Welfare Commitments Research Articles

Do institutions matter in a crisis? Regime type and decisive responses to Covid-19

ABSTRACT Governments around the world have been implementing measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and ease its economic fallout, and there has been extensive variation in the speed and extent to which they have introduced new policies. This article examines the role that regime type plays in determining the decisiveness of government policies to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and its spill over effects. We hypothesize that democratic regimes may be slower to introduce restrictions on civil liberties due to a “freedom commitment” and may be faster to provide economic protections due to a “welfare commitment”. We use event history analysis and data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker to examine whether less democratic regimes are more likely to implement restrictions faster, and spending programmes slower. Contrary to expectations, our findings suggest that more authoritarian regimes do not implement constraints more quickly or spending more slowly than more democratic regimes. The finding holds across various regime measures and model specifications.

Pandemic Poverty Governance: Neoliberalism under Crisis

Prevailing theories of poverty governance emphasize how political and economic constraints associated with urban neoliberalism have led to the retraction of protective welfare commitments and an increased criminalization of poverty. While research on this “disciplinary turn” has been generative, it tells us little about countervailing trends or how institutional responses to poverty change over time. Addressing these gaps, this article offers a case study of the emergence and acceptance by the business community of a supportive Housing First and harm reduction initiative called JustCARE—a distinct technique of poverty governance not readily explicable within existing theoretical frameworks. By situating JustCARE within a wider strategic action field of poverty governance, we reveal the macro-, meso-, and micro-level dynamics that together facilitated its inception, growth, and eventual embrace by members of the formerly hostile business establishment. Specifically, we underscore how two exogenous shocks (COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter [BLM] uprisings) enabled a well-positioned advocacy organization to articulate and implement a non-punitive homelessness response alternative. We conclude that field-based scholarship centering “theoretically deviant” cases can reveal how the contradictions and failures of neoliberal poverty management can generate unique opportunities for meaningful institutional change.

The necessity of abolition

The international outpouring of abolitionist sentiment in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the spring of 2020 came as a surprise even to experienced activists and researchers. The context of the pandemic had thrown into stark relief the consequences of fraying commitments to social welfare and excess commitments to security, policing, and incarceration. This essay argues that the moment laid bare the necessity of abolition, not only of police and prisons but also of the industries which exacerbate ecological disaster. To support this argument on the basis of political theory and intellectual history, it returns first to W.E.B. Du Bois's account of "abolition-democracy" as prompted by a recognition of necessity. The essay then goes on to define "necessity via the philosophical dialectic of freedom and necessity, before finding that conception of abolition as necessity expressed in nineteenth century Black abolitionist thought. It concludes by returning to the present, in which the pathological freedoms of neoliberalism seem to call up the necessity of abolition in response.

Investor Obligations in Special Economic Zones: Legal Status, Typology, and Functional Analysis

ABSTRACT The article discusses various types of investor obligations in special economic zones and examines how they are utilized as instruments for devising development policies. It presents the evolution of regulatory models and practices related to investor obligations in the context of the unilateral character of the legal framework of the zones. The article distinguishes between two types of investor obligations. The first includes commitments focused on quantifiable aspects of economic performance of the investor in the host country, such as the maintenance of a pre-determined level of investment or the creation of a specific number of jobs. The second category of investor obligations is those containing qualitative goals that contribute to the host country’s developmental objectives, such as workforce welfare commitments, environmental standards, and technology transfers. Case studies of Shenzhen, Poland, and Tanzania are analysed to demonstrate how relevant regulatory practices have evolved over time. The case studies are drawn from three different phases of the global proliferation of special economic zones and reflect the regional diversity of the zones.

The divergent evolution of East Asian welfare states: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore

AbstractExisting regime approaches characterize East Asian welfare states as possessing low levels of government intervention and investment in social welfare. However, democratization in the 1980s changed the socioeconomic structures of East Asian countries––leading them to rethink their welfare commitments. The late 1990s financial crisis and globalization also accelerated the reorganization of their welfare systems. Using the cases of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, this article examines the diverse pathways of welfare development in this region. East Asian countries adopted more inclusive and redistributive welfare systems during periods of intense inter‐party political competition. On the other hand, amid less political competition, they either retained minimal welfare provisions or retrenched welfare.

Legitimate earnings inequality and national welfare commitment: Correspondence between economic institutions and the pay 80,000+ people in 30 nations think legitimate for ordinary jobs and for elite jobs

In formulating views of just reward for high-status and low-status work, do ordinary citizens take cues from their nation's public stance on income inequality as institutionally embedded in their welfare state, i.e. their social welfare and labor market policies, their "welfarism"? How large a morally correct earnings gap flows from that? Our multilevel analyses (fixed effects, random intercepts) replicate prior research on the impact of individual characteristics and socioeconomic development. They open new territory with the discovery that public opinion on legitimate/just earnings of high-status occupations aligns moderately strongly with welfarism, ceteris paribus, with welfare state citizens advocating lower pay for the elite but not higher pay for working-class occupations: The welfare state is not (or no longer) a matter of helping the poor but instead of bringing down the elite, "cutting down the tall poppies". Data: World Inequality Study v2.1: 30 countries, 71 surveys, and over 88,000 individuals.

Social spending and democratic institutions in Southeast Asia

PurposeThis paper aims to analyse how democratic institutions affects social spending formations in the context of developing countries. Furthermore, this essay will also challenge the theory that the government system (majoritarian versus consensus democracy) influences the magnitude of social spending and welfare commitment, especially in Southeast Asian democracies, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.Design/methodology/approachThis research uses descriptive statistics and qualitative data to match social spending with the development of democratisation in four cases.FindingsThe main argument is whether the presence of democratic institutions encourages the government to be more open, citizen-oriented and responsive or whether the inclusive political conditions will create more open public participation in the policymaking process. Thus, in the context of developing countries, public participation will be more likely to demand social policies.Research limitations/implicationsIt has not been able to undertake a more detailed impact evaluation assessment of the development and change of democratic institutions towards policy outcomes within a shorter temporal scope. In addition, this thesis does not also provide details or explanations about the interaction process between particular democratic institutions and specific social policy sectors.Practical implicationsThe process of interactions between particular electoral systems. For instance, the contribution to the emergence of policy in the health services sector or conducting research in normative democratic institutions such as public awareness of the importance of public participation in shaping and directing the implementation of poverty reduction policies could be studied, by using the historical institutionalism approach.Originality/valueThe impact of certain political institutions on public policy has become a very important discussion in the new institutionalism perspective. Social policy (social spending) as a manifestation of government’s commitment towards welfare is the result of institutional arrangement. In the context of developing countries, where social policy is needed to fulfill the basic needs of citizens, it is important to identify what kind of institutional formations are conducive to the development of social policy. This essay will analyse how democratic institutions affects social spending formations in the context of developing countries.

Middle-aged death and taxes in the USA: Association of state tax burden and expenditures in 2005 with survival from 2006 to 2015.

BackgroundLongevity in the United States ranks below most other Western nations despite spending more on healthcare per capita than any other country. Across the world, mortality has been declining, but in the USA the trend toward improvement has stalled in some middle-aged demographic groups. Cross-national studies suggest that social welfare is positively associated with longevity. The United States has less government sponsored welfare, education and healthcare than almost all other Western nations, but the level of this social welfare commitment varies across the states. In this study we examined the association of state tax burden and state government expenditures with subsequent middle-aged mortality.MethodsThe primary exposure was state tax burden in 2005, defined as proportion of all state income paid to the state. We also examined the impact of state expenditures per capita in 2005 for education, healthcare, welfare, police and highways. The dependent variable was mortality during the subsequent 10 years. Death counts and population sizes by sex, age group and race strata for 2006–2015 were abstracted from CDC WONDER. Binomial logistic regression was employed based on the number of deaths and underlying population within each county-sex-age-race bin.ResultsState tax burden in 2005 varied from 5.8% to 12.2%. An increase of 1.0 percentage point in state tax burden was associated with a 5.8% (SE = 0.1%) reduction in mortality adjusted for sex, age and race, but was associated with a 1.1% (SE = 0.1%) reduction when further adjusting for state income and education levels. Controlling for sex, age and race each type of state expenditures was associated with decreases in middle aged mortality, notably K-12 education (reduction of 4.7%, SE = 0.1%, per 10% expenditure increase) except healthcare but all types were associated with mortality decreases further controlling for state income and education.ConclusionThe residents of states with higher state taxation and higher expenditures per capita have lower middle aged mortality rates.

Varieties of populism

AbstractContemporary discussions of populism elide important distinctions between the ways in which populist leaders and movements respond to the failures of elites to follow through on the promises associated with international social welfare constitutionalism. After laying out the political economy of populisms’ origins, this Article describes the relation between populisms and varieties of liberalism, and specifically the relation between populisms and judicial independence understood as a “veto point” occupied by the elites that populists challenge. It then distinguishes left-wing populisms’ acceptance of the social welfare commitments of late twentieth century liberalism and its rejection of some settled constitutional arrangements that, in populists’ views, obstruct the accomplishment of those commitments. It concludes with a description of the core ethnonationalism of right-wing populism, which sometimes contingently appears in left-wing populisms but is not one the latter’s core components.

Black middle-income housing and asset building in Mangaung, South Africa

Asset-building policies are used worldwide to reduce state welfare commitments. In the Global South, including South Africa, asset-based housing development is thought to help reduce poverty. This study investigated asset building and homeownership in a sample of South Africa’s emerging black middle class. Interviews with 244 black middle-class households in Mangaung revealed asset value creation and heavy dependence on mortgage finance. Levels of mortgage default were low, although households with recently secured mortgages struggled to pay them off. We found little evidence that property-owning is helping these households to move out of poverty. Their ability to afford mortgage loans appeared to be directly related to their own efforts and human capital. Very few had considered downsizing as an option, possibly because ownership of a house has social value, for passing on to the next generation. Asset building was still in its early stages and, because these households had been denied equal opportunities and barred from homeownership by the apartheid regime, very few intergenerational transfers had yet occurred.

The geography of school choice in a city with growing inequality: the case of Vancouver

This analysis aims to measure the impact of school choice policy on secondary school students’ enrolment patterns within the social geography of Vancouver, an increasingly polarized global city. The rationale for the study is to examine the impact of ‘education market’ reforms on the socio-economic composition of schools in a Canadian context, where a social welfare commitment to educational equality is being replaced by market-oriented policies and increasing social inequality. Our study is guided by Bourdieu’s theory of site in considering whether growing inequality and polarization of wealth in a city are correlated with the ways families choose schools. We apply a geographical methodology (Geographic Information System) to delineate spatial patterns of choosing schools. Our analysis shows that those who opt out of the under-subscribed schools come from the neighborhoods with relatively higher capital than those who remain in their assigned schools. Also, those who opt into the over-subscribed schools in the affluent areas come from the neighborhoods with above-average levels of capital in Vancouver. Overall, we find that the spatial inequality in school choice generally follows the uneven distribution of capital/wealth across the city. The pattern of student mobility indicates an increasing level of segregation.

The politics of social policy: welfare expansion in Brazil, China, India and South Africa in comparative perspective

ABSTRACTThis introductory essay reviews the scholarship on the politics of social policy, and shows the contribution of the special issue to explaining expanded welfare commitments in Brazil, China, India and South Africa in the twenty-first century. Much literature on welfare expansion in lower- and middle-income contexts views it primarily as a policy corrective to the economic dislocations produced by global economic integration. This special issue focuses on the political factors that are critical to understanding the shape social policies have taken and their effectiveness in ameliorating poverty and inequality.

Partisan politics, welfare states, and environmental policy outputs in the OECD countries, 1975–2005

AbstractBuilding on the burgeoning literature on the association between the welfare state and the environmental state, this study empirically examines how the politics of the former has affected the development of the latter. We suggest that the size of the welfare state shapes the calculus of environmental policy costs by partisan governments. A generous welfare state lowers the costs perceived by the left‐wing government, as large redistributive spending allows the government to mitigate the adverse impact of the new environmental policy on its core supporters, industrial workers. A generous welfare state also implies diminished marginal political returns from additional welfare commitment by the left‐wing government, which lowers the opportunity costs of environmental policy expansion. To the contrary, because of lower overall regulatory and taxation pressure, a small welfare state reduces the costs of environmental policy expansion as perceived by a right‐wing government. Our theoretical narrative is supported in a dynamic panel data analysis of environmental policy outputs in 25 Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development member states during the period 1975–2005.

Indonesian Women and Local Politics: Islam, Gender and Networks in Post-Suharto Indonesia by Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi (review)

Reviewed by: Indonesian Women and Local Politics: Islam, Gender and Networks in Post-Suharto Indonesia by Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi Wendy Mee (bio) Indonesian Women and Local Politics: Islam, Gender and Networks in Post-Suharto Indonesia. By Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi. Singapore: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2015. xxi+ 246 pp. The central question addressed in this informative and well-researched book is whether Indonesian political brokers are willing to select, and the general public to elect, female candidates in a predominantly Muslim country. A secondary question, which follows from this first one, is whether, once in power, female political leaders are more likely than their male counterparts to pursue gender-focused policies and projects. The book — the product of the author’s doctoral research — has both a “good news” and a “bad news” story. On the one hand, a number of female candidates have been successful at both the regency and provincial levels in Indonesia, and indeed at the central government level during the presidency of Megawati Sukarnoputri. On the other hand, their numbers are low, suggesting that female political leaders are perceived as outside the norm and that their electoral success is dependent on particular circumstances. A further dispiriting finding is that female incumbents are not necessarily committed to policies and projects that address the specific needs and interests of female constituents. To explore the range of factors that support, condition and impede women’s candidacies for political office, Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi analyses the political careers of three female former regents in Central and East Java. The first case study is that of Rustriningsih, the two-term [End Page 331] regent of Kebumen (2000–2005 and 2005–10) who resigned her position to run — successfully — as a vice-gubernatorial candidate in the 2008 direct election for the governor of Central Java. The second case study is that of Siti Qomariyah, who was elected as vice-regent (2001–6) and then as regent (2006–11) of Pekalongan. The third case is that of Ratna Ani Lestari, the one-term regent of Banyuwangi (2005–10). One common factor among these three women that Dewi identifies is the importance of presenting an image of themselves as pious Muslim women. This does not mean that Islam posed a barrier to their selection as candidates or election as regents. On the contrary, the author argues that their intersecting gender and religious identities proved crucial to their electoral successes. This factor is clearest in the cases of Rustriningsih and Siti Qomariyah; their credentials as pious Muslim women helped to secure political support from local ulama. Their image as pious Muslim women also reinforced gender stereotypes relating to women’s greater moral capital. They deployed this association strategically during their campaigns to buttress their images as “clean” candidates. While Dewi argues that the display of gendered piety was a crucial element in the success of each of the three women that she studies, Ratna Ani Lestari’s success was perhaps not so closely tied to her identity as a Muslim woman. Ratna’s Muslim identity was ambiguous, compromised by her marriage to a Balinese Hindu. In addition, her political power base drew on the political networks to which her husband had access as regent of Jembrana and powerful member of the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle) rather than on the local ulama. Further, and while the author explicitly rejects this view, a type of transactional politics seems to have strongly informed the social welfare commitments made during Ratna Ani Lestari’s campaign. However, the very fact that I can disagree with Dewi in my understanding of Ratna Ari Lestari’s political identity serves as testimony to the richness and objectivity of the data that her book provides. Its scholarship is impressive. Not only has the author conducted extensive fieldwork but she also engages with a range of [End Page 332] scholarship spanning comparative political theory (particularly as it relates to gender), Indonesian political history and anthropological discussions of Muslim women’s agency. The book is thus highly stimulating and a work of interest beyond the study of contemporary political developments in Indonesia. The one section of the book that I...

Culture of Disengagement in Engineering Education?

Much has been made of the importance of training ethical, socially conscious engineers, but does US engineering education actually encourage neophytes to take seriously their professional responsibility to public welfare? Counter to such ideals of engagement, I argue that students’ interest in public welfare concerns may actually decline over the course of their engineering education. Using unique longitudinal survey data of students at four colleges, this article examines (a) how students’ public welfare beliefs change during their engineering education, (b) whether engineering programs emphasize engagement, and (c) whether these program emphases are related to students’ public welfare beliefs. I track four specific public welfare considerations: the importance to students of professional/ethical responsibilities, understanding the consequences of technology, understanding how people use machines, and social consciousness. Suggesting a culture of disengagement, I find that the cultural emphases of students’ engineering programs are directly related to their public welfare commitments and students’ public welfare concerns decline significantly over the course of their engineering education. However, these findings also suggest that if engineering programs can dismantle the ideological pillars of disengagement in their local climates, they may foster more engaged engineers.

Understanding Urban Women’s Domestic-Role Orientation in Post-Mao China

The present study examines the trend of urban women’s domestic role orientation in the wake of market transition in post-Mao China. During the 2005–7 period, we conducted in-depth interviews with 115 married women, who either currently held a job or had retreated to the home from workplaces, of both Mao and post-Mao cohorts in four large cities. It is found that women’s growing domestic orientation mainly stems from labor commodification and denigration, as the party-state scaled back its welfare provisions and commitment to social justice, on the one hand, and unleashed market forces, on the other. Therefore, women’s domestic orientation, rather than a mere reflection of persistent traditional culture, may be seen as their refusal to be commodified and passive resistance to labor denigration in the new age of economic liberalism. The findings also bear feminist and class implications of complex dynamics of capitalism.

Relationship between welfare staff and organizational commitment in the control center of the central registration office

The aim of this research is to analyze the role of the staff’s wellbeing stated as independent variable and the work locus of control as the moderator factor associated with the organizational commitment and the staff’s wellbeing. To accomplish the objective, we used regression analysis. The research focuses on the one’s ability to predict the staff’s wellbeing and it studies the effects of the work locus of control as a moderator on the organizational commitment. Findings of the research show that the staff’s wellbeing maintains a negative relationship with the continuance commitment and a positive relation with the affective and normative commitments. Moreover, the impact of the work locus of control, as moderator, on the relationship between the staff’s wellbeing and their organizational commitment relational and has some necessities. Thus, the findings of the research are in a state of continual changes.

Limits to Speech? The Racialised Politics of Gendered Violence in Denmark and Finland

The ‘crisis of multiculturalism’ discourse characterises the current political and media debates in many European countries. This paper analyses how liberal arguments, especially gender equality and freedom of speech, are used to promote nationalist and racialising political agendas in Denmark and Finland. It detects the powerful emergence of a nationalist rhetoric, based on the ‘politics of reversal’ and a re-articulation of liberal notions, in the Nordic countries, which have been known for their collectivist welfare state models and commitments to social equality. Through an analysis of case studies in both countries, the paper shows how debates about gendered violence in Muslim families turn into attempts to broaden the discursive space for racialising speech and to individualise racism.

Home ownership and asset-based welfare

In recent decades, the notion of an ‘asset-based’ or ‘property-based’ welfare system has become increasingly central to debates on the restructuring of western welfare states (Groves et al. 2007; Regan and Paxton 2001; Sherraden 2003; Watson 2009). The principle underlying an asset-based approach to welfare is that, rather than relying on state-managed social transfers to counter the risks of poverty, individuals accept greater responsibility for their own welfare needs by investing in financial products and property assets which augment in value over time. These can, at least in theory, later be tapped to supplement consumption and welfare needs when income is reduced, for example, in retirement, or used to acquire other forms of investment such as educational qualifications. Several socioeconomic developments have helped to advance the cause of asset-based welfare. On one side has been a combination of pressures brought on by the ageing of national populations and their expected impact on pensions and public welfare resources, along with government retrenchment of public welfare provision associated with neoliberalisation. On the other has been, until very recently at least, expanding home ownership rates and increases in housing property values across most economically advanced economies. Essentially, the potential wealth tied up in owner-occupied housing has been considered, more or less explicitly, to be a solution to the fiscal difficulties involved in the maintenance of welfare commitments, and through that, the asset in asset-based welfare has frequently become property or housing asset (Doling and Ford 2007).

Local government strategies and entrepreneurship

Our aim is to examine preconditions for local government intervention to promote entrepreneurial behaviour in rural areas with population decline. In the Nordic countries, the legal framework allows local government to take an active part in community development, e.g., to stimulate business as well as cultural activities. In Norway, even small rural municipalities are in command of, or are given access to financial and organisational resources that can be mobilised for community development. When acting outside their public welfare commitments, the municipal leaders deploy strategies of network governance, in which boundaries between and within public and private sectors are downplayed, to promote flexibility and inclusion of the interests in the broader community. In the present study, we compare four rural municipalities in Northern Norway with respect to their leadership strategies and entrepreneurial projects, and we examine the outcome of their developmental activities. A striking finding is that municipalities with rather similar structural characteristics differ with respect to strategies deployed and developmental success. What makes some municipalities better than others in creating an environment for entrepreneurial and innovative behaviour? Our findings suggest that leadership characteristics and the strength of the municipal economy are important factors.