Punitive benefit sanctions,welfare conditionality,and the social abuse of unemployed people in Britain: Transforming claimants into offenders?

A defining feature of U.K. welfare reform since 2010 has been the concerted move towards greater compulsion and sanctioning, which has been interpreted by some social policy scholars as punitive and cruel. In this article, we borrow concepts from criminology and sociology to develop new interpretations of welfare conditionality. Based on data from a major Economic and Social Research Council-funded qualitative longitudinal study (2014–2019), we document the suffering that unemployed claimants experienced because of harsh conditionality. We find that punitive welfare conditionality often caused symbolic and material suffering and sometimes had life-threatening effects. We argue that a wide range of suffering induced by welfare conditionality can be understood as ‘social abuse’, including the demoralisation of the futile job-search treadwheel and the self-administered surveillance of the Universal Jobmatch panopticon. We identify a range of active claimant responses to state perpetrated harm, including acquiescence, adaptation, resistance, and disengagement. We conclude that punitive post-2010 unemployment correction can be seen as a reinvention of failed historic forms of punishment for offenders.     

Poverty and welfare in Denmark

From 1945 to the 1980s, Denmark was characterized by the absence of poverty or at least by the lack of any debate over poverty. However, by the mid-1980s, the presence of new forms of poverty made it impossible for politicians and social scientists to neglect poverty as an issue. The re-emergence of poverty did not clarify its extent, but it is widely agreed that poverty now is related to social exclusion and marginalization from the labour market. Empirical evidence is given that shows a poverty incidence of about 8%; the extent of marginalization is calculated to include 20-25% of the population of working age. The existence of poverty can be seen as a critique of the Scandinavian welfare state project, which was developed explicitly to fight and eliminate poverty. The article concludes with a discussion of the latest welfare state development in Scandinavia and possible future trends, summarized as welfare pluralism. The further implementation of the concept of welfare pluralism holds both positive and negative prospects for the poor, since it opens up both a more differentiated yet possibly also more stratified distribution of welfare     

Work,welfare, and wellbeing: The impacts of welfare conditionality on people with mental health impairments in the UK

The personal, economic, and social costs of mental ill health are increasingly acknowledged by many governments and international organisations. Simultaneously, in high-income nations, the reach of welfare conditionality has extended to encompass many people with mental health impairments as part of on-going welfare reforms. This is particularly the case in the UK where, especially since the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance in 2008, the rights and responsibilities of disabled people have been subject to contestation and redefinition. Following a review of the emergent international evidence on mental health and welfare conditionality, this paper explores two specific issues. First, the impacts of the application of welfare conditionality on benefit claimants with mental health impairments. Second, the effectiveness of welfare conditionality in supporting people with experience of mental ill health into paid work. In considering these questions, this paper presents original analysis of data generated in qualitative longitudinal interviews with 207 UK social security benefit recipients with experience of a range of mental health issues. The evidence suggests that welfare conditionality is largely ineffective in moving people with mental health impairments into, or closer to, paid work. Indeed, in many cases, it triggers negative health outcomes that make future employment less likely. It is concluded that the application of conditionality for people with mental health issues is inappropriate and should cease.     

We have our dignity,yeah? Scrutiny under suspicion: Experiences of welfare conditionality in the Irish social protection system

Conditionality has arguably always been part of welfare and poor relief regimes dating at least as far back as the poor laws and the condition of less eligibility. Nevertheless, there has arguably been a more pronounced turn towards welfare conditionality in the latter part of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries and this appears to be continuing across jurisdictions largely unabated and despite the fact that large amounts of evidence continue to suggest the ineffectiveness of welfare conditionality as means of promoting re‐ entry to the workforce for those experiencing unemployment. Alongside this, much evidence also points to the ultimately deleterious effects of welfare conditionality on those at whom it is targeted. This is an area which has seen an abundance of recent contributions in the context of the UK and further afield but that has arguably suffered from a lack of cognate data that sheds light on the Irish example. In attempting to begin to remedy this, this article presents data from a series of interviews carried out with welfare recipients in Ireland in 2018. The purpose of this article is to shed light on experiences of conditionality in the contemporary Irish welfare state and to attempt to nuance further what conditionality can mean. In doing so, this article takes the approach of allowing the data to “speak for itself” in order to best showcase the experiences of those most affected by welfare conditionality.     

The Dynamics of Welfare Policy‐Making in South Korea: Social Movements as Policy Entrepreneurs*

This paper analyzes the role of social movements in the creation and evolution of a welfare state in South Korea. We begin with a theoretical overview of the existing works on policy change, highlighting concepts such as ideas, policy paradigms, and windows of opportunity. We then examine state institutions, hegemonic policy paradigms, and the specific dynamics of welfare policy‐making during South Korea’s authoritarian period (1961–1987). Next, characterizing the democratic transition in 1987 and the economic crisis of 1997–1998 as “windows of opportunity,” we probe how social movements emerged as “policy entrepreneurs” and played crucial roles in building welfare institutions and promoting welfare policies. In particular, we focus on the role of social movements in legislating the National Basic Livelihood Security Act in 1999 and consolidating fragmented health insurance systems in 2000. We conclude that social movements in democratized South Korea have assumed the role of policy entrepreneurs, filling the vacuum left by the central government and elite bureaucrats in the field of social welfare policy‐making.     

Public support for the social rights and social obligations of the unemployed: Two sides of the same coin?

In light of the ever‐growing shift towards activation in European welfare states, the present article examines the relationship between citizens’ welfare generosity (i.e., support for social rights) and welfare conditionality (i.e., support for social obligations) with regard to the unemployed. Using data from the 2014 Belgian National Elections Study, we found that generosity and conditionality appear to be two sides of the same coin. The two factors are negatively correlated, and most of their respective attitudinal drivers are quite similar in strength, yet opposite in direction. In addition to self‐interest and conventionally recognised ideational beliefs, such as egalitarianism and individualism, beliefs about welfare deservingness – an explanatory factor that has remained understudied in the field – are particularly influential in shaping people’s welfare preferences. A stronger emphasis on criteria of deservingness such as control, attitude and reciprocity considerably lowers support for social rights and strengthens support for social duties.     

Anticipating modernity: the Jewish ‘welfare state’ in biblical and medieval times

The impact of religion on social policies and its role in the development, structuring and functioning of welfare states has only recently attracted significant attention. Studies of the relationship between religion and the welfare state have given little consideration to whether the religious precepts and values of the major religions, and the ways of life which they have shaped, are consistent with the idea of the welfare state. This paper shows that the elements of the definition of the modern welfare state were reflected in Jewish communal life as either prescribed by Jewish law (halakha) or lived during both ancient and medieval times, and that communal life was ‘welfare‐state‐like‘. In doing so this paper demonstrates that the idea of the welfare state is consistent with Judaism.     

瑞典社会保障制度改革及其对我国的启示

1950～1960年代,福利国家在西欧和北欧得到了充分地发展。其中,瑞典以其福利最广泛和最优厚而闻名于世,获得了＂福利国家橱窗＂的称号。1970年代后期,以瑞典为代表的福利国家出现了过度福利的问题,相继进入＂福利国家危机时代＂。经过一系列的改革,瑞典取得了积极的成效。我国国情与瑞典不同决定了我们不可能建立一个完全瑞典模式的社会保障体系,但是瑞典的一些经验和做法对于完善我国的社会保障制度有着重要的借鉴意义。     

Subsidiarity and social citizenship: Social assistance schemes in Austria,Belgium, Switzerland and Norway

Previous research has emphasised that conditionality impinges on social citizenship. However, a systematic assessment examining the impact of functional and territorial subsidiarity has been overlooked. Developing seven operational criteria – rights, means testing, conditionality, voice and choice, discretion, benefit's adequacy and supplementary system – we determined levels of subsidiarity and social citizenship in social assistance schemes. Analysing the benefit reform trajectories of Austria, Belgium, Norway and Switzerland, we conclude that social assistance schemes have not improved. Low benefits, means testing and work linkage have strengthened functional subsidiarity, whereas questions of voice and choice are rarely on the agenda. Caseworkers’ discretion and local administration have sustained territorial subsidiarity. Therefore, considering the potential role that benefits could play in the welfare state, low up‐take minimises the redistributive potential and, in general, risk has substantially shifted towards social assistance.     

The Argentine welfare state: enduring and resisting change

Isuani EA. The Argentine welfare state: enduring and resisting change
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 104–114 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. It is widely accepted that during the 1990s, the Argentine state experienced a general retrenchment. This article shows that, though this may have been true in the economic realm, this retrenchment did not take place in the diverse arenas of social policy. While privatisations and labour market flexibility dismantled the foundations of Keynesianism, the components of the welfare state experienced substantial growth. At the same time, the changes experienced by the welfare state in the past quarter century have not included a transformation of its basic principles, despite the profound changes experienced by Argentine society during this period.     

Chinese seniors’ attitudes towards government responsibility for social welfare: Self‐interest,collectivism orientation and regional disparities

Government responsibility for social welfare remains a significant issue in the field of social welfare. Public welfare attitudes not only refer to the social needs of members of society, but also are viewed as the basis for government responsibility for social welfare. Data used in this study came from the Moderate Universalist Social Welfare Survey with a final sample of 1,166 seniors from four Chinese cities in 2012. This study examined seniors’ attitudes towards government responsibility for providing specific welfare and mixed welfare. It concluded that seniors’ welfare attitudes share the traits of self‐interest in general. Seniors’ perception of social rights and cities of residence were two important factors associated with welfare attitudes in both aspects of specific and mixed welfare. The stronger seniors’ social rights perception was the more favourable were the attitudes they held towards government responsibility for social welfare, indicating the collectivism orientation of their welfare attitudes.     

Street‐level discretion,emotional labour and welfare frontline staff at the Australian employment service providers

Despite the current controversial debates about discretion in public bureaucracies in general, and in welfare agencies in particular, the current literature on street‐level bureaucracy mainly assumes that discretion is a distinctive feature of the daily work of public servants. Nonetheless, a pertinent question has not specifically been asked in this literature, that is, given the context of privatisation and increased welfare conditionality in the welfare sector that are seriously challenging welfare frontline staff's commitment to social justice and human rights‐based practices, what are forms of street‐level discretion likely to contribute to improving the quality of welfare services? In this study, we attempt to address this question by exploring discretion displayed by welfare frontline staff in four Australian employment service providers. We argue that emotional labour, especially when being informed by critical empathy, is an important and effective form of street‐level discretion that welfare frontline workers can perform to better support welfare recipients and minimise the punitive aspects of welfare policy.     

Conditionality in the context of housing-led homelessness policy: Comparing Australia’s Housing First agenda to Scotland’s “rights-based” approach

Homelessness services and policy have historically tended to be organised by an explicitly conditional logic, wherein people experiencing homelessness must prove their “housing readiness” before accessing settled housing. This model has been robustly challenged in recent decades by “housing-led” approaches that ostensibly eschew conditionality and prioritise the rapid rehousing of people experiencing homelessness. Various countries now include housing-led approaches in the national policy frameworks, including Australia, which overhauled its approach to homelessness in 2008, and Scotland, where a housing-led approach is supported by a legal right to housing for homeless households. Notwithstanding this policy shift, conditionality remains an enduring feature of responses to homelessness in both jurisdictions. This paper sheds light on this phenomenon by comparing the Australian experience with that of Scotland. We demonstrate how conditionality remains a feature of both jurisdictions; however, there is greater effort in Scotland to identify and minimise conditionality, whereas in Australia it is able to persist relatively unchallenged. We conclude with some reflections on what Australia can learn from Scotland’s relative success, highlighting the importance of a national-level policy framework and an adequate affordable housing supply.     

The case for the privatization of social welfare: three decades of public opinion evidence from Great Britain and the United States

In the last two decades, the conservative critique of the welfare state has been very strong. This study examines the claim of neoconservatives that there is a mass repudiation of the welfare state in the advanced industrial countries. Empirical opinion survey findings from Great Britain and the United States between 1960 and 1990 are examined. Contrary to the radical right rhetoric, there is popular support for social programs in both countries. Evidence also points to sizeable support for a mixed economy of welfare. Three explanations are put forward to account for enduring public support for social programs: the prevalence of social rights, support from the poor and middle class and the limitations of markets.     

The Korean welfare state: a paradox of expansion in an era of globalisation and economic crisis

When the Asian financial crisis took a heavy toll on Korea in the late 1990s, policy makers responded by extending welfare policy. For many analysts, this was a paradoxical move, marking a fundamental reconfiguration of the social policy system. This article contests that interpretation. It examines the changes made to Korean social policy in recent years, and considers their impact on the Korean welfare state. It notes both that welfare extensions have been comparatively limited, and that they have often formed part of wider attempts to boost labour market flexibility. It thus concludes that limited expansion of the Korean welfare state is chiefly an attempt to bolster industrial competitiveness and economic growth. For now, Korea retains the productivist social policy orientation that has long characterised it. It also concedes, however, that in the future underlying social change, notably a rapidly ageing population, may prompt policy makers to make significant changes to the Korean welfare state.     

Social investment,social service and the economic performance of welfare states

This article begins with an examination of the role of social services as the key instrument of social investment strategy, presenting an empirical analysis of its impact on economic performance. A pooled time series, cross‐section analysis was conducted with the data of 15 welfare states from 1990 to 2007 under the ‘social investment hypothesis’ that more social service orientedness brings about a greater positive effect on the economy. The results show that a larger share of social service spending in the total social expenditure – more social service orientedness – contributes to economic growth and labour market performance, whereas a larger aggregate size of the welfare state may have a negative effect on employment. In conclusion, this study suggests that the relatively ambiguous welfare strategy of social investment could be clarified as a ‘transition from income security to livelihood security’ in which emphasis is placed on social service. Key Practitioner Message: ● This study suggests that the key instrument of social investment strategy is social service; ● The results show that more social service orientedness contributes to economic growth and labour market performance.     

Bringing Indonesia into the global welfare regime debate: A literature review and future research agenda

Studies on welfare state regimes have been dominated by consideration of rich OECD/European and increasingly East Asian countries/territories, leaving South Asian cases such as Indonesia underexplored. The few existing studies that have explicitly tried to conceptualize the Indonesian welfare regime have resulted in little consensus. To address the resulting lack of clarity, this article reviews scholarly articles relevant to bringing Indonesia into the global welfare regime debate, specifically encapsulating how the country has been classified compared with its East Asia counterparts. Accordingly, we find that existing studies have mainly concentrated on the Indonesian health care and social protection expansion, which has led authors to conclude that this evolution demonstrates Indonesia's transition away from welfare productivism. By contrast, we argue that Indonesia's productivist characteristics have largely prevailed while informal networks, clientelism, strong families, and the limited effectiveness of the civil society movement created a specific social politics in Indonesia. We thus conclude that the causal mechanisms typically attributed to welfare development in more developed welfare geographies, including East Asia, cannot fully explain the evident institutional formation in the Indonesian case. The future research agenda for studying the welfare regimes in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries is discussed.     

Challenging scalar fallacy in state-wide welfare studies: A UK sub-state comparison of civil society approaches to addressing youth unemployment

Here we make an original, empirical contribution to debates on welfare pluralism, the mixed economies of welfare and territorial rescaling by comparing civil society approaches to tackling youth unemployment in England, Scotland and Wales. Our core finding is that academic and policy literature's frequent characterisation of the UK as a single Liberal welfare regime is based on methodological nationalism privileging state-wide analyses. In short, a scalar fallacy pervasive in international welfare studies. In the context of the global rise of meso-government and so-called ‘stateless nations’ pressing for greater autonomy, our case-study challenges the dominant paradigm. Our analysis shows the liberal characteristics of work-first policy orientation and marketised civil society are concentrated in England then tempered by devolved (social) policy. Based on contrasting, left-of-centre and civic nationalist governing traditions, grounded in multi-level electoral politics, we show the devolved nations taking a different approach to Westminster, partially eschewing the market and incorporating collectivism and co-production.     

Redefining Welfare: Australian Social Policy and Practice

The present paper outlines and analyzes Australia's welfare reform policies as they have been implemented over the past decade. While there have been numerous social policy initiatives over this period, welfare reform provides an interesting site for analysis and review. This suite of policies and programs is of particular importance from several standpoints. First, its target groups – those needing income security assistance, including the unemployed, people with disabilities, and single parents – are historically and traditionally of concern to social work and social welfare. Second, welfare reform policies have had significant impact on social welfare agencies, and the social workers and welfare workers employed in them. Finally, welfare reform has had a wider impact on inequality in Australia and our attitudes to those in need. This paper first provides a brief overview of the context of Australian social policy and welfare, its origins and current situation. It then outlines the key operational elements of welfare reform and how it has been implemented. The third section of the paper offers a critical analysis of these policies and programs and finally poses some questions and issues requiring further discussion and research.     

Protective legislation: The “third pillar” of the welfare state

Welfare states are built upon three central social policy pillars: (1) income programs, including an assortment of income maintenance and security benefits; (2) social services, comprising a diverse constellation of provisions, which furnish care such as health care and education, and “in kind” benefits; and (3) protective legislation, encompassing a dense web of proactive and preventative laws, rights, and entitlements, such as health and safety legislation, minimum wage laws, child protection acts, rent controls, and laws governing evictions and foreclosures. Despite its centrality to the welfare state and to our well‐being, this third pillar has received considerably less attention in comparative social policy research. The dominant welfare state typologies have focused almost exclusively upon income measures and, more recently, on social services, to construct their welfare state categories or “worlds” of welfare while largely neglecting this crucial third pillar. A greater focus on protective welfare legislation can help sharpen the distinctions among welfare states within and across the welfare worlds, which is particularly valuable in light of the ongoing erosion of the other two pillars over the past few decades.