The Role of Distributional Coalitions in Welfare Regimes: Chile, Costa Rica and El Salvador

Do social policies in Latin America promote or discourage distribution? And if they do promote distribution, are coalitions a prerequisite? Drawing from a typology of welfare regimes elaborated for 18 Latin American countries, this article explores responses to these questions by addressing three emblematic cases: Chile, Costa Rica and El Salvador – that is, countries where the management of social risks primarily revolves around markets, states and families, respectively. Although the article is exploratory, findings suggest that societal coalitions have been, and are likely to continue to be, weak in market welfare regimes, strong in state welfare regimes and contingent to policy sectors in familialistic welfare regimes.     

现代社会工作的利他行为：一个福利分析

本文讨论了现代社会工作利他行为的制度化、职业化特征。以效用函数作为分析工具尝试分析了社会工作助人活动中福利参与者个人福利的变化,以及根据帕累托准则带来的社会福利的增加。     

论多元主义对哲学社会科学研究方法的拓展

哲学社会科学研究方法不是屠龙术,它必须与其研究对象相伴而行,适时而作.哲学社会科学的研究对象极其宽泛,涵盖了人和社会以及宇宙万物.研究对象的多样性决定了研究方法的多元性.所谓多元主义,是美国当代哲学家法伊尔阿本德首先提出来的一种科学方法论.其核心理论就是"怎么都行",也称为"反规则".他的多元主义虽然在理论上有失偏颇,但却为哲学社会科学研究方法的创新打开了广阔的新天地.我们应当对他那"怎么都行"的主张进行改造,即知道什么方法对什么问题能行,就选择什么方法.     

政府绩效评价：理论和方法再研究

当前我国学界有关政府绩效评价研究有两大理论缺陷;其一,没有将公共管理评价和公共行政评价区分开来;其二,无法评价“政府失灵”问题,并由此产生指标繁多,没有明确的评价域等方法论上的问题。文章在评析这些缺陷和问题的基础上,提出以社会成员的综合福利作为评价域,并围绕这一评价域构建出包括状态指标体系和公共管理效益指数在内的政府绩公共管理绩效评价研究框架。     

Breaking the mould: new trajectories in the domiciliary care of older people in Ireland

This article reviews the development of domiciliary care services for older people in Ireland over the last decade. It reveals three central developments, namely (i) the first steps, in the Irish context, towards a quasi-market; (ii) the introduction of cash-for-care and the subsequent notable segmentation of care tasks among three provider groups; and (iii) a rapidly increasing reliance on for-profit private home care providers. The authors conclude that while the Irish social care regime is still anchored in important ways in the primacy of informal (family) care and the subsidiarity principle, it has broken path-dependency by evolving towards an increasingly complex mix of public, not-for-profit and for-profit provision and financing. The most policy-relevant aspect of this new constellation is the lack of a regulatory framework that would enable the State to monitor the multiple and diverse providers with the view to ensuring the quality of home care services.     

“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。     

The Changing Conception of Pension Rights in Canada, Mexico and the United States

Relying on four conceptualizations of the welfare state (universalism, redistribution, state capacity, and intergenerational equity), this article presents an overview of recent pension reforms in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Each country has introduced important reforms in the past 25 years and is currently engaged in debates to make other adjustments. The state is reducing its financial and programmatic commitment towards current and future retirees and is promulgating reforms tightening the link between contributions and benefits. In Canada, the government raised contribution rates substantially to maintain the same level of benefits while it sought to alter its universal flat-rate benefit. In the USA, changes to Social Security have resulted in a higher retirement age and lower replacement rates. In the case of Mexico, the most important public schemes have actually been privatized.     

Trust and Welfare State Reform: The Example of the NHS

This article discusses the impact of New Public Management on public trust in welfare state institutions, using the example of NHS reform. Discussion of trust in public institutions across political science, psychology and sociology indicates that it is based on both rational/objective considerations (competence and capacity to deliver the service) and affectual/subjective factors (shared values, belief that the trustee shares the trustor's interests). The New Public Management foregrounds individual responsibility and incentives for both suppliers and users of services, in the NHS example in quasi‐markets, management by target and patient choice. These accord with an individualized market rational‐actor model rather than with affective considerations. Analysis of attitude survey data on the NHS confirms that rational/objective and affectual/subjective factors contribute to public trust in this field. However, a comparison between perceptions in England, where the internal market has been vigorously pursued, and Scotland, where the purchaser/provider split was discarded after devolution, indicate that the market does not offer a royal road to perceptions of superior quality in the objective factors. Conversely, the more market‐centred system can make progress in relation to the more subjective affectual factors.     

Measuring longevity achievements under welfare interdependencies: a case for joint life expectancy indicators

Whereas period life expectancy constitutes an intuitive indicator of the survival conditions prevailing at a particular period, this paper argues that, given the existence of welfare interdependencies, that widespread indicator is nonetheless an incomplete measure of the longevity achievements relevant for human well-being. The central importance of coexistence for human-beings implies that usual life expectancy measures should be complemented by joint life expectancy indicators, which measure the average coexistence time under particular survival conditions. After a study of the theoretical foundations of ‘single’ and ‘joint’ life expectancy indicators, it is shown that joint life expectancy measures tend to enrich significantly the comparison of longevity achievements across countries and periods. Moreover, the introduction of joint life expectancy indicators—as a complement to conventional life expectancy measures—into multi-variable indexes such as the United Nations’ HDI is also shown to affect international rankings of standards of living to a non negligible extent.

中国城市居民最低生活保障水平分析

以2005年的统计数据为主要依据,通过测算及横向与纵向的比较,对我国城市居民最低生活保障水平进行了分析,目的在于廓清人们对中国目前最低生活保障水平的认识.综合分析表明,尽管在制度设计和具体实施中仍存在缺陷和问题,但保障水平过高肯定不是当前低保制度面临的问题,对低保"养懒汉"的抨击也是一种片面的夸大.