BOOK NOTES

Bernd von Maydell; Bernd Schulte (eds.). Zukunftsperspektiven des Europäischen Sozialrechts Gerhard Kleinhenz (ed.). Soziale Integration in Europa Lothar F. Neumann; Frank Schulz-Nieswandt (eds.). Sozialpolitik und öffentliche Wirtschaft: In memoriam Theo Thiemeyer Winfried Schmähl; Herbert Rische (eds.). Internation-alisierung von Wirtschaft und Polilik: Handlungsspiel-räume der nationalen Sozialpolitik. M. Cichon; W. Scholz; K. Pal. ILO social budget model. Soziale Sicherung in der internationalen Enhvicklungs-zusammenarbeit: Ein Beratungsmanual. The cost of social security: Fourteenth international inquiry, 1987–1989. Social Security Department, International Labour Office. Wouter van Ginneken. Social security for the informal sector: Issues, options and tasks ahead Bernd von Maydell; Bernd Schulte (eds.). Treatment of third country nationals in the EU and EEA member States in terms of social security law. Blanka Storka. Sozialversicherung in Tschechien: Ein praxisnaher Leitfdden. Pierre Gilliand; Stéphane Rossini. Le budget social de la Suisse. Peter Zweifel; Dario Bonato; Christophe Zaborowski. Soziale Sicherung von morgen: Ein Vorschlag für die Schweiz. Peter Füglistaler-Wasmer; Maurice Pedergana-Fehr. Vision einer sozialen Schweiz: zum Umbau der Sozialpolitik. James Calleja (ed.). Meeting the challenges of ageing populations in the developing world James H. Smallhout. The uncertain retirement: Securing pension promises in a world of risk. Commissariat général du Plan. Perspectives à long terme des retraites. Irene Hoskins (ed.). Combining work and elder care: A challenge for now and the future. Isobel Allen; Elizabeth Perkins (eds.). The future of family care for older people. Ecole nationale d'administration — Promotion René Char (1993–1995). Institut international d'administration publique. Helle Holt; Ivan Thaulow (eds.). Reconciling work and family life: An international perspective on the role of companies. Nadine Boujane. One-parent families in the member States of the European Union Gilles Lamarque. L'exclusion (“Que sais-je?” series, No. 3077). Michael R. Darby (ed.). Reducing poverty in America: Views and approaches. Bernard Enjolras. Le marché providence: aide à domicile, politique sociale et création d'emploi René Baptiste. Le social mérite mieux: comment améliorer la qualityé des prestations sociales     

Book notes

Abel-Smith, Brian, Cost containment in health care: A study of 12 European countries 1977–83 .
Bossert, Albrecht, Traditionelle und moderne Formen sozialer Sicherung in Tanzania: Eine Untersuchung ihrer Entwicklungsbedingungen .
Fuchs, Maximilian, Soziale Sicherheit in der Dritten Welt: Zugleich eine Fallstudie Kenia .
Fragnière, Gabriel (ed.), The future of work: Challenge and opportunity .
Harrison, Anthony; Gretton, John (eds), Health Care UK: An economic, social and policy audit .
Bates, Erica M., Health systems and public scrutiny: Australia, Britain and the United States .
International Labour Office, Safety in the use of asbestos .
Jones, Catherine; Brenton, Maria (eds.), The Year Book of Social Policy in Britain 1984–1985 .
Jowell, Roger; Witherspoon, Sharon (eds.), British social attitudes: The 1985 report .
Nowotny, Helga (ed.), Thought and action in social policy .
Sullerot, Evelyne, Pour le meilleur et sans le pire .
Tuncomag, Kenan, Sosyal Güvennk Kavrami ve Sosyal Sigortalar (The concept of social security and social insurance).     

BOOK NOTES

Jens Alber; Brigitte Bernardi-Schenkluhn. Westeuropäische Gesundheitssysteme im Vergleich: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Schweiz, Frankreich, Italien, Groβbritannien
Axel Weber; Volker Leienbach; Anne Dohle. Soziale Sicherung in Europa: die Sozialversicherung in den Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Gemeinschaft
Alain Euzéby. Les prélèvements obligatoires
Cyril Balme; Christian Collard; Jacques Hoefman; Florence Le Meteyer. La communication dans la maîtrise des dépenses de santé.
Gérard Gäfgen (ed.). Systeme der Gesundheitssicherung im Wandel
Bemd v. Maydell (ed.). Probleme sozialpolitischer Gesetzgebung: das Beispiel des Gesundheits-Reformgesetzes     

Mutualism in the world: Ignorance, inequalities and market pressures

Anyone engaged on research who tries to get to know, evaluate and describe the mutual benefit movement in its worldwide context always comes up against the differences in terminology and in constitutions, as well as the disparate nature and unreliability of the financial statements: an international maze in which the observer is completely lost. In spite of the real efforts of the Association internationale de la mutualité (International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies — AIM), the European Community, the International Social Security Association (ISSA), the Institute of International Social Cooperation (ICOSI) and of universities, the history, assessment and evolution — both recent and comparative — of the mutual benefit movement remain largely "terra incognita".     

滕尼斯的“新科学”:“1880/1881年手稿”及其基本问题

在早期的1880/1881年手稿《共同体与社会--文化哲学的原理》中,滕尼斯奠定了一门经验的文化科学及其未来理论体系的基础。通过对这部作品的考察,本文揭示了滕尼斯的“文化科学”内含的三个辩证运动着的维度:(1)洞察经验事实;(2)在对事实进行反思的基础上形成生活理想;(3)寻求在经验中实现理想。对滕尼斯来说,“文化科学”的奠基工作同他对德国现实命运的关切紧密联系,面对抽象个人主义与国家专制主义的双重困境,滕尼斯产生了重塑伦理生活的理想。通过“文化科学”对人性的重新解读,他提出了一种可能的“共同体”的生活模式。在1887年出版的第一版《共同体与社会》里,滕尼斯将历史的维度加入“文化科学”之中,继承并发展了1880/1881年手稿的基本问题。本文尝试指出,考察滕尼斯所奠基的文化科学传统,对于反思当今的社会科学研究仍然具有启发意义。     

Scaling the Socioeconomic Ladder: Low-Income Women's Perceptions of Class Status and Opportunity

This study examined how 69 low-income women enrolled in an educational training program perceived social class and upward mobility. Participants identified their social class during childhood, their current status, and their anticipated post graduate status. Beliefs about income inequality and attributions for wealth and poverty were also assessed. Respondents expected to achieve middle class status and perceived higher education as a route to upward mobility, although the accessibility of post-secondary programs was questioned. Consistent with previous research involving low-income groups ( Bullock, 1999 ; Kluegel & Smith, 1986 ), structural attributions for poverty and wealth were favored over individualistic causes. Also, respondents perceived income inequality as unjust. The construction of class identity and implications for class-based mobilization are discussed .

It [the American dream] means the opportunity to go as far in life as your abilities will take you. Anyone in America can aspire to be a doctor, a teacher, a police officer or even, as Oprah said, a President. But you can't get any of those important jobs if you don't have the opportunity to acquire the skills you need … . And that's why I believe that the key to the American Dream is education.
—————Former President George Herbert Walker Bush, 1997

     

Private and public pension schemes: Elements of a comparative approach

The comparative approach offers improved understanding of what is at stake for enterprises, workers and States in developing private pension schemes to fill the gap left by public schemes. The features that distinguish private schemes result from the freedom with which they were designed — by enterprises themselves or through collective bargaining — and the limits imposed by growing state intervention in granting fiscal concessions or stipulating social guarantees. Depending on how these various components are combined, private schemes may offers workers added protection or form a source of insecurity.     

Home and away: the residential care, education and control of children in historical and political context

Children — particularly adolescent boys — may be placed residentially by a variety of agencies in Britain, and there is a strong tradition among the upper middle classes of boarding at private fee-paying schools. The number of children involved, however, is diminishing, though this is as much caused by shorter stays as fewer admissions. The factors influencing this decline in residence vary from sector to sector. However, the emergence of viable alternatives to residence and the increased readiness of potential customers to exercise choice in the placement of their children is a common thread.     

Social security: Indispensable solidarity

Social security must be considered not as an economic burden, but as a collection of mechanisms for collective solidarity based on the principle of income redistribution. The economic and social transformations that the various regions of the world are going through, in particular the globalization of the economy, are making social security increasingly necessary. Instead of yielding to proposals for the privatization of schemes — a formula that is less efficient and more expensive — we should be protecting and improving social security; developing it in those countries where its position is still weak; and stressing that, while its objectives are humane and social, it brings economic benefits too.     

Welfare to What? After Workfare in Toronto

An employment survey among people in Toronto who left Ontario Works — a classic "work-first" regime — shows clear secondary labour market status. Most interventions typical of work-first programmes did not have a positive effect on job quality: contrary to the "stepping stones" theory that poor initial jobs lead to better jobs, those who changed jobs after leaving assistance experienced poorer job quality. A shift in orientation to "sustainable employment" is required to address the employment needs of those on social assistance. Policy must also address the fact that the social assistance caseload includes a size able group that face significant barriers to employment other than education or skills.     

Constitutional Reform and Canadian Social Policy

It is generally accepted that Governments, with a neo-conservative or more properly a Victorian neo-liberal bent will, through various means and mechanisms, try to dismantle aspects of the Welfare State. While these mechanisms usually take the form of privatization, reductions in expenditures, de-indexing and the like, a much more subtle process currently is underway in Canada. Two broad initiatives — Constitutional Change and Free Trade — of the Mulroney government seriously threaten the future of the Canadian Welfare State. The Welfare State is not the direct target in either of these initiatives but the implications, in the view of the authors, are profound. This article examines the question of constitutional reform and the consequences for Canadian social policy.     

Immigrants' Perceptions of Housing Discrimination in Toronto: The Housing New Canadians Project

The Housing New Canadians project investigated recent immigrants' perceptions of discrimination in finding rental housing since arriving in Toronto, Canada. Respondents from three immigrant communities —Jamaicans, Poles, and Somalis ά—indicated how much housing discrimination they had personally experienced and how much discrimination they perceived to have been directed toward their group. They also rated how much each of several factors, including race, income level, source of income, immigrant status, language, ethnic or national background, religion, and family size, contributed to each type of perceived discrimination. Jamaican and Somali immigrants perceived greater personal and group discrimination and also showed a greater discrepancy between personal and group discrimination than did Polish immigrants. Implications are discussed.     

The Political Economy of Pension Reform in Eastern Europe

The retirement schemes in several East European countries underwent fundamental change in recent years, defying conventional wisdom in welfare state research. This article takes a new look at the determinants of paradigm choice in the area of old-age security, comparing the Polish, Hungarian and Czech experience from an actor-centred institutionalist perspective. The author points out that structural factors — notably the financial situation of retirement schemes and the level of external debt — largely determined the set of main pension reform actors, as well as their relative strength. The resulting actor constellations produced the basic paradigm choice, based on the actors' respective cognitive maps and consequent perception of pension reform alternatives. Tactical moves and the strategic potentialities of the chosen paradigm were also relevant.     

The free circulation of Individuals between the European Community member states: The practical implications for social security schemes

Freedom of movement in an integrated European Economic Area created the need to coordinate social security legislations by means of complex regulations. Improving their application calls for innovative solutions based on the experience of ISSA member institutions, ILO standards and the initiative of non-governmental organizations. These solutions are also of interest to institutions in states — even non-European states — linked to the Community by bilateral or multilateral conventions. The main objective is to simplify and speed up administrative procedures, notably for the award of pensions to migrants, given the desirability of identifying them and reconstructing their working careers at the earliest opportunity. Teleprocessing must gradually replace the international circulation of forms, facilitating in particular the provision of medical care during a temporary stay. Recipients'effective access to benefits can also be improved through the personal intervention of liaison offices, the use of migrants'own language and the aid of social services.     

Curing The Dutch Disease? Sickness Absence and Work Disability in The Netherlands

The purpose of the current paper is to provide an overview and evaluation, covering the past decade, of developments and experiences in the Netherlands with respect to the prevention and reduction of sickness absence and work disability. The government has made various attempts to restrict expenditure in this area by increasing the (financial) responsibility of employers. It is concluded that the legislative changes do not seem to have long-lasting effects on sickness absence and work disability rates and have not worked out in practice as well as was foreseen. Employers — particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)— often buy minimum service packages from occupational health services (OHSs), show risk-avoiding behaviour, and primarily undertake procedural and person-oriented measures. Some lessons may be learned from the Netherlands' approach, concerning (1) the principle of self-regulation; (2) the position of SMEs; (3) the privatizing of OHSs; (4) examples of good practice.     

The welfare state in liquidation?

This paper is about the most recent reforms of cash benefit systems and the sociopolitical debate in eight European countries. The welfare state and the social security system rank high on the political agenda. After many years of economic crisis, with increasingly widespread unemployment and changed family patterns, the welfare system that developed in most western European countries since the end of the Second World War is the focus of attention. In a world of increasing international trade, with competition from countries — in eastern Europe and Asia as well as the United States — which have not developed such comprehensive systems of social security, one of the main issues in the debate is whether western Europe can afford to maintain welfare at the existing level, or whether it is necessary to make fundamental changes. But the discussion also centres on what can be called the welfare state's own internal problems.     

Revisiting the welfare state system in the Republic of Korea

Abstract   The Republic of Korea's welfare system has undergone radical institutional expansion since the 1990s, largely as a consequence of the financial crisis of 1997. In spite of these changes, public social expenditure remains extremely low — particularly with regard to all other OECD countries — with the result that the overall social insurance system and social welfare service sector remain underdeveloped. Thus, the current welfare system can best be characterized as a residual model, in that state intervention as a provider of welfare remains highly limited and the family and the private market economy play the central roles in offering a social safety net. This situation is largely the legacy of the so-called 'growth-first' ideology, which has remained the dominant approach favoured by the majority of the country's political and economic decision-makers since the period of authoritarian rule (1961-1993). The adoption of Western European-style neo-liberal restructuring, implemented following the 1997 financial crisis, has also played a role.     

BOOK NOTES

Gertrud E. Bollier. Leitfaden schweizerische Sozialversicherung (published by the Verein zürcherischer Gemeindeschreiber und Verwaltungsbeamter). Anne-Marie Brocas et al. L'évolution des systèmes de protection sociale: état de la recherche en France et en RFA. Pierre Denis. Droit de la sécurité sociale Hilmar Hoch. Geschichte des Liechtensteinischen Sozialversicherungsrechts (Dissertation). Robert J. Myers. Social security Niwata Noriaki. Insurance: Its principles and practice in Japan Henry J. Aaron. Serious and unstable condition: Financing America's health care. Brian Abel-Smith. Cost containment and new priorities in health care: A study of the European Community. John Appleby. Financing health are in the 1990s. Elias Coca; Joëlle Dubois-Lefrère. Mnîtriser l'éovolution des dépenses hospitalières: Le PMSI. Gérard Gäfgen; Peter Oberender (eds.). Evaluation gesundheitspolitischer Massnahmen James A. Gillespie. The price of health: Australian governments and medical politics 1910-1960. William A. Glaser. Health insurance in practice: International variations in financing, benefits, and problems. Brigitte Bernardi-Schenkluhn. Das Gesundheitssystern in der Schweiz: Akteure, Strukturen, Prozesse und Refonnstrafegien Christian Felkner; Peter Stein; Ulrike Stutunüller Die Entwicklung der Beitragsstruktur und ihrer Bestim-mungsgründe in der GKV: eine Untersuchung der bei-tragsstrukturrelevanten Entwicklungstendenm im Bereich der Träger der gesetzlichen Krankenversiche-rung und ihrer möglichen Auswirkungen auf die Leis-tungsfähigkeit des Trägersystems Caroline Glendinning; Eithne McLaughlin. Paying for care: Lessons from Europe H.E.G.M. Hennans; A.F. Casparie; J.H.P. Paelinck. Health care in Europe after 1992. Wulf-Dietrich Leber. Risikostrukturausgleich in der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung Carmelo Mesa-Lago. Health care for the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean. Richard B. Saltman; Casten von Otter. Planned markets and public competition: Strategic reform in northern European health systems. Patricia van Sande. Das Gesundheitswesen in Belgien. Jacques Bichot. Quelles retraits en l'an 2000? Constat, analyses, solutions. Richard V. Burkhauser; Dallas L. Salisbury. Pension policy in a changing economy. Roger Voirin. Les retraites par capitalisation et les régimes de prévoyance des salariés. Ruth Cohen et al. Hardship Britain: Being poor in the 1990s. Jacques Fierens. Droit et pauvreté: Droits de l'homme, sécurité sociale, aide sociale. Carey Oppenheim. Poverty: The facts. Aletha C. Huston. Children in poverty: Child development and public policy. Bill Jordan et al. Trapped in poverty? Lubour market decisions in low-income households. Peter Storr. Sozialhilfe: Eine Einführung in das System der Sozialen Sicherung. René Weber. Existenzsicherung ohne Fürsorge? Die negative Einkommenssteuer in Theorie und Praxis. Jacques Bichot. Economie de la protection sociale. James H. Schulz. The economics of aging Eberhard Eichendorfer. Reform des Europäischen koordinierenden Sozialrechts. Zsuzsa Ferge; Jon Eivind Kolberg (eds.). Socinl policy in a changing Europe Bernd von Maydell; Friedrich E. Schnapp (eds.). Die Auswirkungen des EG-Rechts auf das Arbeits- und Sozialrecht der Bundesrepublik — unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der neuen Bundesländer. Bernd Schulte; Hans F. Zacher (eds.). Interaction between European social law and the social law of the Federal Republic of Germany