After the Handover in 1997

This paper analyzes the development of social welfare, social work education, and the social work profession against the background of Hong Kong's socio-economic and political development before and after the historic 1997 transfer of sovereignty. The change from a British colonial regime to China's Special Administrative Region has not changed Hong Kong's welfare regime, which provides the context in which the social work profession and education developed. The welfare sector has been increasingly subject to managerialist control by the government. Marketization in higher education in general has resulted in the proliferation of social work education programs. On the other hand, social work education has ventured new directions of development to face up with the challenges of increasing globalization.     

Post-Fordism, the welfare state and the personal social services: a comparison of Australia and Britain

Summary The Post-Fordist welfare state thesis locates contemporary socialwelfare change within a wider analysis of the transformationof capitalist accumulation regimes. Whilst this analysis isuseful in directing attention to macro socio-economic change,it has for the most part contained three shortcomings. First,the Post-Fordist thesis has overemphasized the role of historical'breaks' in the development of social welfare as it purportedlypasses from Fordism to Post-Fordism. Second, the thesis hasassumed a degree of convergence between welfare states as aresult of global economic forces. In doing so, it has underemphasizedthe mediating impact of existing institutional arrangementswithin nations. Third, the thesis has assumed, rather than demonstrated,the specific changes which are alleged to be taking place invarious fields of social welfare. As a consequence, aspectsof continuity in social welfare have been neglected. These threelacunae are addressed through a comparative analysis of developmentsin the personal social services in Australia and Britain. Servicesto older people are employed as the specific context of comparisonin relation to three dimensions of measuring transformationalong a Post-Fordist trajectory: a shift from a unitary economyto a mixed economy of service provision; changes in the modelof service delivery and consumption; and strengthening the governancefunction of the central state. This comparative analysis suggeststhe need for refinement of the Post-Fordist welfare state thesisconcerning the restructuring of social welfare and its impacton the personal social services.     

From entitlements to incentives: The changing philosophy of social protection

In recent years policies for social protection initially designed for purposes of income maintenance have come to place increasing emphasis on the reintegration of welfare beneficiaries into the labour force. This paper describes a range of initiatives in public assistance, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and public pensions, which link social benefits with incentives to work. These measures are seen as part of a broader pattern of change that seeks to balance social rights and obligations. The reasons for this change are examined in the light of demographic trends, ideological shifts, and unanticipated consequences of past social welfare policies. An analysis of the uncertainties surrounding incentive-oriented social policies suggests that these measures bear careful monitoring.     

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.     

The Emperor's new clothes: South Africa's attempted transition to developmental social welfare and social work

This article critically interrogates the depth and quality of change of post‐apartheid welfare policy and social work practice towards a social development paradigm against the background of inequality and poverty in South Africa. It asks several questions: what kind of welfare system has the current welfare dispensation created? How far has it moved from a residual, ameliorative system to an institutional developmental system, in keeping with the developmental welfare paradigm? To what extent can residual provisions be transformed into developmental processes? What conditions are necessary for this to happen? The answers to questions such as these provide the basis for assessing South Africa's new developmental processes. The article highlights the fundamental contradictions in social development policy imperatives, which call for a marriage of economic and social considerations, and the internal contradictions across and within various welfare policies. Further, it argues that the government does not have the political will to bear the costs of the substantive change that the move towards developmental social work requires, choosing instead limited, individually targeted and ameliorative measures, such as increased social security spending. Thus, it suggests that ideological critique, consciousness raising and participation in public policy debates remain crucial for those who seek long‐term solutions to inequality and poverty in South Africa.     

旨在维护家庭功能的家庭政策探索

当今中国急剧的社会变迁增加了个体的流动性,而家庭为个体提供福利的功能也在减弱,分析我国现行的家庭政策在支持家庭增强福利提供功能方面政策指向不明确,建议建立以维护家庭功能为主旨的由家庭经济安全保障和家庭福利服务为主要内容的家庭政策体系。     

Culture: The Missing Variable in Understanding Social Policy?

This paper questions the intuitive assumption that twentieth-century public welfare states have reflected the wider culture in which they operate. It is argued that the postwar welfare state was a "modernist" project designed to change mass culture. As a result, social policy analysis has tended to ignore the wider culture as both a source and context for welfare. At the beginning of the twenty-first century new patterns of risk and postmodern cultural formations are supporting eclectic policy-making which is more in tune with cultural majorities. This signals the end of the systematic welfare state.     

Regional Welfare System Developments in Russia:Community Social Services

Micro-level studies of welfare service developments are largely absent from the literature on Russian social policy issues, which tends to concentrate on macro-level social security arrangements. This paper highlights the emergence of community-based social services in the post-1991 era, examining their development in two provincial Russian cities, based on an empirical study carried out in 1998. The paper adds to a growing literature which seeks to understand "welfare systems" from the perspective of welfare services as opposed to a social security or policy-based approach. It takes a user-group perspective on the services by looking at their use by, and relevance for, disabled children regarded as having learning difficulties, and their families. The empirical data indicate the shape of "new" services in the field sites, the means by which such institutions were maintained and their integration into the welfare sphere as a whole. Their development and maintenance at the local level is explained in part by socio-economic, political and administrative factors in these regions. By highlighting the various factors that help to maintain welfare provision and drive change at the local level, the case studies indicate the possible shape of future welfare developments in Russia as a whole.     

适度普惠视阈下我国儿童社会福利体系构建及其实施路径

民政部提出社会福利由"补缺型"向"适度普惠型"转变的战略决策,为我国社会福利发展趋向奠定了政治基础。此后,适度普惠社会福利成为国家和学界共同关心和关注的重要议题,也逐渐成为我国当前和接下来一段时期内的主导社会福利模式。在这种背景下,回顾和评价我国儿童社会福利发展取得的成效和存在的不足,从福利对象、原则、理念、内容、政策体系、以及责任主体等六个方面建构我国适度普惠儿童社会福利体系,并进一步提出其实施路径,具有重要的战略意义和现实意义。     

“第三条道路”的社会福利主张对我国构建和谐社会的重要启示

在构建和谐社会的过程中,应当吸收、借鉴国内外推行社会福利方面政策的经验。作为引起了20世纪80年代以来世界各国社会福利领域发生重大变化的“第三条道路”强调“无责任即无权利”的新原则,提出了积极的福利政策,主张建设社会投资型国家。其中注重人力资本投资、积极的福利政策和发展公民社会对我国构建社会主义和谐社会提供了重要启示。     

(Re) Shaping Social Work: An Australian Case Study

Contemporary policy development via various nationally contingentprocesses of welfare reform poses significant challenges tosocial work. This paper explores the initial impact on one groupof generalist social workers in working in the Australian incomesupport agency—Centrelink. Positioning welfare reformwithin a theoretical framework of institutional change, theauthors suggest that the associated policy developments havethe capacity to seriously destabilize social work, particularlyin that they promote values and rationalities at odds with thoseassumed by the profession. These assumptions are explored throughexploratory empirical engagement with the Centrelink socialworkers, the results of which suggest that all social workersin those national contexts experiencing the same policy orientationhave significant reason to be concerned.     

完善我国社会福利行政体系

当前我国社会福利行政体系在社会福利法律法规建设、社会福利行政机构设置、社会福利行政人员管理、社会福利基金收支等方面均不健全,一定程度上妨碍了福利事业的发展。完善我国社会福利行政体系也应从这几方面来改革推进。     

Activation and Local Welfare in Italy: Trends and Issues

This article deals with the development of local welfare in Italy and is grounded on a research project focusing on activation as a main feature of change in Italian social policies. Along with decentralization processes, many Italian regions have been acting as policy laboratories, developing and testing very different approaches according to their political attitude. On the one hand this results in a fragmented policy landscape which is difficult to recompose, and, moreover, in growing inequalities in the Italian welfare system. On the other hand, it opens opportunities for experimentation on institutional and organizational structures on a regional scale, creating a variety of practices for research and policy analysis. In the article we first describe the main trends in national social policies, with a specific focus on the dynamics of change referring to activation. We will then focus on a pilot programme which is aiming at the promotion and implementation of innovative practices in health and social care services in Friuli‐Venezia Giulia, a region in which there is a significant orientation towards enhancing social citizenship and enforcing the central position of the public actor. We investigate how the dynamics of territorialization and personalization, implied by the programme, trigger specific logics and practices of activation. Finally, referring to this case study, we propose an analytical overview of some relevant issues in the development of ‘local active welfare’ in Italy.     

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.     

Retrenchment, Expansion and the Transformation of Mexican Social Protection Policies

Social protection policies in Mexico have been transformed since 1988 through partial retrenchment of social insurance and significant expansion of targeted or means-tested social assistance. These changes reflect a substantial redefinition of social protection through incremental changes in policy. The changes reflect the abandonment of the goal of developing an employment-based, universal welfare regime, which had been pursued by Mexican governments as late as the 1970s. Instead, recent administrations have moved towards the redefinition of Mexico's welfare regime into a residual, means-tested model with significant private provision of benefits and services. This shift in social protection is consistent with the change in Mexico's overall economic development strategy and increasing political competition in the process of democratization.     

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP — FALSE PREMISES AND DANGEROUS FOREBODINGS

As a reaction against neo‐liberalism, Social Entrepreneurship has been promoted as the solution to welfare problems brought about by social change and persistent unemployment. The Social Entrepreneurship Movement (SEM) proposes the reconstruction of welfare by building social partnerships between the public, social and business sectors. Major aspects of this agenda include non‐profit organisations undertaking entrepreneurial ventures and the pooling of government welfare funding under the control of local communities. In this paper we argue that the SEM literature is based on two false premises: the failure to understand the true causes of mass unemployment, and the assumption that the government faces financial constraints in the provision of welfare services. We also argue that implementation of the SEM proposals would erode the rights‐based eligibility to universal welfare services based on the principle of social justice. We also conclude that the SEM is indistinguishable from neo‐liberalism and as such does not represent a viable solution to unemployment and the welfare needs that accompany it.     

Financial Crisis and Social Security: The Paradox of the Republic of Korea

This paper seeks to answer the questions why and how the social security system in the Republic of Korea has expanded in the wake of the financial crisis. The author first reviews the characteristics of the Korean welfare system before turning to the social effects of the financial crisis, then examining the resultant changes to the social security system and highlighting the driving forces behind them. The paper argues that the development of the system can be mainly attributed to the change of policy networks from a symbiotic alliance between the State and business to a tripartite corporatismand growing social demands for social welfare.     

The Retrenchment of the Welfare State in Latin America: The Case of Argentina

According to the conventional approving account of the transformations which have been taking place in public policy and in markets in Latin America, Argentina constitutes one of the most successful examples of wide-ranging and rapid change. Certainly the experience of Argentina offers an excellent case-study of what in the literature is termed " the retrenchment of the welfare states"; that is those institutional transformations associated with the "neoconservative revolutions" of recent years. In this paper I analyse the characteristics of Argentinian welfare state retrenchment, distinguishing between two fields of analysis: (1) "systemic retrenchment" which is linked to changes in the "referential environment" of social policy institutions, especially changes in the economic, fiscal, labour market and politico-institutional contexts: (2) "programmatic retrenchment" which refers to changes in the institutional ordering of specific social policies. Finally I draw conclusions in respect of the strategies adopted for the retrenchment of the welfare state in Argentina and discuss probable prospects for the future.     

公共负担平等原则的具体化——论特别财产限制的补偿

本来意义上的公共负担源于社会契约论,直至近现代为财产权利的社会责任理论所正当化。不过,提出财产权利社会责任理念的国家福利主义者并不反对对公共负担予以必要的限制与防范。对财产的特别限制必须予以补偿即是对上述限制与防范的制度体现;它和“公共需要”标准共同构成了对权力征收行为的限制。从而在财产权利的社会责任与财产的权利防御性之间形成了一种均衡,展现了从古典形式主义法治向新立宪主义流变的图景。     

Creating Spaces: Exploring the Role of Cultural Knowledge as a Source of Empowerment in Models of Social Welfare in Black Communities

Summary Research data continue to indicate that black communities aredisproportionately represented across social welfare statistics.The Macpherson Report (1999) considered the impact of institutionalracism and the various ways in which these contingencies affectthe life chances of black families and individuals. Black community-basedorganizations have responded to these challenges through culturallyconstructed interpretative frameworks in shaping and definingsocial welfare activities. Through a critical reading of culturalelements and products they have utilized cultural knowledgeas a source and means of empowerment. These are important sitesof empowerment that reject deficit approaches to embrace culturallyaffirming models located in cultural knowledge and lived experiences.In this way, black communities have engaged in an active processof revitalization, cultural renewal and regeneration. This articleexplores models of social welfare in black community-based organizationsand draws on a research study conducted by the author, whichexamines the role and saliency of cultural knowledge in shapingsocial welfare delivery. Research findings reveal the ways inwhich black agency is sometimes located in culturally constructedways to reflect on daily lives and experiences. Cultural knowledgeacted as a vehicle in framing action-orientated communal strategiesfor social and educational change.