L’Europe et les États-providence

This analysis of the EU's influence on the future of national welfare states points out three distinct phases in the interactions between the building of Europe and of welfare states. During a phase of expansion (1950s-1970s), European authorities were building a common market while allowing member states that were lagging behind in welfare to catch up. During a second phase of conflict (1980s-1990s), advances in the economic construction of Europe caused tensions to flare up with social policies inherited from the past. During a third phase (starting in the late 1990s), EU authorities have been trying to reconcile economic policies with new social policies. To analyze each phase, we must take into account both the EU initiatives capable of having a direct or indirect impact on national welfare systems and the national welfare institutions and strategies that were adopted.     

La constitution d'une élite du Welfare dans la France des années 1990

A neo-elitist interpretation of the relations between the governmental and administrative elites helps us understand new power relations at the top of the French state. Light is shed on the formation, during the last twenty years, of a “welfare state elite”, which has arisen around decision-making in the social service sector. An analysis of changes in social policies shows how an elite that has shared the same purposes in collective action has gradually asserted its identity as a group. With a very coherent view of public policies and of relations with the authorities exercising oversight (Cour des Comptes, IGAS), this elite has proven capable of exercising a strong influence over policy-making. Its institutionalization is corroborated by the long careers in this sector that lead to controlling professional know-how. In brief, a unified elite has arisen that might well leave lasting marks on the future of the French welfare state.     

Social networks of old people in India: research and policy

This article presents a comparative analysis of the available research on the social networks of older persons in India. Most of this research has been done in North Indian cities. The research foci of the available studies include network size, core networks and beyond, life course changes in networks, impacts of residency in old-age homes, gender differences, and joint and nuclear family residence. This research is discussed in terms of its policy implications. Because the research demonstrates that social networks are important for the welfare of older Indians, one can conclude that social policy that encourages the maintenance of robust networks throughout the life course may be worth pursuing. One aspect of policy is discussed. The analysis of the relationship between social network and gender suggests that current policies that can be seen as supporting gender inequality in terms of property may have a negative impact on the networks of older women.     

Social Networks of Old People in India

Summary

This article presents a comparative analysis of the available research on the social networks of older persons in India. Most of this research has been done in North Indian cities. The research foci of the available studies include network size, core networks and beyond, life course changes in networks, impacts of residency in old-age homes, gender differences, and joint and nuclear family residence. This research is discussed in terms of its policy implications. Because the research demonstrates that social networks are important for the welfare of older Indians, one can conclude that social policy that encourages the maintenance of robust networks throughout the life course may be worth pursuing. One aspect of policy is discussed. The analysis of the relationship between social network and gender suggests that current policies that can be seen as supporting gender inequality in terms of property may have a negative impact on the networks of older women.     

Permanent or Uninterrupted Revolution: Lenin,Trotsky, and their Successors on the Transition to Socialism

In Russia, post-communist reforms to state social benefit policies have shown contradictory views of gender. On the one hand, reform showed a desire to promote gender equality between individuals, a view in which men and women alike were considered autonomous citizens. On the other hand, there was an impulse to consider women as a needy group dependent on special help from the state. This paper examines three related areas of policy: pronatalist policy, child welfare benefits, and old age pensions, in order to reveal unresolved issues in Russian social policies towards women and children.     

Retour sur le « secteur informel ». L'économie du Katanga (Congo-Zaïre) face à la falsification de la loi

In the social sciences, the idea of an informal sector has been criticized more for the classification of economic activities in two separate sectors than for the labeling of them as “formal” or “informal”. In the Congo (formerly Zaire), the use of such labels is ambiguous. Labeling has to be understood in the context of corruption, i.e., in a transaction involving the personal networks and social identities of the parties to it. An analysis is made of how such transactions with civil servants shape the local market in the case of the import trade in Katanga. Compared with the formal/informal cleavage, this approach enables us both to see the labeling of economic activities as a social and political process and to draw attention to the plurality of such practices in relations with authorities.     

Les politiques d'emploi et la transformation des normes : une comparaison européenne

Given the central orientation of the European employment strategy — adapt unemployment compensation systems so as to broaden access to jobs — the effects of policies in this field are examined by focusing on three axes: the impact on unemployment; the action on employment standards, and trends in the social regulation underlying these policies. A comparative view reveals how much national systems have been able to interpret EU objectives in their own way. This does not invalidate the pertinence of a European level of regulation,but it does expose the conditions for clarifying standards for public actions and leading actors to become involved in EU institutions, a source of legitimacy still to be constructed. This comparison of six national cases (Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom) sheds light on the importance of the social compromises that set the framework for job polices. The quality of occupational transitions is related to the ability of actors to jointly regulate employment policy and labor market standards. — Special issue: New patterns of institutions.     

Social Policy, “Deservingness,” and Sociotemporal Marginalization: Katrina Survivors and FEMA

Limiting assistance in the context of the neoliberal U.S. welfare state relies on a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor. Hurricane Katrina survivors were caught between two opposing cultural characterizations—”deserving” disaster victims and “undeserving” welfare cheats. In this article, I examine Hurricane Katrina survivors' experiences with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)'s rental assistance policies and practices, as their experiences reveal important aspects of how aid is allocated in the context of the contemporary U.S. welfare state, and what consequences this has for marginalized populations. I analyze in‐depth interviews and field observations with displaced Katrina survivors and find that FEMA policies and practices assumed a “middle class” model of family structure and economic standing. Those who did not fit into this model were made to wait while their cases were investigated, which had negative psychological and material consequences. I argue that being made to wait, or temporal domination, is a central component of the larger sociotemporal marginalization of the poor, or the way in which time structures social stratification. Temporal domination is a feature of neoliberal social policy, neither maliciously intended nor entirely unintended, that has the consequence of punishing the “undeserving.”     

Les apories de la solidarité familiale Contribution à la sociologie des configurations de justice entre les familles et l’État, dans le cas français

Despite its many meanings, “solidarity” has once again become current in French to describe macro as well as microsocial relations. Social relations in and outside the family have not always been understood as instances of solidarity. But is this solidarity the same as the one established by the welfare state? Forms of family solidarity that have risen in esteem over the past two decades are “deconstructed”. The conditions for family solidarity are examined; and conceptual paradoxes, described. This approach suggests that family solidarity, as this concept is normally used, mixes together several systems of justice that should be clearly distinguished, especially if we want to put this phrase to a judicious social use.     

Recruteurs sous tensions. Discrimination et diversité au prisme de registres argumentaires enchevêtrés

While most studies on discriminatory practices in recruitment identify them with a single set of motives, this article, based on 57 interviews with recruiters from different sectors, seeks to provide an alternative analytical framework. The requirements for fairness in the recruitment process are taken seriously and used to describe an experience of recruitment that entails grappling with contradictory demands, some related to economic efficiency, others to social justice. Recruiters have to balance these requirements. And whether or not recruitment is discriminatory depends on how the balance is struck and the social and organisational constraints that affect it.     

A Case Study of State‐Level Policymakers’ Discursive Co‐Constructions of Welfare Drug Testing Policy and Gender,Race, and Class

Welfare provision is distributed based on determinations of recipient worthiness, commonly assessed by racial‐ and gender‐specific characterizations of the poor as constructed through policy discourse. Social constructions of the poor contribute to the construction of welfare policy discourse and subsequently welfare policy. Welfare drug testing policy raises questions of the co‐constructions of race, class, and gender and welfare drug testing discourses. This case study of state legislators’ discourse on welfare drug testing explores these ideas. Using an intersectional perspective, we examine how categories of race, class, and gender give meanings to policy discourses concerning drug testing of welfare recipients, and conversely, how policy discourses concerning welfare drug testing give meanings to categories of race, class, and gender. We find a move away from explicit racialized and gendered discourse, and toward implicit constructions of race and gender, with a predominant explicit focus on constructions of social class in the characterization of an unworthy, suspect, and deviant poor population. The constructions of race, gender, and particularly social class effectively co‐construct welfare drug testing discourse, which justifies welfare drug testing policy in order to manage the derelict poor.     

Social work and social control in the penitentiary system: an empirical study in northern Italy

In Italy there is a prison and probation system based on a rehabilitative model, which is connected with social policies and entrusts relevant tasks to the helping professions. Among these, social work is affected by changes in social policies, marked by the influence of neoliberal thought. Contemporary sociological studies highlight the transition from a model mainly focused on ensuring social welfare, to a model in which the dominant interest is to increase effective social control. In this transition there has been an impoverishment of social protection for the most vulnerable segments of the population. This article presents the results of a qualitative research study carried out in northern Italy, among professionals working in the penitentiary sector (mainly social workers). Research has focused on the representations of the respondents on specific issues, including: the relationship between the crisis of the welfare state and the penal-welfare system; the culture of control and the changes in the role of social workers. Results show, inter alia, that social workers reject punitive responses, especially those towards the most disadvantaged social groups. Moreover, in this crisis of the welfare state and the rehabilitative model, political ideals, felt by the entire professional community, seem to be lacking.     

Racializing the "Social Development" State: Investing in Children in Aotearoa/New Zealand

This paper focuses on the claim that the child is emerging asa key figure of social governance. International studies suggestthat as liberal welfare states increasingly draw on social investmentdiscourse, the child—particularly the child-as-worker-in-becoming—hasemerged as an iconic figure. This has resulted in the childbecoming the central subject of social policies and programsand the focus of new spending priorities. In Aotearoa/New Zealand,however, the figure of the child is much less prominent thanelsewhere. Moreover, in the policies and programs of the NewZealand "social development" state, the child is often racializedby virtue of its location within specific family groupings andgeographical communities. In turn, this has implications forthe positioning of women. As we show, the child/mother who standsto benefit from the "investments" of social development in Aotearoa/NewZealand is actually more likely to be a Pkeh child/mother, whereasthe child/mother requiring continued programmatic interventionis more likely to be Mori or Pacific. This finding points tothe need for feminist scholars to examine further the complexinterpenetration of gender and race/ethnicity in the shapingof contemporary socio-political landscapes.     

Race,Hyper‐Incarceration,and US Poverty Policy in Historic Perspective

In this article, I bring scholarship on welfare reform into discussion with work on crime control and racial and ethnic relations. I locate the genesis of hyper‐incarceration and the moral suasion imposed on the recipients of contemporary social welfare services through the poverty policies of the Victorian era and later the postbellum south, implicating the checkered history of racial domination in the United States in the development of social welfare and criminal justice policy. I conclude by discussing the ways in which the United States has been reconfigured to facilitate these trends and of new terrain in the study of marginality in the neoliberal age. Doing so demonstrates the long‐standing collusion between welfare state and criminal justice actors, identifies the racialized target of punishment and poverty management, highlights the significance of race in the development of social policy, and exhibits the importance of social welfare policy in contemporary race and ethnic relations.     

Transforming child welfare: from explicit to implicit control of families

Through a historical review of child welfare laws and policies between 1896 and 1992 in Norway, this article investigates the state control of families. The central questions in this article relate to the transformations in the forms of state control of families. The research on which this article is based has relied on a genealogical approach. The sources are comprised of previous studies focusing on the historical development of child welfare in Norway. This article argues that state control, from having been explicit in the late nineteenth century, has today become increasingly implicit and hidden. Indeed, the value granted to children's rights and equality has made opposition to state interventions in families difficult. I relate the transformations in state control of families to the affirmation of the norms of ‘egalitarian individualism’. As Norway is amongst the first European countries to make child-centrism a hallmark of its social policies, these findings have implications for EU countries that may follow its path.     

Social justice,care and developmental welfare in South Africa: a capabilities perspective

One of the paradoxes of the democratic project in South Africa is that the combination of political empowerment, organised constituencies of poor people and increasing social sector spending has made minimal impact on increasing equality. Despite an overall macroeconomic framework that emphasises fiscal restraint, social welfare spending has increased in the past 14 years, and dramatically so since 2003. Almost one in four South Africans receives some or other form of grant, and the majority of recipients are women. Indeed, South Africa is regularly described as the developing world’s largest and most generous welfare state. I address the extent to which gender inequalities are reduced through public sector spending, asking the question: what is the optimal relationship between social policy and the intrinsic democratic goals of equality, social justice and citizenship? Drawing on Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach, the article argues that a focus on social sector spending alone is inadequate to address questions of social justice. Instead, I draw attention to the normative assumptions, discursive environment and institutional context in which social policy is elaborated and implemented. I argue that, in a context in which there is relatively poor infrastructural capacity in the state to ensure that service delivery takes place in fair, consistent and egalitarian ways, households and communities act as shock absorbers of state failures and women’s gendered burdens increase, despite formal commitments to gender equality. While women appear to have gained from political empowerment, women politicians did not effectively leverage their position in the state to promote pro‐poor policies or to build coalitions to challenge the watering down of early commitments to reducing gender inequalities.     

Rethinking care through social reproduction: articulating circuits of migration

Care has come to dominate much feminist research on globalized migrations and the transfer of labor from the South to the North, while the older concept of reproduction had been pushed into the background but is now becoming the subject of debates on the commodification of care in the household and changes in welfare state policies. This article argues that we could achieve a better understanding of the different modalities and trajectories of care in the reproduction of individuals, families, and communities, both of migrant and nonmigrant populations by articulating the diverse circuits of migration, in particular that of labor and the family. In doing this, I go back to the earlier North American writing on racialized minorities and migrants and stratified social reproduction. I also explore insights from current Asian studies of gendered circuits of migration connecting labor and marriage migrations as well as the notion of global householding that highlights the gender politics of social reproduction operating within and beyond households in institutional and welfare architectures. In contrast to Asia, there has relatively been little exploration in European studies of the articulation of labor and family migrations through the lens of social reproduction. However, connecting the different types of migration enables us to achieve a more complex understanding of care trajectories and their contribution to social reproduction.     

Effets pervers des déréglementations européennes : le cas du transport routier de marchandises

The transportation of freight by truck has been fully deregulated and opened to competition in the European Union, without any quotas or restrictions since 1July 1998. This deregulation has caused problems, mainly due to the delay in adopting common fiscal and social measures, road checks and sanctions for firms that commit offenses. Unscrupulous companies have used this legal vacuum in the EU to factitiously “outsource” activities and dodge national rules and regulations about taxes, labor relations and welfare. As a result, working conditions have worsened as barriers have been lifted. By definition, turnover is high among wage-earners. Truck drivers, semi-skilled, have become interchangeable on the EU marketplace. They can be profitably replaced with drivers from eastern Europe (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria), who are much cheaper and less protected. The spread of such practices is a cause of concern for labor organizations in Europe. Shipping by truck is a textbook case for analyzing how the EU is trying to counter the devious effects arising out of the deregulation of a branch of the economy.     

Assessing Public Support for State Government Social Welfare Expenditures

Abstract

This study compared two different approaches to assessing the level of public support for social welfare spending at the state government level. The first approach focuses on the degree to which the public supports state government's involvement in public welfare spending. The second approach identifies the importance the public places on social welfare spending when compared to other possible functions of state government. Using Alabama data, the paper examined changes in general and comparative public support for state budget expenditures from 1980 to 2000 in Alabama. In addition, we examined the effectiveness of sociodemographic and attitudinal characteristics of respondents as predictors of both general and comparative support for three social welfare functions of state government. Support for “benefits for poor people” grew both generally and comparatively in the 20-year period; support for programs for older people remained steady; and support for mental health services declined. Sociodemographic predictors of general and comparative sup port were generally consistent with a self-interest model     

The social investment approach as a field of job creation. From the ‘recalibration’ to a resurgent trade-off between employment growth and low wage (white) jobs. A comparison between Germany and Italy

The social investment approach emerged as a new welfare paradigm, aimed at reconciling the traditional functions of the welfare supply with a productive social agenda, designed at preparing people to confront the ‘new social risks’, whether they be related to the problem of balancing paid work and family responsibilities, upgrading the skills, preventing inequalities and promoting the availability of in-kind services. In order to achieve these objectives, especially those related to care needs and work-life balance, the adoption of social investment-based strategies necessarily implies an expansion of the jobs related to health and social care services. In more recent years, many studies have analysed the limitations of the social investment policies because of their different redistributive impacts on social groups. Several studies have found a higher use of these policies for high-income families. Another source of criticism on social investment is that spending on these policies would seem to crowd out more traditional passive social expenditures. In this article, we examine another question related to the widespread of this approach: what are the effects of the social investment policies in terms of direct job creation? In fact, one of the more controversial issues, related to social investment policies, is their direct contribution to the labour market in terms of both quantity and quality of work within welfare services. The article analyses these issues focusing on Germany and Italy, two countries that represent not only two different care regimes but also two distinct models regarding job creation strategies in the care sector. In doing so, particular attention will be paid to long-term care policies, as they represent one of the pivotal areas of the social investment approach, both in terms of social services, to address new social risks, and new jobs related to welfare services