Abstract Universal basic income (UBI) is becoming a prominent alternative to reform the welfare state, yet public support for this policy remains a puzzle. Existing scholarship empirically shows that certain groups like the low-income and left-wing show support, but it remains unclear if this translates to a preference for UBI over alternatives. This paper argues against this assumption: UBI challenges welfare norms and deservingness principles, suggesting people would typically prefer means-tested options. Drawing on a conjoint experiment, this paper empirically shows supportive evidence of the idea that support for a UBI does not translate into an inherent preference for UBI. These findings have widespread implications for both the UBI literature and the politics of welfare reform.

Parliamentary parties in systems with strong party discipline, such as the UK, are often viewed as unitary actors. But this paper shows that there are major differences between legislators from the British Labour party over the issue of welfare reform. Working-class MPs such as former coal-miners are more ideologically favorable to traditional welfare policies, and their policy positions reflect these beliefs. Careerist MPs, with no meaningful experience outside politics itself, prioritize securing re-election and advancing their own careers, favoring the party leadership's policy of radical welfare reform. This is demonstrated using an original collection of every speech made about welfare in the House of Commons from 1987-2007, and a scaling method that uses these speeches to estimate MPs' policy positions. The results are robust to several alternative explanations, including other characteristics of MPs and their constituencies. Because working-class legislators are under-represented, and careerists are over-represented, the implication is that who serves in parliament matters for the politics of welfare reform. Changing patterns of political recruitment, including the professionalization of elected politics, help explain why Social Democratic parties adopt policies that hurt their traditional voters.

This article considers the ideology underpinning the 2010 UK Government’s welfare reform agenda in order to foreground what we see as the contradictions of localism and its justification in housing policy through the “Big Society” agenda. The article has three sections. It begins by discussing some of the methodological challenges that arise in interpreting contemporary policy and the value of a historically informed approach to understand the wider “politics” underpinning the “Big Society” agenda. To support our argument, the second part of the article traces the “localist” agenda back from the 1970s to the defeat of Labour in the 2010 general election to show how both Conservative and Labour administrations deployed localism as a justification for welfare reform and in different ways created opportunities for market-based reforms. The third section of the article considers the contemporary period, in particular the reforms presented to parliament in 2011 that offer new avenues for interest groups to influence decisions that hitherto have been mainly the preserve of local government. The conclusion provides a summary of the key policy implications and theoretical issues that arise from the analysis.

For some time, a sense of crisis has surrounded welfare states. Deregulatory pressures, sluggish economic growth, deindustrialisation of labour markets, rising unemployment, demographic ageing, declining birth rates and family restructuring are commonly listed among the most pressing challenges facing mature welfare regimes.Together, such challenges contribute to an explosive mix by simultaneously exerting pressure for increases in social welfare expenditure while contracting the fiscal foundation on which states rely to deliver it. While such pressures are not new, they have been severely aggravated by the financial crash of 2008 and the global recession now under way.As governments struggle to finance their large and increasing budget deficits, they advance plans for welfare cutbacks while bracing themselves for backlash over austerity measures. Conflicts over coming changes in social policy, and especially over the new distributional inequalities they are likely to generate, look set to intensify in coming years. This dim prospect provides a timely background for this collection of articles. If there was ever a time when it was critical to dig deeper into the operating conditions, mechanisms and strategies of austerity management and welfare restructuring in this era of unwavering austerity, that time is now. In mature welfare states the lion’s share of social expenditure goes to health care and pensions. Compared with these, the more recently adopted active labour market policies (ALMP), designed to promote skill training, mobility and employment, represent a much thinner slice of the budget.YetALMPs are perceived as key in an environment characterised by the accelerating dualisation of the workforce. Labour market insiders, those holding standard, protected and stable jobs, face a growing number of labour market outsiders, marginally or insecurely employed, and more likely to find themselves in unemployment. Under conditions of tightening financial austerity, such conflicts in what is an already divided labour market are likely to deepen further,and welfare politics can easily turn into a tense zero-sum game,where the gains of one group are obtained at the cost of the losses of the other. While the importance of the insider/outsider divide has been recognised, our understanding of how it gets to be represented in party and interest intermediation systems remains limited.The first article in this special section addresses this gap in our knowledge. Classical power resource theory argued that the role and the power of the left ‐ trade unions bs_bs_banner

Social Policy & AdministrationVolume 46, Issue 1 p. 129-131 A Long Goodbye to Bismarck? The Politics of Welfare Reform in Continental Europe – Edited by Bruno Palier Stephen McKay, Stephen McKaySearch for more papers by this author Stephen McKay, Stephen McKaySearch for more papers by this author First published: 10 January 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9515.2011.00821.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume46, Issue1February 2012Pages 129-131 RelatedInformation

This study assessed the capacity of a major Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Assignment to improve students' content knowledge surrounding relevant course concepts in two sections of “The Politics of Welfare Reform,” a 200-level class offered at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. The hypothesis was that performance on the PBL assignment, which occurred between the midterm and final exams, would raise students' scores from the multiple-choice midterm to the multiple-choice component of the final exam. The models suggest an independent PBL effect of improved exam performance among students with fewer preexisting academic resources in the larger section, and the lack of an independent PBL effect among students in the smaller, more academically prepared section.

International Social Security ReviewVolume 64, Issue 2 p. 115-118 A long goodbye to Bismarck? The politics of welfare reform in Continental Europe – Edited by Bruno Palier Vladimir Rys, Vladimir Rys Study Centre on Social Security Developments in Western and Central Europe, University of Geneva, SwitzerlandSearch for more papers by this author Vladimir Rys, Vladimir Rys Study Centre on Social Security Developments in Western and Central Europe, University of Geneva, SwitzerlandSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 April 2011 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-246X.2011.01396.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume64, Issue2April‐June 2011Pages 115-118 RelatedInformation

Revue internationale de sécurité socialeVolume 64, Issue 2 p. 127-131 A long goodbye to Bismarck? The politics of welfare reform in Continental Europe – Edited by Bruno Palier Vladimir Rys, Vladimir Rys Observatoire sur l'évolution de la sécurité sociale en Europe occidentale et centrale Université de Genève SuisseSearch for more papers by this author Vladimir Rys, Vladimir Rys Observatoire sur l'évolution de la sécurité sociale en Europe occidentale et centrale Université de Genève SuisseSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 June 2011 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1718.2011.01396.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume64, Issue2April‐June 2011Pages 127-131 RelatedInformation

A long goodbye to Bismarck? The politics of welfare reform in Continental Europe - Edited by Bruno Palier

A long goodbye to Bismarck? The politics of welfare reform in Continental Europe - Edited by Bruno Palier

Book Review: A Long Goodbye to Bismarck? The Politics of Welfare Reform in Continental Europe

The housing tenure structure has long been associated with different forms of welfare state capitalism in Western Europe. However, with the rise of owner-occupancy, this association has not been so straightforward. An alternative view is to view housing policies that promote owner-occupancy for households to acquire assets, as an attempt by the state to reform social welfare systems. The politics of welfare reform are related to the discourses of homeownership ideology. The ownership of (housing) assets agenda serves as a means to change the relationship between state, market and individual households. This view is mostly based on the British experience and this paper seeks to broaden it by examining the Netherlands and Spain. The paper shows differences, but also that housing policies play an important role in driving towards or maintaining market-dominated solutions. Housing is used to either reorient towards or maintain a welfare system where asset ownership and market dependency is deemed more appropriate than secure income and public expenditure.

Scholars have known for decades that welfare in America entails a fair amount of racial bias. Recent research suggests that the welfare reforms in the 1990s with their emphasis on work and the granting of more authority to the states may well have made matters worse. Our analysis seeks to add to the larger understanding of how race and politics interact in the new system of welfare. Our findings suggest that race conditions not only the content but also the politics of welfare reform.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewRace and the Politics of Welfare Reform. Edited by Sanford F. Schram, Joe Soss, and Richard C. Fording. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003. Pp. 392. $25.00 (paper).Mimi AbramovitzMimi AbramovitzHunter College, City University of New York Search for more articles by this author Hunter College, City University of New YorkPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 79, Number 2June 2005 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/431002 Views: 33Total views on this site Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform

The Racial Politics of Welfare Reform in the United States

In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which abolished the 60-year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programme. This book analyzes how changes in the AFDC programme came about and explores the politics of welfare reform.

Preface and Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Budget Politics and Welfare Politics 2. Model Behavior: Th Problems of Costs and the Forms of Budget Control 3. Stamping In: Discretionary Budgeting and the Origins of the Food Stamp Program, 1964-1973 4. Caps On: Entitlement Budgeting and the Politics of Uncontrollable Food Stamp Spending, 1974-1977 5. Cap Sizes: Food Stamp Budget Caps under Unified Partisan Control, 1978-1980 6. Top Hats: Food Stamp Budget Caps under Divided Partisan Control, 1981-1984 7. Caps Off: The Repeal of Food Stamp Budget Caps in an Era of Fiscal Constraint, 1985-1990 8. Old Hat: The Return of Entitlement Politics and the Revival of Budget Cap Proposals, 1991-1994 9. Block HeadsL Food Stamp Budget Control and the Politics of Welfare Reform, 1995-1996 10. Re-Caps: Food Stamps and Budget Rules in Retrospect and Prospect AppendixFood Stamp Program, Fiscal Years 1961-1998, Authorization Ceilings, Appropriations, and Outlays Index

<i>Gender, Families, and State: Child Support Policy in the United States</i>. Jyl J. Josephson<i>Gender and the Politics of Welfare Reform: Mothers' Pensions in Chicago, 1911-1929</i>. Joanne L. Goodwin<i>Welfare's End</i>. Gwendolyn Mink<i>Family Shifts: Families, Policies, and Gender Equality</i>. Margrit Eichler

Past research on welfare politics is mostly about why the liberal welfare reform proposals of the 1960s and 1970s were defeated. The politics of the more conservative 1980s and 1990s, less studied, include several messy compromises between the parties and a clear-cut conservative backlash-the 1996 federal welfare reform. Wisconsin, home of the nation's most radical reform, suggests a more promising pattern-bipartisan concordat. The state imposed severe work requirements on welfare adults while, at the same time, providing unprecedented subsidies for the working poor. The political basis was unusual agreement among the parties coupled with the weakness of outside veto groups. Background factors included Wisconsin's conservative society and a masterful government, the heir of Progressivism. In Wisconsin, liberals accepted the end of entitlement, while conservatives accepted an expanded antipoverty policy. If other states, or the nation, did likewise, the welfare state would be more strongly founded.