Social Policy Studies Research Articles

Deconstructing the Asian welfare model: social equality matters

Esping-Andersen's seminal work on welfare regimes in capitalist societies sparked a heated debate regarding the Asian welfare model. In the past decade, the controversy has centred on verifying or disproving the existence of such a model and, for those who confirm its existence, identifying its characteristics. There are two ways of describing the Asian welfare model: the cultural approach, which emphasizes the role played by Confucian teaching in resisting the establishment of a strong welfare system; and the political–economic approach, which emphasizes the productivist ideology that characterizes the economic and welfare systems of Asian countries. These approaches have evolved into discourses that are used to determine the existence and the ‘success’ of the Asian welfare regime. This paper proposes a re-evaluation of these discourses, which tend to neglect the social inequalities, risks, and problems that characterize Asian welfare regimes. This paper challenges the domination of the ‘productivist ethos’ and the economy-led social policy in Asian welfare regimes, and calls attention to the need for social policy studies that analyse social inequalities based on class, gender, race, ethnicity, and age.

社会政策における公正 : 福祉国家の規範理論再論( 社会政策研究に求められるもの-公正な社会への政策)

社会政策における公正 : 福祉国家の規範理論再論( 社会政策研究に求められるもの-公正な社会への政策)

生活保障システムという射程の社会政策研究( 社会政策研究に求められるもの-公正な社会への政策)

生活保障システムという射程の社会政策研究( 社会政策研究に求められるもの-公正な社会への政策)

社会政策における国際比較研究( 社会政策研究に求められるもの-公正な社会への政策)

社会政策における国際比較研究( 社会政策研究に求められるもの-公正な社会への政策)

Idéias fora do lugar: o neoliberalismo como categoria de análise das políticas sociais no Brasil

Este artigo desenvole uma crítica metodológica e teórica a uma recente produção acadêmica que busca entender, a partir de uma perspectiva neo-marxista, o impacto das agendas e idéias neoliberais sobre as políticas sociais no Brasil. Argumentamos que o assim chamado "pensamento crítico" que se desenvolveu no campo dos estudos de política social, apesar de bastante influente tanto entre alunos quanto professores de pós-graduação, sofre de sérias deficiências analíticas. Primeiro, essa literatura com freqüência se apóia em uma definição excessivamente ampla e imprecisa de neoliberalismo, de pouco ou nenhum poder explicativo. Segundo, nós argumentamos que essas abordagens são incapazes de explicar e interpretar adequadamente o papel de processos cognitivos, valores e idéias na formulação de políticas públicas e, portanto, elas falham em retratar de forma convincente o impacto do neoliberalismo no setor de política social. Terceiro, os critérios empregados para classificar políticas públicas específicas como "neoliberais" são imprecisos e indefinidos, sem qualquer referência a dados empíricos, o que solapa os repetidos argumentos sobre a "hegemonia" do pensamento neoliberal em áreas como educação, saúde e seguridade social. Nós concluímos apresentando, como uma alternativa teórica promissora para a análise de reformas e agendas neoliberais, a literatura recente que trata do papel das idéias e do conhecimento no processo decisório de políticas públicas.

Richard Titmuss and the Making of British Social Policy Studies After the Second World War: A Reappraisal – A lecture delivered at the University of Bergen on 5th December 2007

Richard Titmuss and the Making of British Social Policy Studies After the Second World War: A Reappraisal – A lecture delivered at the University of Bergen on 5th December 2007

Teenagers’ Citizenship: Experiences and Education

By Susie Weller London : Routledge , 2007 ISBN 9780415404648 , 194 pp, £22.99 (pb) Teenagers’ Citizenship is a valuable and timely contribution to the existing literature on both citizenship and ‘childhood’. Whilst much has been written on these topics, this book effectively combines these literatures to provide an informative analysis of the barriers to and the opportunities for positioning teenagers as citizens. After examining teenagers’ problematic relationship with traditional notions of citizenship, Weller explores teenagers’ attitudes towards citizenship education. Concluding that the school curriculum ‘fails to recognise both alternative and more holistic understandings of citizenship, which in many ways are more inclusive, and perhaps more relevant to many teenagers’ lives’ (p. 70) she moves on to explore how teenagers practise citizenship in their everyday lives—at school and in the community—and some of the barriers which prevent children from being seen as citizens in society. Weller's theoretical approach is grounded within the ‘New Social Studies of Childhood’ (NSSC)—a theoretical perspective which upholds the value of studying ‘children’ in their own right and which asserts that children should be seen to be competent social actors (Prout and James, 1997). This is an appropriate backdrop for exploring teenagers’ participation in society. Indeed, her empirical research reflects this theoretical standpoint. Adopting a child-centred approach, she employs a range of participatory methods to give voice to the young people's viewpoints and experiences. More attention could have been given towards exploring how children perform citizenship through the actual research process — for instance, through discussing their ideas in group discussions and acting as advisors to the researcher. Citing extracts from the young people she studied helps to breathe life into her analysis. For instance, in chapter 3, Weller focuses on the introduction of compulsory citizenship education in schools. Importantly, her analysis moves beyond a theoretical discussion of the ‘problems with implementation’ towards a grounded discussion of the real-life difficulties that teenagers themselves identify with the subject. By exploring how children actually practise citizenship across and within different spatial contexts Weller effectively draws attention to how children ‘do’ citizenship in the ‘being’ of childhood (encouraging us to critically engage with dominant understandings of ‘children as citizens-in-the-making’). In line with the NSSC children are therefore positioned as worthy of study in their own right — as children, rather than as future ‘becomings’. From this analysis, Weller argues for an ‘alternative’ (‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘cumulative’) approach to citizenship which more effectively includes teenagers’ everyday experiences and understandings of what citizenship is. Her argument is accessible, clearly structured and supported through her empirical research findings. Overall, this book simultaneously provides us with an introduction to debates about citizenship and the social construction of ‘childhood’. This book would therefore be of interest to students of sociology, politics, human geography, social policy and childhood studies.

A Study of Social Capital Equipment Policy and Private Participation Infrastructure Projects in South Korea: Focus on Management Systems

This paper presents a study of private sector participation in Private Participation Infrastructure (PPI) projects, and forms a core part of the process known as the South Korean Social Capital Equipment Systems Investment Program. The study seeks to propose new directions for the current Private Participation Infrastructure System. Three policy problems existing in the PPI system were analyzed. First, decision-making by negotiation in each project management model process was examined. Next, the process for the selection of private companies to run each project plan was evaluated. In the course of this analysis we make recommendations for restructuring the evaluation system that currently guides project planning and the selection process for private companies. Finally, faults within the PPI master plan are discussed and suggestions made as to how the plan can be improved. This study identifies an improved approach to project management and redefines the structure and management of the PPI system. Emphasis on competition between the public and private sectors based on competitive market forces can assist the public sector, as the main user of the PPI system, in attempts to take the lead role in the proposed reform of management systems.

A Comparative Social Policy Study on the Structure and Characteristic of Korean Welfare State - Focused on the Development of Public Social Expenditure -

A Comparative Social Policy Study on the Structure and Characteristic of Korean Welfare State - Focused on the Development of Public Social Expenditure -

The First Social Policy: Alcohol Control and Modernity in Policy Studies

From modest beginnings in the systematic analysis of social insurance programs of advanced, industrialized countries, the scope of social policy studies has expanded to encompass myriad programs that seek to mitigate potential risks to employment, income, and economic security.1 At the same time, historical interest on policy development has extended back further in time to contextualize the otherwise excessive concentration on social policy developments of the twentieth century.2 Yet, as the boundaries of epistemology broaden, there remains a curious tendency among policy historians to maintain that what they are studying are the origins ofmodernsocial policies.3 Perhaps this focus on modernity is the outgrowth of a perceived need to have such research remain relevant to contemporary social policy debates. Whatever the reason, it does raise the question–What makes a social policymodern?4 To assume that particular social policies aremodernsuggests that there may be social policies that are not. Do there indeed exist social policies that might be thought of aspremodern?If so, do such premodern social policies differ from modern ones not only in terms of particular historical epochs but also in terms of more-substantive distinctions?

A Framework for the Comparative Study of Local Social Policy in the Post-Industrial Era

A Framework for the Comparative Study of Local Social Policy in the Post-Industrial Era

Human Ethics and Welfare Particularism: An Exploration of the Social Welfare Regime in Lebanon

This paper presents a profile of the welfare regime in Lebanon which is posited on the twin precepts of human ethics and welfare particularism. It highlights the key role that moral values play in the conceptualization and implementation of social policy, as well as in the measurement of welfare outcomes. This is marked by the dominance of duty, traditionalism and elitism in the ethics of religious welfare in Lebanon. The paper argues that the social welfare regime in Lebanon overlaps with the debates on the ethics of care and on virtue ethics in Western moral philosophy. This is also linked in with contemporary conceptualizations of religious ethics in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The paper asserts that religious ethics is a valid endeavour in its own right and an ever more pertinent subject matter for the study of social welfare and social policy. This challenges the traditional dichotomy between reason and faith which has subdued the relevance of religion to public life. Indeed, religion, the nuclear family and clientelism networks are shown to play a critical role in Lebanese social welfare, such that, in spite of state incapacity, the welfare regime there cannot be considered rudimentary. The method adopted for this research was a large qualitative case study involving service providers and users at the Ministry of Social Affairs and five leading Christian and Muslim religious welfare organizations in Lebanon.

Cost of management of invasive growth hormone-secreting macroadenoma

At the time of diagnosis, macroadenomas represent 60-80% of GH secreting adenomas, of which 25-30% are invasive macroadenomas. These aggressive tumors have the worst surgical success rates in terms of cure, and often need several therapeutic approaches in order to control disease status. Acromegalic patients are subject to increased mortality and important health resource consumption related to their associated co-morbidities, in addition to the costs that are related to diagnosis itself and initial treatment of the disease. Assessment of the cost of initial management and outcome of acromegalic patients with invasive pituitary adenomas. Retrospective and observational study of review of records. Two tertiary hospitals. 11 consecutive patients between 18 and 80 yr old diagnosed with acromegaly due to an invasive pituitary macroadenoma. Collection of data of biochemical and radiological tests, specialist visits, hospitalisation, surgery, pharmacological and radiotherapy treatment at diagnosis and over 4 yr of follow-up after initial treatment. Costs were evaluated using the data of the Centre for Health Economics and Social Policy Studies and the Official College of Pharmacists of Spain. Global and patient/yr follow-up costs of illness. The mean costs for acromegaly for the period of follow-up ranged from 7,072 to 9,874 euro/patient/yr, for biochemically non-controlled (no.=6) and controlled patients (no.=5) respectively. The most important cost in the perioperative period was for admission in the intensive care unit. After surgery, SS analogues were the principal contributors to the economic burden. In this paper we have for the first time presented a pharmacoeconomic study of GH secreting invasive macroadenoma. The poor prognosis of our cohort of patients and the higher rate of controlled patients and normal IGF-I levels warrant the employment of multiple therapeutic options. The cost associated with this treatment in this complex disease of low prevalence is not excessive and can be supported by healthcare services.

The Howard Decade in Australian Government and Politics

This collection of papers, focusing on domestic politics, examines a decade of Australian government and politics from 1996–2006 under the Prime Ministership of John Howard. Leading a conservative Coalition government made up of his own Liberal Party and its junior partner the National Party, Howard has won four elections and is facing a fifth election in 2007. The decade has been characterised by the electoral success of the government, the divisiveness of the debates that surround it, the centrality of Howard himself, and the limits to the explanations advanced in studies of both Howard himself and his government. This collection aims to contribute further to these explanations by offering qualitative analysis of the style of the government; quantitative analysis of the government's appeal to voters; examination of both Howard's central administration and his government's approach to federalism; and four studies of economic and social policy.

Developments in East Asian Welfare Studies

Abstract This essay in introduction is to the field of study, rather than to the present, itself distinguished, collection of papers. As such, it opens with a series of ‘flashbacks’: to the ways in which social policy, and the study of social policy, developed out of the interaction between Western welfare states (in this case Britain) and Asia Pacific. The main body of the article then charts the increasing presence of East Asian modes of welfare within comparative social policy, before going on to distinguish between the different types of approach to East Asian welfare study which have so far been adopted. Two sets of three‐part criteria have been adopted for the purposes of classification: focusing first on the dimensions (single case studies of specific countries; East Asia as a region; East Asia in comparison with other parts of the world) and second on the level of issues (matters of policy; of welfare system; of welfare regime) characteristic of each study in question. The article concludes with a restatement of its purpose: not to question the adequacy of hitherto Western (notably, Esping‐Andersen) approaches to the study of welfare regimes, but to demonstrate the need for a substantive extension to their scope.

Citizenship, civil war and welfare: the making of modern Ireland

Since the time of T.H. Marshall, the concept of citizenship has held a position of central significance in the study of social policy, notably with regard to the evolution of civil, political and social rights and duties. Less attention has been given to the association of citizenship with the growth of national consciousness and issues of national and cultural identity. Most social policy theories about the relationship between citizenship and welfare take the existence of a shared sense of national identity under conditions of peace for granted. The few social theorists who have written about the impact of war on the growth of civil, political and social rights have tended to concentrate on wars between sovereign states. Much less has been written about the significance of civil wars within sovereign states. Conflicts about land, sovereignty and national identity are the most frequent causes of these internal conflicts. This paper explores the extent to which the onset of civil war reverses the direction in which Marshall hypothesised that the civil, political and social rights of citizenship developed under conditions of peace, taking the examples of Ireland and Northern Ireland for illustrative purposes.

New Developments in the Theory of Comparative Social Policy

This paper sets out to encapsulate current developments in general comparative welfare state theory, focusing on the nexus between politics, culture and social policy outcomes, while putting forward the importance of comparative social welfare and policy studies for the development of theory and practice in social welfare policy. Before introducing major categories in general and comparative welfare state theory, the meaning of comparative analysis for the future of social welfare will be pointed out briefly. The main part of the paper then addresses new developments in comparative welfare state theory. First, it takes on the importance of using ideal-typical models, and then the issue of the influence of cultural and political determinants on social welfare politics, distinguishing first order and second order determinants. The last part of the paper will sum up the current and future role of comparative social policy analysis for the advance the understanding of and solutions to social problems that tod...

Changing Welfare, Changing States: New Directions in Social Policy

Changing Welfare, Changing States disentangles the various answers to these questions, inviting us to think differently about the remaking of the relationships between welfare, state and nation. Informed by the `cultural turn' in the social sciences, the book reflects a commitment to the importance of rethinking social policy at a time when social, political and intellectual certainties have been profoundly unsettled. Key features of the book include: } a thought-provoking approach - encourages students to 'rethink' welfare states. } broad coverage - engages with a range of approaches to the study of welfare states, drawing on social policy, politics, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies. } contributes to key debates on: globalization, neo-liberalism, changing forms of governance and conflicts over citizenship in the contemporary remaking of welfare states. Written by a leading academic in the field, the book has a flowing narrative and clear structure that makes it accessible to and popular with students and academics alike. It is an invaluable resource for undergraduates and postgraduates in the field of social policy and will also be of interest to students and researchers in related disciplines such as sociology, politics, anthropology and cultural studies.

Seniors and Portrayals of Intra-generational and Inter-generational Inequality in theGlobe and Mail

In this article, we examine how seniors are portrayed in the Globe and Mail. Thirty articles published in 2004 were selected and thematically analysed. Seniors were discussed in six different contexts, including family, work/retirement, community networks, scientific studies of population, social and health care policy, and social attitudes to aging. Issues pertaining to seniors were captured in three themes. The theme diversity of seniors made visible seniors of different genders, ages, health statuses, abilities, and needs. The successful aging theme provided positive examples of aging well but marginalized seniors who did not meet these expectations, thereby fostering intra-generational ageism. The apocalyptic demography / inter-generational conflict theme underscored the importance of society's support system for the elderly but raised the issue of inter-generational inequality, of presenting the elderly as a burden on younger persons in families and on society at large. Critical analyses suggested that both negative and positive newspaper portrayals of seniors might be ageist.

Examining the Adoption of Old-Age Security Programs in the Developing World

This study examines the adoption of income-tested old-age security programs and mandatory privatized security programs in developing nations from 1960 to 1999. Program data on more than one hundred nations are modeled using discrete-time logistic regression. Findings suggest that, for privatized programs, the level of democratization in a nation is an important predictor. Inertia of existing programs and the role of structural adjustment policies in the 1990s are also important in determining the likelihood of program adoptions of this type. For income-tested programs, the number of political strikes experienced by a nation is associated with program adoption. Results suggest that the study of social policy in the developing world is important for understanding processes behind the development of the welfare state.