial industry, and their varying influence. Financial firms have a vested interest in the development of a market in private pensions, which should profit them as an industry. However, pension reform is an issue that matters to voters and can therefore prove dangerous for party politicians. Moreover, it involves complex changes that directly affect key material interests of employers and workers. In this context, the success of financial firms’ campaign for pension privatization depends on their capacity to forge alliances with a variety of actors. This in turn contributes to limit the influence financiers can exert. The argument is tested using a comparative historical analysis of pension debates in the United Kingdom, France and Poland since the beginning of the 1980s.
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Meng, Ke. "Political institutions, skill formation, and pension policy : the political-economic logic of China's pension system." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4fd792f6-3b4a-46e0-9566-582de50e7106.
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A central theme in the comparative political economy of the welfare state is the complementaries between political institutions, social policy, and labour markets. Yet little has been written to uncover this political-economic nexus in China, the world’s second largest economy. This thesis partly addresses this gap by studying the country’s public pension arrangement, the most expensive component of the Chinese welfare state. It reveals the working of the political-economic nexus in contemporary China by showing how it leads to two puzzling characteristics of the Chinese pension system, namely the rapid expansion in the absence of electoral pressures and the persistent regional fragmentation despite an authoritarian central government. It argues that the decentralised authoritarianism, in which China’s authoritarian central state delegates to regional governments and motivates them to achieve its developmental goals, drives municipal authorities to compete with each other in generating economic growth. In the inter-municipal economic competition, local leaders adopt an expansionary yet localising pension policy. This facilitates the formation of specific industrial skills, which are productive for particular local industries, and the retention of skilled industrial workers. All of this is important to local economic development in a context of industrial upgrading and labour market tightening. It is argued this is the political-economic logic of China’s pension system.
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Gerwel, Heinrich John. "The effects of labour policies in the Piedmont Region of Italy on equity in the labour market: reflections on women in Labour." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/2122.
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Magister Economicae - MEconThe study concentrates on a particular type of state intervention in social policy. It considers whether policy reforms and subsequent provision of information with regards to the issue of parental leave and part-time work arrangements, makes an impact on gender equity in the labour market (Del Boca, 2002; Naldini & Saraceno, 2008). Giddens' theory of structuration is the conceptual framework from which this study approaches these questions. It is thus held that agents (in this instance, women) are constrained by structures (labour policy framework and institutionalised labour practices) to achieve specific social goals. And further: that the apparent lack of power on the part of agents requires intervention on the part of the state apparatus to correct the failure (or inability) of the labour market to deliver the social justice as aspired to in the cited European Employment Strategy, as well as fostering economic efficiency (Barr, 1992). I further contend that not only are agents constrained by structural properties, but that institutional reform (in the form of labour policy reform) is constrained by the human action1 of the management of firms and enterprises as economic agents within the policy framework.
South Africa
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Park, Seung-Min. "An ageing population in a family and welfare state : the dynamics of family support and public pension systems, and their impact on late-life happiness in contemporary South Korea." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:041dae1e-8b4b-4ca6-9743-2a42b655e5bc.
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The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the dynamics of family support and public pension systems, and their impact on late-life happiness in contemporary South Korea. For this, three specific research questions, namely (1) the dynamics of intergenerational solidarity, public pension systems, and happiness; (2) the association between intergenerational solidarity and happiness; and (3) the association between public pension systems and happiness, are analysed by exploiting the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing. The analyses show that (1) the structural solidarity of older people is relatively stronger than of middle-aged people; (2) contacting is the key player in associational solidarity in later life; (3) middle-aged people supply more financial aid to their adult children than they receive from them, but the reverse applies to older people. Both middle-aged and older people actively exchange food, household items, and health-care supplies; (4) more older men receive the National Pension Scheme benefit than older women but the reverse is true for the Basic Old-Age Pension benefit; (5) the level of happiness in later life is very high but decreases as people age; (6) the number of adult children, frequency of contact, and amount of financial support are positively associated with the happiness of older people; and (7) the National Pension Scheme is positively associated with the happiness of older men while the Basic Old-Age Pension is negatively associated with the happiness of older people. The results suggest some policy implications for late-life happiness in contemporary South Korea. At the individual level, increased frequency of contact, availability of the children, and the amount of financial support can enhance late-life happiness. At the governmental level, the research suggests that the gendered structure of the National Pension Scheme and means-tested structure of the Basic Old-Age Pension should be reformed.
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Ahmed, Shamila Kouser. "The impact of the 'war on terror' on Birmingham's Pakistani/Kashmiri Muslims' perceptions of the state, the police and Islamic identities." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3635/.
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This thesis explores British Muslims’ counter discourse to the ‘war on terror’ through revealing the impact of the dominant ‘war on terror’ discourse created by the state. The research explores the counter discourse through investigating the impact of the ‘war on terror’ on Birmingham’s Pakistani / Kashmiri Muslims’ perceptions of the state, the police and Islamic identities before the ‘war on terror’ and since the ‘war on terror’. The theoretical perspectives of cosmopolitanism and citizenship are used as a foundation from which the ‘war on terror’ and the role of the state and the police in the ‘war on terror’ can be deconstructed, critiqued and reconstructed according to Muslim citizens’ perceptions. In particular attention is paid to the challenges and difficulties the 32 respondents interviewed for the research have faced since the ‘war on terror’. Many themes emerged through this framework and the core themes were injustice, legitimacy and human rights. The impact of the ‘war on terror’ showed the battle for Islamic identity construction versus resistance and the negative impact of regulatory discourses on perceptions of commonality, unity and shared identities.
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Juřenčáková, Michaela. "Komparativní analýza modelů financování zdravotní péče v České republice a Holandsku." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2014. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-193188.
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The thesis is focused on health care funding in Czech Republic. Comparative analysis confront current Czech health care system with effective one used in Netherlands. First part explains importance of health care activities in welfare state as a public interest priority that influence national economy. Second part presents positive and negative aspects of each type of health care system used abroad. Summary of all these fund sources, type of compensations and health care providers characteristics shapes a hypotetical effective system that can be implemented into a practice of universal health insurance system with detailed considaration of historical, political, legal and social aspects of Czech Republic. According to all these analysis I aim to recommend healt care system improvements that would enhance health care quality.
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Hutchinson, Sarah J. "Informal carers' attitudes to pensions and retirement savings." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0c41358b-3c83-4f65-9ce6-53f7cc5f370e.
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Concerns about population ageing have been central to reforms of pensions policy and social care policy in the UK over recent decades. However, policy responses to these social problems are in tension, as individuals have been expected to take greater responsibility for both pension saving and provision of care, even when care involves a reduction in earnings and savings. While the pension system protects carers’ state pensions, little attention has been paid to their non-state pensions. This thesis therefore explores the attitudes and beliefs carers hold regarding pensions, and the effect of caring on pensions planning, particularly planning a non-state pension. It focuses on the assumptions made about agency and decision-making contained within social policy. Semi-structured interviews were held with those aged 35-64 who were providing 20 hours of care or more a week in the Thames Valley and Greater London. Almost all of the carers reported disruption to their private pension savings as their employment was impacted by caring. Few felt able to make a choice regarding either caring or employment. Caring also affected the importance many attached to saving, although there was no uniform effect on decision-making. Some carers became more reflexive, attempting to take more control in response to the uncertainty in their lives; others felt powerless due to this uncertainty and limited financial resources. The study provided support for the theory of an ethic of care, which suggests individuals make decisions based on relationships rather than calculations of expected outcomes. The findings challenge the assumptions made in pensions policy. Carers were classed in four categories of approach to pensions savings: reflexive planners, non-reflexive planners, reflexive non-planners and non-reflexive non-planners. A range of financial and social resources corresponding to Bourdieu’s habitus and economic and cultural capital was required for carers to act as reflexive planners.
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Amat, Francesc. "Redistribution in parliamentary democracies : the role of second-dimensional identity politics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7dad5a35-916a-444a-baa3-68d1e23f9bcc.
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In this dissertation I explore the redistributive effects of second-dimensional identity politics in parliamentary democracies. Specifically, I focus on parties’ electoral incentives to manipulate the salience of the territorial-identity cleavage. My main argument is that a greater electoral salience of the second dimension distorts the nature of redistributive outcomes. Although the redistributive effects of second dimensions of political competition have been explored in majoritarian democracies, much less is known about their effects in democracies with proportional representation (PR). The dissertation brings “bad news” in that regard: when the territorial second dimension is salient, it is no longer true that parliamentary democracies with proportional electoral systems redistribute more –which is the prevalent view in the existing literature. In fact, the so called “left-bias” of PR systems vanishes when the territorial-identity cleavage is politically activated. This key insight therefore offers a fundamental qualification to the institutionalism literature, by making an effort to understand the way in which regional diversity interacts with institutions through multidimensional political competition. The dissertation is divided in two parts: one theoretical and one empirical. First, I develop a formal model that illustrates the way in which parties’ second-dimension electoral incentives affect both the electoral stage and the subsequent post-electoral coalition bargaining among parties in national parliaments. The reason is that both right-wing and regionalist parties have incentives to increase the salience of the second dimension at the electoral stage to attract voters, and subsequently the coalition bargaining among parties in parliaments offers new opportunities for legislative coalitions. In the second part of the dissertation, I test the empirical implications at the macro-level, the meso-level and the individual-level. The main empirical results can be summarised as follows. First, I present empirical evidence according to which the legislative salience of the second dimension induces a negative effect on redistribution and a positive effect on the regionalisation of public policy. Second, I provide evidence which shows that both right-wing and regionalist parties strategically increase the electoral salience of the second dimension when they are “losers” on the first dimension. Finally, I illustrate the way in which the salience of the second dimension affects the formation of individual preferences for redistribution. In sum, this dissertation provides new arguments and empirical evidence that demonstrates how second dimensional politics can have profound redistributive consequences in parliamentary democracies.
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Leathers, David M. "Against the Grain: The IMF, Bread Riots, and Altered State Development in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2015. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1200.
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Since the end of World War II, and especially over the past three decades, there has been a dramatic increase of interactions between international financial institutions (IFIs) and states. This paper will explore these interactions by examining the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This paper rests on the assumption that the complex implications of these interactions are not yet comprehensively understood and will move towards that goal by setting forth a collection of new approaches to further understand IFI-state interaction. It will discuss Jordan’s economic and political history, structural adjustment policies implemented by the IMF, and responses and consequences of such policy on economic, cultural, and political dimensions. Then, theories on sovereignty, identity, nationalism and colonialism will be applied to Jordan-IMF interaction in order to suggest new ways of understanding the implications of IFI-state interaction.
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郭文山 and Man-shan Kwok. "Welfare in Chinese state enterprises: managerial and employee response to state-mandated reforms." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1997. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31214198.
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Kwok, Man-shan. "Welfare in Chinese state enterprises : managerial and employee response to state-mandated reforms /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1997. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B18696405.
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Lee, Soohyun. "The transformation of East Asian welfare states : the politics of welfare reform in South Korea." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6975fb9b-3ea0-4d9e-b437-552d21a74572.
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East Asian welfare states have experienced major reforms in the last two decades, raising the question as to whether these welfare reforms signify a fundamental departure from the East Asian welfare model, or merely an adaptation of the model to socioeconomic changes. Overshadowed by the state-driven policy-making model with a strong functionalist bias focusing on socio-economic drivers, the existing East Asian welfare state literature has overlooked the fundamental political change brought by the dual transition (i.e., democratisation and economic liberalisation), which have led to the emergence of pluralistic societies. In order to fill this gap in the literature, this thesis investigates the political underpinnings of welfare reforms in Korea with special attention to societal actors, (notably trade unions, employers’ associations, and political parties) whose role feature prominently in the comparative welfare state literature, are still largely neglected in East Asian welfare state research. Bringing these actors into the analysis, the thesis examines how the rise of societal actors has changed Korean welfare politics by constraining policy autonomy of the state in the domains of employment protection, unemployment protection, and work/family reconciliation policies. To this end, the thesis engages in analysing policy documents and in-depth elite interviews with senior government officials as well as high-profile representatives of employers associations, trade unions and parties. The thesis argues that the politics of the Korean welfare state has undergone a three step transformation process in the post-transition period. The developmental alliance could no longer function as the sole driving force of welfare state development during the first civilian government (1993-1998), when organised labour exercised its newly acquired status of a veto player. Furthermore, the old driving force of social policy-making, the developmental alliance, was replaced by the new alliance between the centre-left party and organised labour during the first left government (1998-2003) Lastly, parties moved to centre stage of social policy-making during the second left government (2003-2008) and the current conservative government (2008-presnet). Drawing on competing theories of the welfare state –in particular, the Power Resource approach, the employer-centred varieties of capitalism perspective, and the state-centred theorem, and the parties-matter thesis – the thesis contributes to developing a comprehensive political account on welfare state transformation in East Asia and to the better embedding of the East Asian welfare state literature into the comparative welfare state literature.
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Hes, Lukáš. "Krize švédského státu blahobytu a jeho reformy v 90. letech 20. století." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2015. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-264308.
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This master thesis explores what were the causes of falling behind of the Swedish economy during the 70s and 80s of the 20th century. In addition, it deals with the reforms that Sweden has implemented during 90's. Theoretical input is engaged in development of economy and society and focuses on the period of the 30s, which was crucial for further development and in which laid the foundation for later growth. In the analytical part are explored the causes of the economic slowdown. This led to the gradual decline of economic level and a slump in international rankings. Analysis of the reforms carried out during the 90s of the 20th century provides guidance for all countries which want to optimize the allocation of resources in the economy and are trying to accelerate economic growth.