An Agenda for Welfare Pluralism in Housing

During the 1980s the concepts of “welfare pluralism” and a “mixed economy of welfare” were developed by academics writing from the perspective of the social democratic centre of British politics as a response to the criticisms of state welfare put forward by the New Right and the New Left in the 1970s. Whereas the New Right gave little critical attention to such concepts regarding them as useful supports to an anti-state stance the New Left claims that they were an attempt to allow the Fabian-style managers of the old consensus to have some role in the restructuring of welfare to be carried out by the political wing of the New Right. It is argued that the claim of the New Left has limited validity but a more certain case can be made for the contention that the lack of a detailed specification of a social and economic context for welfare pluralism has given credibility to the accusation that welfare pluralism has provided a smokescreen for the introduction of market principles into welfare. Housing policy is here utilized to illustrate the argument and the ingredients of a socio-economic context for welfare pluralism in housing policy are set out in the hope that similar frameworks will be provided for other domains of welfare.     

Swedish Family Policy – Continuity and Change in the Nordic Welfare State Model

The main question addressed in this regional issue is whether or not the Nordic welfare states can still be considered a distinct welfare regime cluster given recent changes, such as the introduction of more private elements into the welfare state. The Nordic welfare states are often described as emphasizing full employment, economic and gender equality, and universal access to cradle‐to‐grave welfare state benefits and services. In the case of Sweden, often pointed to as the model of a social democratic welfare state, such elements remain intact in most aspects of the welfare state, even given the challenges presented by the global neo‐liberal economic paradigm since the 1970s. One way to determine whether or not the Nordic welfare states remain a distinct cluster is to provide an in‐depth examination of various welfare state policies in each Nordic country. To contribute to this analysis, an investigation of family policy in the Swedish context will be provided. Even given recent challenges, such as the introduction of private for‐profit childcare providers and a home care allowance, I argue that Swedish family policy has remained largely social democratic in its underlying goals, and thus acts to support the case for a distinct Nordic welfare regime cluster.     

British and European Influences on the "Australian Way" from the 1980s

Commonwealth countries share their British social policy legacy in a variety of ways. Autstralia attempted to adopt the postwar "new Fabian" welfare state model at the very time when international economic circumstances undermined its Keynesian foundation. With Labor governments in power from 1983 to 1996, Australia diverged significantly from the neo-liberal reform path adopted in the United Kingdom. Australian governments looked increasingly to European social democracies for alternative social policy models. In a manner anticipating the "Third Way", the tendency was towards mixing neo-liberal economics with social democratic welfare. The Australian "Third Way" which resulted proved unstable. Current social reformers, the paper proposes, ought to revisit a neglected but characteristically British emphasis on the need for a measure of "socialization of investment" to underpin redistributive strategies.     

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.     

The Universal Decline of Universality? Social Policy Change in Canada,Denmark, Sweden and the UK

The debate about the future of universal social programmes has been raging for years, both in social‐democratic and in liberal welfare states. The objective of this article is to contribute to the literature on universality by analyzing the evolution of universal social programmes in two social‐democratic and two liberal countries: Denmark, Sweden, Canada and the UK. This choice of countries provides the opportunity to investigate whether the principle and practice of universality has fared differently both within and between countries. The analysis focuses primarily on the national level while exploring three policy areas: pensions, healthcare and family policy, specifically child benefits and day care. The main conclusion of our comparative analysis is clear: among our two liberal and two social‐democratic countries, the institutional strength of universality varies greatly from one policy area and one country to another. Considering this, there is no such a thing as a universal decline of universality.     

Australian Welfare Reform: From Citizenship to Supervision

This paper examines the implications of welfare reform for the meaning of social citizenship in Australia. Australian welfare reform has been under way since the late 1980s, and reflects the themes of activity and participation that are shaping social policy in many advanced industrial nations. The paper suggests that Australian welfare reform is following a liberal trajectory of change which places a continuing emphasis on market and family as the preferred institutions for social support with a newly salient appeal to moral ideas about the responsibility of citizens to be self-sustaining. The paper argues that welfare is being transformed from a limited social right to support provided on condition, and from treating the claimant as a sovereign individual to a subject of paternalistic supervision. Together, these changes are redefining the meaning of equality in Australian social citizenship.     

Keeping the Faith: The Impact of Human Services Restructuring on Catholic Social Welfare Services

Church related agencies are major providers of community services in Australia (Lyons, 2001:34‐35). While the history of church related welfare service provision is not well known in Australia it is asserted that many have a long tradition of outreach and service provision to marginalised groups regardless of the government social policy of the day (ACSWC, 2000; Mendes, 2003). This paper examines the current environment of human services restructuring and the impact of the shift to contractualism on one church related provider: Catholic social welfare provision in Australia. It explores the significance of the church's social teachings and history on concerns that service innovation, diversity and advocacy are currently under threat. Finally it calls for greater appreciation of the distinctive contribution of church related agencies and what they have to offer in service delivery and as contributors to the social policy discourse.     

Institutions and the gender wage gap: How production and welfare regime moderates the effect of family policy

The aim of this study was to determine whether the effects of work and family reconciliation policy on the gender wage gap are moderated by institutional contexts of production and welfare regime. Using time‐series analysis for 13 countries from 1981 to 2015, the study revealed a strong association between childcare and a lower gender wage gap in the Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs)/social democratic welfare states but not in Liberal Market Economies (LMEs)/liberal welfare states. The study also found that the impact of leave generosity on the gender wage gap in CMEs/social democratic welfare states is less salient than in CMEs/continental welfare states. This study highlights the extent to which family policy affects the gender wage gap hinges on how each country organises its market coordination and welfare institutions and pushes the current literature forward to a question of ‘what kinds of’ family policy matters in ‘which’ production and welfare regimes.     

Convergence of family policy across welfare regimes (1990 to 2010): Different connotations of family policy expansion

Using multiple indices of family policy efforts – work/family reconciliation, gender equality and income protection, this study offers a nuanced understanding of family policy expansion in 14 OECD countries across three welfare regimes from 1990 to 2010. Findings suggest an overall convergence of family policies, particularly in gender equality and work/family reconciliation. Convergence has occurred simultaneously with distinctive family policy changes across welfare regimes. Conservative welfare states have experienced the most profound family policy alterations, shifting from a traditional gender model to one that encourages women's employment, but have, nevertheless, maintained policy efforts that sustain the traditional gender role. Despite an increase in their family policy efforts, liberal welfare states have continued to maintain minimal state action regarding family policy. Changes in social democratic welfare states have been less substantial, as they seem to continue to pursue a dual‐earner model with high degree of gender equality and work/family reconciliation.     

Privatisation and Welfare Services

This paper traces some of the persistent criticisms which have attended welfare provision in Australia and many other western industrialised nations over the past twenty years. Clearly, the most concerted attacks on the welfare system have come from the radical Right, who are becoming more adept at manipulating and hijacking the language and sentiments of supporters of welfare. The paper argues that the welfare crisis debate, of which privatisation has become an important component, has deceptively seized upon a particular, and simplistic, interpretation of economics and the economy of welfare, as a means of unfurling a broader ideological position on social and economic policy. The rhetoric of the ‘rational’ Right can have no legitimate place in the restructuring and improvement of welfare provision in Australia. It is essential to the continued development of the welfare system, that the ‘backlash’ proposals of the Right be comprehensively rejected, and exposed for their destructive capacity. Efforts to reverse the ideological shift created by the ‘New Right’, need to consciously reclaim and reinstate concepts of social justice and equity on the social policy agenda.     

The Transformation of Ideology from Mao to Deng: Impact on China's Social Welfare Outcome

This article aims at making a dialectical assessment of the development of social welfare between the period of Mao's socialism and Deng's economic marketization. It examines the transformation of ideological discourses between the two periods and its impact on social welfare outcomes. It posits that an ideological system is important in affecting the outcome of social welfare policy. Mao's welfare policy, despite certain shortcomings, created a relatively equal, sustainable and self-sufficient society with solid achievements in social welfare and especially in human development. Deng's economic marketization, although remarkable in economic growth, is producing social contradictions leading to the decline of welfare service. The current development discourse is dismantling Mao's welfare policy without establishing a new and more democratic conception of socialist political economy.     

The Role of Non‐profit Organizations in the Mixed Economy of Welfare‐to‐Work in the UK and Australia

This article charts the development of welfare‐to‐work policies and compares and contrasts the traditions of delivery in the UK and Australia. We find that in the UK, employment services and social security benefit administration have been dominated by the central state, traditionally affording a key role to civil servants as direct delivery agents. However, in federal Australia, mixed economies of welfare‐to‐work operate in the different states, there is a far greater role for social services and non‐profit organizations are firmly established as key providers of frontline employment services. Since the late 1990s, UK welfare reforms have been gradually following the Australian lead in contracting non‐state actors as delivery agents. As this trend seems set to continue and intensify, we examine the Australian experience in order to reflect on the role of non‐profits in policy reform.     

From parental engagement to the engagement of social work services: discussing reductionist and democratic forms of partnership with families

Social work has moved from a child protection discourse towards a child welfare discourse that views the relationship between social workers and families as a partnership. Partnership with families in the field of child protection and child welfare, however, mirrors diverse ideological motives of social policy, civil society and practice. We engage in a theoretical discussion of different interpretations of partnership. We draw a primary distinction between reductionist and democratic forms of partnership with families. In a reductionist approach, social workers activate parents in order to realize the goals set by social work. A democratic approach to partnership refers to a shared responsibility between social workers, parents and children. In this approach, effective partnership is not something to be realized as an outcome, but a point of departure that implies a joint search for meaning and an experiment with which social workers engage. This engagement presents ‘non‐participation’ not as problematic but as an essential element of participation. The focus then shifts from a methodical approach to partnership – how to activate people to participate in the care process – to the question of how the engagement of social workers can be constructed together with families.     

Common paths,divergent patterns: The social protection by other means approach in Australia and Japan

This article reports on a study of the welfare reform trajectories of two countries that are often identified in the literature as having institutional patterns of the ‘social protection by the other means’ approach. It is questioned in the article whether these two countries have undergone a converging reform trajectory against the increasing forces of economic liberalisation and whether their distinct ways of doing social policy have now come to an end. It argues that while both Australia and Japan have followed a similar neoliberal path in their social policy reform direction, the forms and patterns they have taken to follow have been distinct, largely aligned with the existing structure of social protection in each. Distinctive strategies of welfare adopted by each country have led to a divergent pattern in their way of doing social policy.     

Disenfranchised Not ‘Deficient‘: How the (Neoliberal) State Disenfranchises Young People

Young people's declining electoral participation has been considered a problem in a range of democracies, including Australia. In this paper I examine youth electoral participation through the eyes and voices of young marginalised Australians. In the policy arena young people's electoral participation is usually considered a subject for education policy. Here I make the case for considering it as an issue for social policy, and as a welfare issue. In this context I examine the effects of neoliberalism and Australia's shrinking welfare state on young people's citizenship and ability to access the franchise. Whilst acknowledging the liberal roots of neoliberalism I argue that whereas the neoliberal state identifies young people's political disengagement as a problem, and constructs participation using the language of ‘choice‘, that its own social policies act to create barriers to the franchise for young people and thus effectively disenfranchise them.     

The social welfare reform during the progressive regimes of South Korea: Theoretical implications

This study assesses the social welfare reform during the progressive regimes of South Korea (hereafter Korea) led by President Kim Dae-Jung (1998-2003) and President Roh Moo-Hyun (2003-2008), and considers its theoretical implications. Analysis of the social welfare reform under the two progressive governments has indicated that the reform did not produce the anticipated results. Although the Korean economy has grown rapidly along with a considerable increase in the national income per capita in comparison with that in the past, the country's social welfare system still remains significantly underdeveloped in all respects, relative to that of all the other OECD countries with similar economic power, let alone the advanced welfare states in Western Europe. This study maintains that the key reason for the inertia or status quo despite the significant efforts of both the governments to expand social welfare is explained in the Korean growth-first doctrine, which inherently considers that distribution hinders growth and that social policy is secondary to economic policy, thus limiting the choices of the country's decision makers, as has been the case all along since the developmental period. Given that the growth-first doctrine inherently regarded the relationship between growth and welfare as mutually exclusive, it was perhaps natural that the influence of the doctrine upon the social welfare policy of both the progressive governments would not be so positive. This suggests that path dependence is active in the case of the Korean social welfare policy, thus substantiating the validity of path-dependence theory.     

After New Labour: political and policy consequences of welfare state reforms in the United Kingdom and Australia

ABSTRACT

Growing global integration, combined with the collapse of Soviet Communism, created major challenges for centre-left politics in the democratic world. This article considers two transformative Labour Party-led experiments that refurbished the welfare states of Australia and the United Kingdom, respectively. In Australia, this includes the Hawke–Keating (1983–1996) and Rudd–Gillard (2007–2013) Governments, and in the United Kingdom, the ‘New Labour’ Blair–Brown Governments (1997–2010). We present a comparative political economy of these welfare reforms, one that draws on both the policy transfer and policy diffusion literatures. By the 1980s, both parties faced three problems related to national economic decline, the ideological challenge to Keynesianism, and the decline of the traditional working-class electorate. We argue both parties developed common electoral and governing strategies aimed at winning support for a market-driven social-democratic program. Policy simultaneously compensated voters for market inequalities and deepened market relations. Focusing on how labour governments managed post-industrial change, responded to inequalities, advanced quasi-markets, and negotiated with union partners, we argue these experiments produced increasingly contradictory results that left both parties electorally and ideologically depleted. Despite important similarities, we note differences – starting points, discrete events and institutional variations have mattered to reform paths and their consequences.     

Radical change or more of the same? Public attitudes towards social citizenship in New Zealand since neoliberal reform

International empirical evidence, including that from Australia, suggests that neoliberal reform has not changed public attitudes towards the social rights of citizenship as much as one might predict. But do these international findings hold true for New Zealand, whose institutions were more rapidly transformed by neoliberal reform than similar countries? Drawing upon public opinion data regarding economic protectionism and the welfare state over the past two decades, this paper argues that while some significant changes have emerged there is no overwhelming evidence of a paradigmatic shift in public attitudes towards social citizenship rights as a result of New Zealand's neoliberal reform. Indeed, New Zealand's experience appears as ambiguous and ambivalent as that of Australia, albeit different policy and historical settings have produced some differences in public attitudes.     

Taiwanese Housing Policy Shifting the Focus of Housing Policy under a Democratic Regime

In Taiwan, home ownership has been seen as a privilege of military and civil officers since the R.O.C. government moved to Taiwan in 1949. Taiwan has become a more democratic regime since martial law was repealed in 1987 and presidential election by popular votes was initiated in 1996. Using documentary data, this paper aims to relate the transition in housing policy to Taiwan's political transition from authoritarianism to democracy. We found that after the lifting of martial law, a growing number of social movements were triggered in response to political democratization. Since then, concerns and debates have started on how to revise the housing legislation to promote the welfare and social inclusion of vulnerable groups. A new housing policy that was influenced by the advocacy efforts of an action group was developed in May 2005 to meet social needs and achieve social equity.     

Developmental Social Policy,Social Welfare Services and the Non‐profit Sector in South Africa

The potential and challenge of constructing a democratic developmental welfare state through synergistic state‐civil society relations is the focus of this article. The author argues that while South Africa's pluralist approach, involving a leading role for the state in partnership with voluntary organizations, is a viable policy option to address the country's developmental challenges, anomalies between policy proclamations and actual practice raises questions about the efficacy of the partnership model and the gendered nature of welfare provision. Key governance issues and challenges, namely financial policies and institutional capability, underlie current failures in the delivery of welfare and care services, resulting in the non‐realization of these constitutionally guaranteed social rights. Further public action is needed to remedy the situation. Non‐profit organizations can advocate for policy reforms and challenge the instrumental nature of state‐civil relations and the abrogation of state responsibility for welfare services in contemporary South Africa.