Morality Politics vs. Political Economy: The Case of School-Based Health Centers

Objective . Scholars continue to debate whether morally charged political issues constitute a distinct type of policy question or produce essentially the same political dynamic as public controversies lacking an overt moral dimension. The debate will not be resolved until scholars test the determinants of putative morality policies with predictors drawn both from morality politics theory and from the socioeconomic factors that account for the distribution of many other public policies. This study reports such a test. Methods . We analyze data from our national survey of directors of school-based health centers. We use ordinary least squares regression models to predict the level of reproductive health care services provided to adolescents. Results . Service levels were influenced not only by cultural considerations, as morality politics theory would anticipate, but also by the same socioeconomic forces that account for policy levels in other domains. Conclusions . Policy for morality issues appears different from that for nonmorality issues but less distinctive than commonly imagined.     

All Politics is Not Local: National Forces in State Abortion Initiatives

Objective. Although research suggests that national forces can play a role in local and state elections, most of this work has only recently begun to examine the potential role of national forces in state or local ballot initiative or referenda elections. Methods. Our research addresses this gap in the literature by exploring the influence of national forces, such as the timing of elections, Supreme Court rulings, the activities of interest groups, and public opinion, on state direct legislation elections. We incorporate national forces into the morality politics framework and derive specific hypotheses. We then test these hypotheses by conducting a multivariate analysis of county–level voting patterns across 16 abortion–related direct legislation elections. Results. Our results confirm most of the hypotheses derived from the morality politics framework, including those concerning the role of national forces. Conclusions. Voting patterns on abortion tend to be influenced by the presence of presidential elections, Supreme Court rulings, interest–group activity, public opinion, partisanship, college education, and conservative religious forces. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on elections, abortion policy, and morality politics.     

Beyond Continuity? Understanding Change in the UK Welfare State since 2010

One approach to identifying policy change stresses policy instruments, settings and policy paradigms, while another also considers the process and culmination of various shifts and consequent outcomes. This article illustrates the debate through an examination of how far developments in social security policy between the 1997–2010 New Labour and 2010–15 Coalition Governments in the UK constituted real policy shifts. It shows that, despite continuities in instruments and approach, there have been substantial changes in the impact of welfare state policies related to short‐term benefits, employment and housing. The article identifies new policy directions leading to a different kind of welfare state, concerned less with living standards and equality and more with individual responsibility and paid work. It suggests that this has been achieved without the need for radical changes in instruments and their settings.     

Holy ABCs! The Impact of Religion on Attitudes about Education Policies

Objective . To examine the impact of religion on attitudes about three controversial education policies: creationism, school prayer, and vouchers. Methods . Using a unique, national survey of school board candidates that I undertook in 1998, I use regression analysis to examine which factors, especially religion, explain support for these three policies. Results . This study finds that conservative Christians are more likely to support such policies than mainline Protestants. Additionally, church attendance appears to have an amplifying effect on evangelicals with respect to support for these issues. By contract, those candidates with non-Judeo-Christian religious identifications have much lower levels of support for creationism and school prayer. However, conservative political ideology remains the strongest predictor of support for creationism, prayer in school, and vouchers. Conclusion . Religious beliefs, sometimes enhanced by church attendance, can have a powerful, direct effect on attitudes about creationism, school prayer, and vouchers among school board candidates. Demonstrating such a link becomes important when considering that school board members play a large role in shaping local education policy.     

State Gender Inequality,Socioeconomic Status and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in India: A Multilevel Analysis

While a growing body of literature has investigated the health impact of intimate partner violence (IPV), less has been written on the social determinants of IPV. The authors use multilevel modeling methods to analyze data from a sample of 83,627 women in India to examine the socioeconomic and demographic patterning of the state‐ and neighborhood‐level variation in, and the state‐ and/or neighborhood‐level characteristics related to, IPV. This study finds social gradients in IPV in which women who are uneducated, from marginalized castes, and living in poor households have higher likelihood of reporting IPV than those living in advantaged circumstances. The results also show differences in IPV between neighborhoods and between states that are partially explained by state levels of gender inequality. The results suggest that changing cultural norms to promote the status of women and increasing the educational and economic opportunities for all people could decrease the prevalence of IPV.     

Foundations of the Workfare State – Reflections on the Political Transformation of the Welfare State in Britain

The British ‘welfare state’ has been transformed. ‘Welfare’ has been replaced by a new ‘workfare’ regime (the ‘Work Programme’) defined by tougher state regulatory practices for those receiving out‐of‐work benefits. US‐style mandatory community work programmes are being revived and expanded. This article, therefore, considers shifting public attitudes to work and welfare in Britain and changing attitudes to working‐age welfare and out‐of‐work benefits in particular. It also considers the extent to which recent transformations of the state may be explained by declines in traditional labourist politics and class‐based solidarity. Thus, we attempt to develop a richer understanding of changing public attitudes towards welfare and the punitive regulatory ‘workfare’ practices engaged by the modern state in the liberal market economy; reflecting on the nature of the relations between ideology, party policies, popular attitudes and their political impact.     

Morality policy processes in advanced industrial democracies

In recent years, several countries have experienced widespread, intense debates about morality issues such as the death penalty, abortion, ART/stem cell research, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia. Assuming the distinctiveness of morality policies from other policy fields, this article analyses three alternative institutional models for explaining variations in the amount of conflict over these morality issues across 24 Western democracies. Is either the US-developed “policy type” model or the European-developed “two worlds” of morality politics, based on religious and secular party systems, applicable more broadly? Are there regional patterns (Europe and non-Europe) to any institutional findings? How does each model contribute to our understanding of morality policy comparatively across Western democracies? We find broader cross-national support for the policy type model, with the two worlds model largely restricted to Europe. The US has more morality policy conflict because of its unusual combination of a political party targeting religiously oriented voters within an institutional framework of multiple venues. The US and other non-European countries have similar patterns of institutional deliberation through decentralization, and the US also has similarities in multiple venues with religious party systems in Europe. Secular European party systems with centralized institutions have the fewest venues for morality policy debate.     

Agenda Setting and State Policy Diffusion: The Effects of Media Attention,State Court Decisions,and Policy Learning on Fetal Killing Policy*

Objectives. This study combines theories on agenda setting, policy innovation, and policy learning to develop an improved model of state policy change. The case of fetal killing policy change in the states is used to develop a model that incorporates national media attention and the decisions of state courts, in addition to policy learning variables that account for the policy changes of neighboring states and the passage of time. Methods. I test the effect of national media attention, decisions by the courts, and the actions of neighboring states on the likelihood that states will change their fetal homicide policies. Using time‐series cross‐sectional data from 1970 to 2002, the model is tested using logistic regression analysis. In addition to testing the theories mentioned above, control variables in the model include citizen and government ideology and the percentage of state residents who are fundamentalist Protestants. Results. Three of the four research hypotheses are supported by the statistical analysis. The results demonstrate that increased media attention to fetal homicide in a given year increases the likelihood that a state will change its policy the next year. Support is also found for the hypothesis that state court decisions will affect policy change. One of the control variables, government liberalism, is also found to decrease the likelihood that states will change their fetal homicide policies. Conclusions. This study lends insight into why states change their policies by including agenda‐setting variables such as media attention and decisions made by the courts. States do react to the actions of the courts by making changes to policies affected by the decisions.     

Children and safety in Australian policy: Implications for organisations and practitioners

Child safety is now a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive enquiries and reviews have escalated legislative and policy responses focused on developing, maintaining and monitoring “child safe” organisations. The recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse point to the importance of cultural conditions within organisations in supporting child safety and the need for responsive change in some organisations. Drawing on a recent policy analysis, undertaken as part of a larger Australian Research Council Discovery Project, this article examines how children and safety are constructed, within and across relevant state and federal government policies in Australia, and the implications of this. Distinctions are drawn between conceptualisations of children within the broader education policy context and two specific policy contexts in which children are considered particularly vulnerable to abuse – out‐of‐home care and disability. The findings indicate that policy discourses of “child safe” potentially foster different emphases and approaches in organisations. These have implications for the way children are positioned in relation to their safety, how their rights are recognised and implemented, and what is required to foster cultural conditions within organisations to best support children’s safety and wellbeing.     

Religiosity,citizenship and attitudes to social policy issues

Many social policy objectives align with religious beliefs – poverty alleviation, compassion for the poor and addressing more generally the needs of the vulnerable and disadvantaged in society. Yet there are also conflicting views about means, including the role of the state in redistributing resources from the rich and powerful to the poor and powerless. Redistribution and poverty alleviation are central goals of the welfare state, although ideological and other differences mean that views about the need for, as well as the design, delivery and impact of social programs vary. Against this background, this paper reviews existing national and international studies that have examined how religious belief and practice are associated with the attitudes that underpin the welfare state: compassion, altruism, redistribution and egalitarianism, and the activities that are assumed to align with modern conceptions of ‘a good civic citizen‘: participation and engagement. The analysis draws on recent Australian survey data to examine whether the attitudes of those who actively practice their religious beliefs differ from other groups in society and, if so, whether those differences are consistent with the underlying goals of social policy.     

Cash for long‐term care: Policy debates,visions, and designs on the move

Cash‐for‐care (CfC) schemes have introduced a key transformation in long‐term care policies across Europe since the 1990s. The article explores the extent to which CfC policies have changed over time and into which directions, the ways in which change (if any) has occurred and the forces underlying it. By combining the literature on institutional change with ideational approaches, the article focuses on policy theories and policy designs, on modes of change and factors pushing for change within the CfC policy, and in the long‐term care and neighbouring policy fields. In doing so, we aim to contribute to understanding institutional change and the transformation of an increasingly important sector of the welfare state.     

Political economy and the adoption of everyday environmental policies in the American states, 1997: an exploratory analysis

The political economy model has been widely and effectively used to explain and predict adoption rates of highly salient and/or controversial policies in the American states. However, use of this model to predict policy adoption in noncontroversial domains has been limited. This article tests the extent to which the model is successful in explaining the adoption of less-salient, everyday policies intended to improve environmental quality among the American states. The addition of conditional terms related to the model's political and bureaucratic components resulted in explaining 57% of the variance in commitment to everyday environmentalism among the American states. In sum, the number of everyday environmental policies adopted by state governments is a function of economic considerations, legislative accountability and professionalism, bureaucratic commitment, political culture and previous levels of policy adoption. Alternately—and unlike more controversial environmental policy domains—partisanship, ideology, party control of government and interest group forces do not have an impact on adoption of everyday environmental policies.     

Querulous Citizens: Welfare Knowledge and the Limits to Welfare Reform

Governments face pressures to improve services and (at the same time) to contain taxes and to ensure that their decisions are accountable to increasingly well‐informed and challenging citizens. The dilemma of “squaring the welfare circle” confronts New Labour in a particularly acute form, since the party has set ambitious targets for improvements in the NHS, education and elsewhere, and is also committed to economic prudence and transparency. This article uses new data from a major national survey to investigate knowledge and beliefs in the main policy areas. It shows that most people are generally strikingly well‐informed in some areas and ill‐informed in others. A government which wishes to pursue a progressive direction in redistribution, increasing taxation of the better‐off, or expanding provision for those on low incomes, faces real difficulties because many people hold inaccurate beliefs about policy impact and the policy context in these areas. However, NHS costs are more accurately perceived across the population, and the proposed expansion is likely to create less controversy. Current high‐profile policies appear to follow the contours of public knowledge reasonably accurately, but further policy development will require positive efforts to lead debates and improve public knowledge.     

Do the regulatory standards require religious literacy of U.K. health and social care professionals?

Health and social care professionals need sufficient religious literacy in order to handle the complexities of religious beliefs and practices, including the growing numbers who identify with other belief systems and those who claim to identify with no religion. The extent to which the need for religious literacy has been formalized was examined in an analysis of regulatory frameworks for health and social care professionals in the United Kingdom. Although all but one of the regulators make some reference to religion and beliefs, they are silent on the question as to what is meant by religion and beliefs. Some standards include a requirement not to impose one's own beliefs on others, but there is very little requirement to develop a reflective and self‐critical awareness of one's own stance. Likewise, some standards refer to knowledge and skills required, but greater specificity is required for these to be meaningful.     

Social Politics and Policy in an Era of Globalization: Critical Reflections

This paper critically examines the ways in which social policy is said to be affected by globalization. The prevailing approach has been framed in terms of the impact of "external" economic forces on national welfare states. Globalization is said to undermine the economic and political conditions on which welfare states were built, erode national policy autonomy and force the marketization and residualization of welfare states. These predictions are found wanting on the grounds that they share many of the assumptions, and therefore also the faults, of "strong" globalization theory. A more nuanced account of the way in which social politics and social policy are affected by globalization is needed and a global governance perspective is outlined. This, it is argued, better captures the political and institutional environment in which social policy is formulated and implemented. It also recognizes the importance of "local" factors and their interaction with global ones in shaping political responses, including social policy, to globalization. The discussion highlights the enduring power of "local" forces—those which are at the level of and internal to states—and of politics and ideology in shaping the process of globalization and ultimately its implications for welfare states and social policies.     

Culture and context: exploring attributions and caregiving approaches of parents of children with an intellectual disability in urban India

We utilized a sociocultural lens and a qualitative approach to examine causal attributions and caregiving approaches of parents of children with an intellectual disability in a mid‐sized Indian city. Sixteen mothers and three fathers participated in a semi‐structured interview. Findings elucidate participants' active processing of the cause of their child's intellectual disability. They seemed to simultaneously draw upon religious, biological and situational factors to construct an explanation. As far as caregiving approaches, most parents reported moving away gradually from mainstream medicine to alternative medicine and physiotherapy and from regular education settings to special schools. The themes highlight the role of sociocultural factors and also cross‐cultural similarities in parental causal attributions and caregiving approach. The findings are discussed in the context of implications for social work practice and policy in India.     

Public Satisfaction with the Health System and Popular Support for State Involvement in an East Asian Welfare Regime: Health Policy Legitimacy of Hong Kong

The legitimacy of social policies has gained increasing attention in the past decade, against the backdrop of fiscal austerity and retrenchment in many nations. Policy legitimacy encompasses public preferences for the underlying principles of policies and the actual outcomes as perceived by citizens. Scholarly knowledge concerning the legitimacy of health policy – a major element of modern social policy architecture – is, unfortunately, limited. This article seeks to extend the scholarly debates on health policy legitimacy from the West to Hong Kong, a member of the East Asian welfare state cluster. A bi‐dimensional definition of health policy legitimacy – encompassing both public satisfaction with the health system and the normative expectation as to the extent of state involvement in health care – is adopted. Based on analysis of data collected from a telephone survey of adult Hong Kong citizens between late 2014 and early 2015, the findings of this study demonstrate a fairly high level of satisfaction with the territory's health system, but popular support for government responsibility presents a clear residual characteristic. The study also tests the self‐interest thesis and the ideology thesis – major theoretical frameworks for explaining social policy legitimacy – in the Hong Kong context. Egalitarian ideology and trust in government are closely related to both public satisfaction with the system and popular support for governmental provision of care. However, the self‐interest thesis receives partial support. The findings are interpreted in the context of Hong Kong's health system arrangements, while implications for the territory's ongoing health policy reform are discussed.     

The Multicultural Welfare State: International Experience and North American Narratives

Contemporary debates are increasingly pessimistic about the impact of ethnic diversity on support for the welfare state. A growing number of analysts argue that greater ethnic diversity in Western democracies is weakening public support for redistribution, and that this underlying tension is exacerbated by the adoption of robust multiculturalism policies. The purpose of this essay is to summarize early findings from several studies that bear on the questions at the heart of such debates. These studies analyse the implications of immigration and multiculturalism policies for the welfare state across OECD countries, and also focus more closely on the experience of two distinctively multicultural countries, the United States and Canada. The evidence points to more complex relationships than often assumed. OECD countries with large foreign‐born populations have not had more difficulty in sustaining their welfare states than other countries. The extent of change does seem to matter, however, as countries in which immigrant communities grew rapidly between 1970 and the late 1990s did experience lower rates of growth in social spending. But despite the warnings of some critics, robust multiculturalism policies do not systematically exacerbate this tension. Moreover, the United States and Canada reflect different patterns. In the US racial diversity does weaken support for redistribution; but Canadian experience suggests that immigration, multiculturalism policies and redistribution can represent a stable political equilibrium. These contrasting narratives from North America stand as a warning against premature conclusions based on the US experience alone. There is no inevitability at work, and policy choices do seem to matter.     

A Bedrock of Support? Trends in Welfare State Attitudes in Sweden, 1981–2010

This article reports findings about Swedes' attitudes towards the welfare state from 1981 to 2010, building on data from the Swedish Welfare State Surveys. Attitudes towards social spending, willingness to pay taxes, attitudes towards collective financing and public organization, suspicion about welfare abuse, and trust in the task performance of the welfare state are tracked. Overall, there is a large degree of stability in attitudes, and where change is registered, it tends to go in the direction of increasing support. More people state their willingness to pay higher taxes for welfare policy purposes; more people want collective financing of welfare policies; and fewer people perceive extensive welfare abuse in 2010 than was the case in previous surveys. Class patterns change so that the salaried and the self‐employed become more similar to workers in their attitudes. Hence, the unprecedented election loss of the Swedish Social Democrats in 2010, and the rise of the Moderates (conservatives) as the dominant party cannot be explained by changing attitudes towards the welfare state. Nor can any corrosive effects from increased marketization of the Swedish welfare state on public support for welfare policies be detected.     

The Lottery and Income Inequality in the States*

Objective. Since the early 1970s, income inequality in the United States has increased dramatically. We examine the impact of state lotteries on income inequality in the American states from 1976–1995. Methods. We use cross‐sectional time‐series data to evaluate the effect of lotteries as well as those of other state tax policies, redistributive programs, and demographic factors on income inequality. Results. We find that state lotteries foster income concentration. Ceteris paribus, states with lotteries have higher levels of income inequality than those states without a lottery. We also find that additional demographic and policy factors have an impact on income inequality in the states. Conclusions. One of the most important policy‐oriented determinants of income inequality is the lottery and a significant portion of the increase in income inequality over our two‐decade time period is attributable to the increasing prevalence and popularity of state lotteries.