The Transferability of Welfare Models: A Comparison of the Scandinavian and State Socialist Models in Relation to Finland and Estonia

In this paper, two examples of the close relationship between a national social welfare system, and explicit transnational influences are discussed. Both the state socialist and Scandinavian models have a recognized structure independent of the particular countries in which they have been implemented, although they are both associated with a home base, Russia and Sweden respectively. Our examples, Estonia and Finland, faced both common and specific national problems following 1991, which led to rapid change in each country's economic situation and pressure on their respective welfare systems. There were elements of continuity and discontinuity with the main tenets of their respective welfare models, and both structural factors and cultural diffusion will be explored to understand the origin of these changes. The paper could be seen as a case study of welfare changes in the "borderlands" where "old empires meet". The countries were chosen because they are peripheral to what were rival spheres of influence and because they see themselves as having much in common. We also expect changes to occur more rapidly in peripheral areas.     

AUSTRALIAN WELFARE REFORM: FROM CITIZENSHIP TO SOCIAL ENGINEERING

This paper examines the changes in the terms of citizen‐state relations that are coded in Australia's current program of welfare reform. It argues that welfare reform entails a shift from welfare as a limited social right of citizenship to welfare as a form of support conditional upon completing specified obligations, and from the provision of support as a cash payment to support coupling cash with personal services. Together, these shifts have the scope transform the relation between citizen and state fundamentally. This is no less than a shift from social policy citizenship in which claimants are presumed to act on their own behalf to paternalistic support and care directed to reforming character and values as well as to meeting need. The paper argues that this shift violates the fundamental equality essential to social policy citizenship.     

When Is a Change Big Enough to Be a System Shift? Small System‐shifting Changes in German and Finnish Pension Policies

In the wake of Esping‐Andersen's and Pierson's landmark publications, comparative welfare state research has revolved around the retrenchment of social policy and the transformation of welfare state regimes. One of the chief problems of these studies is the treatment of time. Very often, changes are incremental and their real impacts are not immediately visible but take years or even decades before the consequences fully materialize. The purpose of this paper is to discuss those incremental processes—that consist of series of smaller “not‐system‐shifting changes”—which may gradually change central features of a welfare state. Pension programmes, spanning long time periods, provide a good example. Only in some rare cases were pension schemes reformed in one step and in such a way that one can definitely ascertain a system shift. Most changes, however, are gradual, and recurrently enacted minor adjustments seem to leave the basic principles of the scheme intact. In this paper pension reform policies in Germany and Finland will be used to answer the question of when a change is big enough to be labelled as a system shift. It is argued that small “not‐system‐shifting” changes of the last two decades will eventually alter the basic characteristics of old‐age security in both countries.     

从结构论争到行动分析：海外中国NGO研究述评

当代中国NGO的发展一直是海外学者高度关注的话题,由于其复杂性与多样性,海外中国研究学者对改革开放后中国NGO的发展及其日益扩展的影响有着不同的理解,也引发了激烈的学术争论。本文运用文献研究方法,将海外学者的研究归纳为依托公民社会与统合主义理论的结构研究与关注NGO行为的行动研究,力图展现改革开放以来海外学者研究中国NGO的整体图式。 本文认为,“结构研究”基于 “国家-社会”的二元分离,在一国的政治与权力配置层面上思考问题,侧重于国家与社会之间的权力分配状态;“行动研究”则试图在中观和微观层面来洞察与把握国家与社会之间相互交融的机制、策略与路径,倡导关注NGO的行动。这两者之间存在明显的互补性。     

The End of the Welfare State?

This paper critically examines claims of a new consensus on welfare and the end of the welfare state. We first review the concept of welfare consensus, concentrating on the idea of welfare pluralism, in particular the relatively neglected distinction between national minimum (base) and extension ladder (superstructure). We then examine these concepts in the 1990s under Conservative and New Labour governments. Important changes to welfare pluralism are noted. There have been changes in the character of means-tests, with the national minimum replaced by a series of residual minima, which represent fundamental changes to structural incentives governing the social division of welfare and work. The line between state and non-state provision has been blurred and there have been moves to achieve universalism in the private sector. It is possible to tentatively classify Labour's principles and fledgling policies into three categories: essential continuity with the Conservatives, reversing Conservative policies and extending Conservative policies. However, it is difficult to detect the degree of consensus because a new flexible language is beginning to pervade social policy, with the result that the welfare state is being redefined, notably in areas of full employment, citizenship and conditionality. It is possible to detect, in our terms, moves towards turning Beveridge inside out and from the "Marshall" towards the "Beveridge" welfare state. It is clear that the welfare state is being redefined, but reports of its death have been much exaggerated.     

When Do Benevolent Capitalists Change Their Mind? Explaining the Retrenchment of Defined‐benefit Pensions in Britain

This paper explores the politics of welfare retrenchment, but differs from much of the current literature in this area by focusing not on the decisions of politicians but those of private sector employers. In countries with a large private welfare sector, employers are major social policy players with a significant influence on the generosity of welfare provision, but the rationale behind their actions is not well understood. To explore these issues, a case study is used of the recent fundamental change in UK occupational pension provision, involving a rapid shift from defined‐benefit to defined‐contribution pensions. The paper shows by means of a micro‐simulation of the relative performance of defined‐benefit, defined‐contribution and state pensions that this shift represents a significant retrenchment. It suggests, using historical material, interview data and insights from behavioural economics, that existing explanations for this change, while valuable, have important gaps because they are based on too narrow a conceptualization of business motives. In this regard, the paper highlights the importance of herd behaviour.     

边缘与中心共舞：社会安全视野下的全球艾滋生命治理——以中国边城为例

本文以艾滋病为例探讨社会应对风险的可能路径,分析了“中心”与“边缘”两种治理模式的互动过程,进而挖掘社会创新的可能性。“中心”逻辑以保卫社会之名推行规范性教育话语,并在实际运作中固化秩序,追求成本效益;“边缘”逻辑则在特定善的理念引导下进行探索性社会行动。二者是当代世界应对风险的体制性道德驱力。随着边缘与中心的互动,艾滋病病毒感染者的境况从被排除翻转为例外性纳入,由此体现了当代世界生命治理的元结构。中国边城的感染者同伴小组内嵌到中心体制之中,促使感染者人口更加平稳地进入医学体系,同时也开启了全新的社会行动领域,激发了生命活力的涌现。艾滋病作为社会实验所彰显的边缘能量,对探索社会本身的包容性和开放性潜能有着深远意义。     

Reversing "the inadvertent nationalization of fatherhood": The British Child Support Act 1991 and its consequences for men, women and children

During the 1980s, with the growth in divorce, remarriage and births outside marriage, men's responsibilities for children and their mothers have been reviewed. In Great Britain, the Child Support Act 1991, following a decade in which the number of lone parents increased by 50 per cent and the proportion claiming state benefit increased from one-half to two-thirds, is attempting to shift lone mothers from dependence on the State to dependence on the biological father of their children. This has raised controversial issues concerning women's and children's claims on the State as citizens in their own rights; the balance between a man's private duty to maintain and provide care for children (by maintaining their mother) and his public duty to reimburse the State for doing so; and the legitimacy of trade-offs between claims on family "property" and claims to maintenance previously exercised in the courts. The individualistic system of English family law, in contrast to the law in Scotland and continental Europe, is part of the context within which these changes are taking place. So, too, is the fall in economic activity rates of lone mothers, which are among the lowest in the European Union.     

A New Model of Welfare: Re-asserting the Value of Kinship for Children in State Care

This paper briefly examines current arguments concerning the demise of the traditional family, pointing out that the numbers of lone-parent families are not historically unparalleled and noting that the current emphasis in the "death of the family" debate on the nuclear rather than the extended family marks a significant shift over recent decades. The nature of kinship is briefly examined in historical context, and kin relationships are seen to be fundamentally different on a number of important dimensions from other social relationships. The erosion of kinship as the consequence of the increasing state regulation of family life and the lack of importance it is now generally accorded in modern child welfare systems is considered and the reasons for this are discussed. Finally the article turns to the changes that would be required were kinship decision-making once more accorded a key place in planning for the care of children deemed to be in need of care and protection and the potential, as a model for practice, of the family group conference is considered.     

New social risks in postindustrial society: Some evidence on responses to active labour market policies from Eurobarometer

One result of the complex economic and social changes currently impacting on state welfare is the emergence of what may be termed "new social risks" as part of the shift to a postindustrial society. These concern access to adequately paid employment, particularly for lower-skilled young people, in an increasingly flexible labour market, and managing work-life balance for women with family responsibilities engaged in full-time careers. They coexist with the old social risks that traditional welfare states developed to meet, which typically concern retirement from or interruption to paid work, in most cases for a male "breadwinner". New social risks offer policymakers the opportunity to transform vice into virtue by replacing costly passive benefits with policies which mobilize the workforce, arguably enhancing economic competitiveness, and reduce poverty among vulnerable groups. However, the political constituencies to support such policies are weak, since the risks affect people most strongly at particular life stages and among specific groups. This paper examines attitudes to new social risk labour market policies in four contrasting European countries. It shows that attitudes in this area are strongly embedded in overall beliefs about the appropriate scale, direction and role of state welfare interventions, so that the weakness of new social risk constituencies does not necessarily undermine the possibility of attracting support for such policies, provided they are developed in ways that do not contradict national traditions of welfare state values.     

权力游戏与产业制度变迁——以中国石油产业外部合作战略转型为例（1988-2008）

1988-2008年间,中国石油产业外部合作战略实现了从早期以引进外国资本与技术为主要内容的“引进来”战略,向1998年后以输出资本与技术为主要特征的“走出去”战略的重要转型。本文以组织社会学决策分析的推论方式研究发现,作为一种产业制度变迁现象,中国石油产油产业外部合作战略的转型除了受到国家及其产业政策和市场机制的重要影响外,更深刻地受到一种复杂权力关系互动或权力游戏机制的作用。即中国石油产业外部合作战略转型深层的动力来源主要是国家和国有石油公司之间特定的权力游戏,这种权力游戏是基于各自行动能力与资源控制,和各自对特定的互动组织环境以及对方可能的行动策略的权衡与判断而建构起来的。     

The Interplay between Global and State Governance: Theoretical Origins and Practical Reflections

Global governance largely grows out of the externalities in state governance. At present, global governance and state governance are integrated into a kind of “holistic governance” based on their interaction and interpenetration. Our understanding of their interplay can be traced back to ideas that developed from ancient Greek and Roman times to the early 20^th century. More recently, from the second half of the 20^th century, theories of the interaction between global and state governance essentially revolved around the externalities in state governance and efforts to overcome those externalities by designing an ideal world. Today, the interaction between global and state governance is of great practical significance, serving to inspire the establishment of a global order based on sharing, integration and symbiotic harmony. However, we should also be aware that this interaction may be converted by great powers to the service of their own interests. At present, China can help reshape the global governance order of the 21^st century by strengthening its own development, promoting benign interaction between global and state governance, actively harnessing the potential of its state governance capacity and sharing its experience and ideas.     

The Social Meaning of Motherhood in Russia Today

The Soviet state always emphasized and extolled the role of motherhood, or the woman's "function" of motherhood as it was called in the 1920s. Symbolic incentives for bearing children for the state were very well developed, even though material incentives lagged rather far behind (see, for example, [1-4]). Now everything has changed: there is practically no state support, even symbolic, for mothers and children. It is interesting to determine, in this regard, what changes have taken place on the individual level, the motives for bearing children in today's Russia, and the place of child bearing in the overall picture of women's aspirations in life. The object of the present article is a picture of women's child-bearing behavior in our country and their view of this area.     

The Changing Social Contexts of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Objective. This article reviews changes in the social contexts of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon from the 1970s to the 1990s, moving from the household to the global level. Methods. I draw on satellite imagery, state publications, farm surveys, ethnographic field work, and policy analyses for a comparative analysis that shows how land cover, agriculture, demographics, politics, and markets have changed over time. Results. Alterations in the social contexts of deforestation appear on all levels considered, from household demographic evolution and new land use strategies to a regional demographic transition and the emergence of cattle and timber economies, to a "greening" of Brazilian development policy and changes in national land markets, to multilateral bank loans for new infrastructure and local-international alliances between grassroots and environmental organizations. Conclusions. The social contexts of deforestation are very complex and changing and call for greater attention by social scientists to land cover and land use change.     

自然状态的道德意涵:定位现代道德的开端

针对李猛有关霍布斯自然状态的讨论,本文力图指出,自然状态不仅仅是一个人性冲突状态或法权矛盾状态,而是具有某种积极的道德意涵。这集中在霍布斯的自然权利概念上。正是自然权利,而不是原初缔约环节,构成了霍布斯政治哲学的规范基础。自然权利不完全是一项主观权利,它同时还带有传统客观法权的正当意涵。一方面,每个人的“自然权利”凭借国家权力的存在,成为一种客观意义上的正当性,另一方面,它的“自然性”又意味着它并不是由国家所制造出来的,而是基于人的自然本性本身。人的自然并不是可以任意抟塑的质料,而是有其形式,并被明确界定为一种自然“权利”或正当,参与到政治生活的构建之中,这构成了现代思想不得不去回应的难题。     

国企改制过程中的国家与工人阶级：结构变迁及其文献述评

在国企改制过程中,国家与工人阶级关系发生了三个方面的变化：首先,国家通过统合主义的方式逐渐退出了对社会的直接控制,从准全能主义过渡到了碎片化的威权主义;其次,工人阶级脱离了“完全性组织制度”,从受国家和单位庇护的领导阶级转变为市场化的劳动者;第三,国家与工人阶级关系运转的轴心发生了变革,从单位组织的主导转变为资本的逻辑。由此形成的国家-资本-工人阶级结构最大的问题是资本对劳动的严重剥夺。对此,一方面需要在国有企业生产方式资本化的过程中加强法制建设,保护工人的一般公民权,另一方面要在国有企业全面退出社会责任的过程中加强集体化的组织建设,争取工人的工业公民权。     

The Greens and Social Policy: Movements,Politics and Practice?

The central aim of this paper is to show how different types of green movement respond to questions of social policy. An important factor in this is a difference in attitudes to the state between more anarchistic greens and those greens that are prepared to accept a permanent and/or strategic role for the state. The paper is divided into two parts. In part one, after defning the green movement, it outlines how different green social movements from local groups, direct action protestors, established environmental groups and green political parties, have developed analyses, responses and alternatives to social policy issues. Part two of the paper looks at some of the ideological/theoretical debates within green politics with regard to social policy, with particular regard to the role of the state. It goes on to look at some of the ways in which European green parties have viewed social policy, and at proposals they have advanced for moving the aim of social policy from "welfare" to "well-being". It concludes with suggesting that the "post-materialist" characterization of green politics is very wide of the mark in terms of the range of analyses and policy alternatives greens have put forward, from health, education and drugs to transport. The central and long-standing green concern with lessening socioeconomic inequalities (but without relying on indiscriminate and unsustainable "economic growth") means that in terms of social policy, green politics can be seen as an "environmentalism of the poor", concerned with "materialist" issues.     

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.     

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.     

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.