Theoretical Approaches to Welfare Providers

8 Key excerpts on "Theoretical Approaches to Welfare Providers"

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  Social Welfare in Global Context

  • James Midgley(Author)
  • 1997(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  C H A P T E R F I V E THEORIES OF STATE WELFARE The expansion of state welfare that has taken place during the past century has attracted a good deal of interest from social scientists. Historians, sociologists, and political scientists all have studied the trend toward increased government involve-ment in social welfare, and in addition, a specialized interdisciplinary field of academic inquiry known as social policy has emerged to investigate different aspects of government social welfare provision. As was noted in Chapter 1, social policy now exists as a separate academic subject in many universities around the world. It also exists within academic departments of political science, public policy, and social work. Originally, social policy was primarily descriptive, seek-ing to examine the way the social services operated. It also undertook historical and statistical studies to document the evolution and functioning of the social services. However, over the years, social policy has become much more concep-tual, and today it has generated a substantial body of theory about state welfare. Much social policy theory is concerned with government social provision. Focusing on the state, social policy theory has been concerned with three major topics. The first is the construction of representational conceptions of state welfare provision. This body of theory has sought to translate real-world situations into abstract constructs that are useful for purposes of classification, interpretation, and understanding. The second topic for theory building in social policy is the expla-nation of the origins and functions of state welfare provision. This type of theory asks why governments introduced and expanded their social programs and what functions they serve. The third topic that has occupied social scientists in the field of social policy is the formulation of normative theories.

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  From the Manpower Revolution to the Activation Paradigm

  Explaining Institutional Continuity and Change in an Integrating Europe

  • J. Timo Weishaupt(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Amsterdam University Press

    (Publisher)

   II Theoretical Approach II.1 Introduction Can modern European welfare states withstand contemporary pressures associated with economic globalisation, capital mobility, persistent, often long-term un- and underemployment, the shift from manufacturing to service economies, ageing societies, and changing gender roles and family structures, or will they converge on a minimalist, individualistic, US-style model? This substantive, empirical and theoretical puzzle is at the very heart of most welfare state scholars’ research. Facing the most severe fi-nancial and economic crisis in 60 years, many researchers have also begun asking how well European welfare states are prepared to cope with rising levels of unemployment, whether current institutional arrangements are sustainable, and how well they are equipped to generate job growth once the crisis comes to an end. In order to tackle such complex questions about the future of European welfare states, scholars need to have a good understanding of welfare states’ past and present forms and functions, that is, they need to understand their origins and evolution. Since the mid-1980s, a variety of new theoretical approaches have emerged offering explanations of social and political phenomena, com-monly referred to as the New Institutionalism (Steinmo and Thelen 1992). Three varieties within this New Institutionalism are commonly identi-fied: 1 Sociological Institutionalism, Rational Choice Institutionalism, and Historical Institutionalism (Lichbach and Zuckerman 1997). With respect to welfare state development, it is scholars associated with the histor-ical-institutionalist school who have produced a substantial amount of the most influential scholarship on welfare states (e.g., Esping-Andersen 1990; Pierson 1994; 1996; Visser and Hemerijck 1997; Hall and Soskice 2001; Pierson 2001b; Rothstein and Steinmo 2002b; Streeck and Thelen 2005a; Ebbinghaus 2006; Palier 2010).

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  De Gruyter Handbook of Contemporary Welfare States

  • Bent Greve(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  What drives welfare state change? This chapter offered a non-exhaustive review of that vibrant area of scholarship which addresses this question. Several decades of intensive research have produced a large number of theories and concepts which have been subject to constant refinement in order to explain anomalies, sectoral and regional specificities and temporal developments. This chapter grouped these theories in four families based on the nature of the factors considered and the way their influence is conceptualised. In 2003 Edwin Amenta (2003, 115) wrote that theoretical advancement in social policy research had been spurred by the presence of a “relatively high agreement on what was to be explained – the adoption and expansion of major social programs – but relative disagreement among theoretical perspectives”. The review presented here shows that while this statement is still broadly valid today, there is both growing disagreement about the definition of what is to be explained and increased convergence about what explains it.

  The conceptualisation and measurement of welfare state change are still highly debated, and in time attention has shifted from the whole of the welfare state (measured as welfare effort or social rights to income-transfer programmes) to the level of sectors and single instances of reform and the inclusion of a wider set of policy areas (e.g. family policies, education and healthcare). Whereas functionalist and power resource theories worked with an undifferentiated notion of the welfare state, institutionalist perspectives brought to the fore the importance of sectoral dynamics and constellations of actors. Micro-foundational analyses have also tended to privilege a holistic view of the welfare state as preferences for redistribution or aggregate social spending, although they have sometimes also focused on specific programmes, particularly childcare and education. At the same time, studies have shown that what counts as change varies radically based on both the extent and pace of reforms (Palier 2010; Streeck and Thelen 2005). In sum, the conceptualisation and measurement of welfare state change have become increasingly heterogeneous, which accounts for both the generation of new theories and a level of disagreement – and incommensurability – between perspectives.

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  Welfare

  • Mary Daly(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  1 Founding Ideas and Approaches

  This chapter introduces welfare by outlining its most enduring representations in academic work. As it develops, the chapter tilts towards the historical – the intention is to pinpoint the long-standing concerns that are evoked by welfare and the scholarly approaches through which these have been identified, examined and developed. Following a brief outline of a range of definitions, the second section of the chapter takes us in turn through a discussion of welfare viewed as economic, as a philosophical and political ideal, and as a response to perceived social problems and social ills. In its third part, the chapter engages further with the concept by considering some enduring questions that it raises. These probe the relative vs universal nature of welfare, whether it should be thought of in relation to individuals or collectivities, and the matter of whose responsibility it is to provide welfare. We shall see that the concept has a range of meanings and that it is a site of competing accounts and visions.

  Origins and Meanings of Welfare

  The origins of the term can be traced back at least to the fourteenth century when it meant to fare or journey well (Williams 1976: 281). There is a dual sense of welfare here as both condition and process – captured if we hyphenate the word: wel-fare. Over time, welfare has acquired a diverse set of meanings. Among its many popular references now are material sufficiency, well-being, the absence of negative conditions, physical and mental health, satisfaction of desires, and provision for need within the context of organised services for the needy and the population more broadly.

  As mentioned, welfare as a term is not as widely used now as in the past. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were far more publications with ‘welfare’ in the title as compared with the present period, for instance. There are other indications also that the concept has fallen out of favour. As Dean views it (2006: 21), recent ideological controversy over the nature and purpose of social policies has seen welfare acquire a pejorative connotation. This is true especially in the US, where the term has a powerful negative charge. Its American usage is associated with both safety-net or means-tested benefits and people who depend on them for their income. When this view is unpicked, a connected set of assumptions is revealed. Three such assumptions are noteworthy.

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  Welfare of the Poor

  • Mary Bryna Sanger(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  Requirements for re-gistration for work training, job counseling, and job placement through the WIN program further supported this approach to the welfare poor. Throughout the research community, emphasis was on the personal characteristics of welfare recipients as an explanation of their status. (Sociological approaches to research on poverty were presented in Chapters 2, 4, 5, and 6.) In many respects the stylishness of this kind of research, and the policy implications which flowed from it, can be seen as a function of the professional dominance of the social welfare establishment. By the mid-1960s a competing paradigm began to emerge. The liberal-activist orientation began to influence both policy and, to a les-ser degree, research. It came to see the problem of poverty as caused and reinforced by institutional rigidity and the poverty of power among the poor. Such an approach required attempts to coordinate and redirect a WELFARE RESEARCH: LIMITATIONS 147 variety of institutions which had large numbers of the poor among their constituents (e.g., schools, social services, housing). The poverty of power was to be redressed by the active participation of the poor in planning for their collective needs, in cooperation with institutions at the local level through Community Action Programs. Central in developing these diagnoses and strategies were academ-ics and social scientists. Nevertheless, the approach in many respects did not contradict (and in some ways embraced) the paradigm of the social welfare community. Though institutional rigidity and lack of op-portunity were seen to contribute to the problems of poverty, and politi-cal participation was seen as a means to address the alienation and apathy of the poor, research and policy fundamentally took on a ser-vices approach. Research interest in evaluating the impact of service strategies dominated the social science community.

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  Privatizing the Polity

  • Holona LeAnne Ochs(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • SUNY Press

    (Publisher)

  1

  Framing the Welfare Policy Process

  Public policy is concerned with problem definition, issue construction, agenda setting, the emergence of policy options, the actions (or inactions) of governance, and the effects and impact of such action or inaction. Welfare policy articulates values, crafts meaning, justifies political decisions, assigns or reinforces status, and may even attempt to solve social problems. The boundaries of the welfare conflict space are defined by the understandings generated through the battles over problem definition, the political negotiations over policy design and adoption, the bargaining, competition, and cooperation inherent in the implementation, and the culture and craft of enactment. The potential for learning from these conflicts is contingent upon the type of evaluation or analysis as well as the degree of opportunism.

  This chapter proceeds by outlining the research defining the nature of those boundaries and the interconnected processes of welfare provision. Then, I describe a theoretical framework for analyzing the impact of welfare policy that offers the potential for learning. Understanding the extent to which different policy choices provide opportunities for large numbers of people to move out of poverty by comparing how programs vary across states is a necessary but not sufficient condition for policy learning. It is essential that we also consider the nature and location of influence in order to ascertain for whom opportunities are afforded. My approach utilizes various analytical strategies to identify how opportunities can be broadly obtained and opportunism minimized. In this chapter, I also explain those analytic strategies.

  Organizing the Welfare Literature throughout the Policy Process

  Welfare policy as a field of study began with the definition of poverty as a social problem. Stories of welfare practices in the United States cannot be easily untangled from the Judeo-Christian traditions that defined the worldviews of the colonists and shaped the approach that the colonies took toward the welfare of the native populations. In many respects, those stories emphasize compassion, but the practices reveal patterns of compassion for those deemed worthy. In the European Christian worldview, God’s will was invoked to enrich and empower Christian followers. Consequently, Native Americans represented an opportunity to convert more souls and justify the taking of native lands in the name of God and the monarchy. Alternatively, the concepts of reciprocity and the practice of gift exchange were the central tenets of building relationships, forming alliances, addressing disparate needs, and established the welfare customs of the North American Indians. Reciprocity and gift exchange are based on the behavior of the “other” and maintain an emphasis on long-term objectives. These practices represent fundamental differences in the worldviews of the colonists and the indigenous population regarding human welfare. Attempts to enslave Native North Americans were unsuccessful, so contracts for indentured servitude, primarily performed by African slaves, convicts, paupers, and servants from the British Isles and throughout the continent of Europe, were sanctioned by colonial authorities. The contracts often provided the prospect of land ownership as an incentive at the end of the period of service, but the condition of servitude also often required conversion to Christianity and was justified as a charitable act by Christians.1

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  The Risk of Social Policy?

  The electoral consequences of welfare state retrenchment and social policy performance in OECD countries

  • Nathalie Giger(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Functional or structural theories see structural change such as modernization, democratization or economic growth as the main factors that drove the emergence of welfare states. Authors within this school (Alber 2001; Iversen and Cusack 2000; Wilensky 1975) have been mainly interested in the question of why all Western countries developed some kind of social security system. Accordingly, these theories do not focus on differences between the Western welfare states, but more on general patterns of welfare state development.

  For such questions, theories which emphasize the role of the parties are more central: differences between the Continental European and Anglo-Saxon welfare states, for example, are explained by the different political colours of the government. More generally, political parties account for differences in the size and the generosity of welfare states according to these theories. The most prominent among them is known as the power resources approach (Esping-Andersen 1985, 1990; Hicks 1999; Huber and Stephens 2001; Korpi 1983; Korpi and Palme 2003). This theoretical approach argues ‘that it is fruitful to view welfare states as outcomes of, and arenas for, conflicts between class-related, socioeconomic interest groups’ (Korpi and Palme 2003). In this respect, partisan politics matters. Socialist parties, backed by trade unions, could implement a strong welfare state. Right-wing parties (bourgeois parties) are seen as the opponents of a strong, egalitarian welfare state. Furthermore, recent research emphasizes the influence of Christian democratic parties during the expansion of social security which led to the development of a distinct welfare state regime known as social capitalism (see e.g. van Kersbergen 1995).

  Esping-Andersen's seminal work The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism

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  Gendering Welfare States

  • Diane Sainsbury(Author)
  • 1994(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  I take serious issue with the theoretical marginalization of gender and women. It is not my intention to dispute the critical importance of class in understanding the welfare state: there is no doubt that welfare provisions are 'classed'. But I do claim that bringing gender into the analysis forces us to rethink whether a class framework is by itself capable of accounting for how women as well as men experience the welfare state. Feminist insights Feminist research has devoted some attention to redressing the imbalances of existing scholarship in excluding women, although it is with neo-Marxist theory of the welfare state that it has mainly engaged. As things stand now, I think it fair to say that no feminist theory of the welfare state dominates. A likely explanation for this may be that theoretical energies have been focused elsewhere: in 104 Gendering welfare states searching for a general theory to explain 'women's oppression'. In some cases the welfare state has been lost in this demanding endeavour. What has feminist scholarship contributed to the study of the welfare state? First, the family has been placed centre stage and the role of the state in sustaining certain forms of family and certain types of family relationships has been explored (Barrett, 1980; Mcintosh, 1978). Feminist work has demonstrated that to better understand the more public systems of state welfare, their connections to welfare within the household/family system and to women and men inside and outside that system must be explicated. A second contribution has rested on the examination of the ideologies that underlie welfare, especially as they relate to women (Fraser, 1989b; Lewis, 1983, 1992a). Analysis has emerged to demonstrate how welfare state policies and practice have reinforced and distinctively shaped women's secondary status to and dependence on men.

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