Scientific Philanthropy and Welfare Politics of Solidarity

So far, studies of Swedish 20th-century social policy have emphasized the differences between the voluntary aid common around 1900 and the solidarity of welfare policy at mid-century. Means tests have been described as central instruments in the voluntary social work, while the welfare state was built on general principles of care. The question is, however, if the differences between the earlier and later forms of social policy can be characterized in such simple terms. A comparison has been made of departure points found in the social policies of the two periods. The results confirm that a significantly new way of thinking had taken shape in the years around the Second World War, but the study also shows that that the ideas concerning the welfare state contain threads that can be traced back to the scientific philanthropy of a few years earlier. The idea of social engineering was nothing new, and the idea that rights could be exchanged for duties had still not been deserted in the 1940s. In conclusion it can be said that the welfare state and the welfare politics of solidarity in several respects were built upon the principles of care that were formulated in about 1900.     

Paying Attention to Politics: Public Responsiveness and Welfare Policy Change

In order for the democratic process to work properly, it is vital that the public pays attention to politics and signals its opinions and preferences back to its representatives; if this is not the case, representatives have less incentive to represent. This article deals with the question of whether and how the public responds to welfare policy change. The thermostatic model departs from the assumption that the public responds to policy change with negative feedback, in relation to its preferred level of policy. The empirical analysis tests this model on public responses following the implementation of a consumer's choice model in Swedish primary health care. Did the reform trigger a thermostatic response from the public, and how should this be interpreted? A contribution in relation to previous research is the inclusion of ideological orientation and proximity, variables which, I argue, condition the nature and direction of public responsiveness. The study was designed as a natural experiment in which preferences of privatization of health care were measured before and after the health care reform of 2009/2010. The results provide partial support for the thermostatic model: preferences for further privatization decrease after the reform, but primarily within one subgroup. Additionally, public responses are demonstrated to vary according to ideological orientation, where the right‐oriented react thermostatically and the left‐oriented do not. The article contributes to a further understanding of the relation between policymaking and public opinion and to the expansion of thermostatic theory.     

The Globalization of Labor and the Limits of Sovereignty: Immigration and the Politics of Forgiveness

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the phenomenon of ever-growing global migration of people with a following set of questions: (1) What are the main causes of this global phenomenon?; (2) What are the possible ethical and political issues of the rising global migration of people?; (3) What should be the theological response to these issues, and how should the church engage them? In answering these questions, this paper is specifically focused on the case of undocumented migrants: their social predicament, political impasse, and religious (theological) ethical engagement.     

澳大利亚福利制度的形成

澳大利亚社会保障和福利制度是自20世纪初澳大利亚联邦成立以来的一项基本国策,福利制度的形成是澳大利亚社会改革和现代化发展的重要内容与特征之一。具有本土化扬弃功能的澳大利亚民族意识使这一移植于英国的“舶来品”植根于澳洲,进而形成适合于澳大利亚社会、拥有澳大利亚特色的社会制度,影响深远。     

The Spaces of Parking: Mapping the Politics of Mobility in San Francisco

Abstract:  Recently a "mobility turn" has entered critical geographic discourse. This mobility turn recognizes that mobility is at once physical movement and contains social meanings that are manifested in a politics of mobility. In this paper I contribute to this emerging line of inquiry by exploring how the politics of mobility is manifested in localized urban processes. Mobility, as with the broader localized urban process, is political and ideological, and this is particularly true with contemporary debates about automobiles and parking in cities. I explore parking as an example of the broader contestation of urban space, using a case study of San Francisco, California. There are three broad factions in San Francisco's parking debates—progressives that advocate for less parking, neoliberals that advocate that market-based pricing determine the amount of parking, and neoconservatives that advocate for more parking. Throughout the paper, I provide thoughts on the relationship between parking, space, ideology, and the broader urban process.     

改革开放以来中国社会福利制度的嬗变

过去的30多年,有着鲜明计划经济烙印的社会福利制度随着经济转轨经历了从初始的起步探索,到后来逐渐转型和步入正轨的艰辛的改革历程。职工福利分解、社会福利社会化推进、社区服务普及、农村社会福利重构、适度普惠型福利探索等凝结为改革成果,初步形成了新型社会福利体系,但这些改革在社会福利的目标模式上是初级的、不全面的和不平衡的。面对变化的国情,处理好发展与公平的关系,构建适度普惠型社会福利制度,是中国社会福利的目标选择。     

当代美国的福利困境与福利改革

美国福利制度的建立在一定程度上有助于缓解贫困,稳定社会秩序,但是它对美国人的工作伦理、家庭结构等产生了很大的负面影响。福利改革就是将领取福利与工作联系起来,旨在打破福利循环,减少福利依赖,可是,由于存在种种缺陷,福利改革并未取得预期的效果。     

Global Politics of Microfinancing Poverty in Asia: The Case of Bangladesh Unpacked

Abstract

This article offers a critical and systematic political analysis of microfinance schemes linking international, national and local development policy. It substantiates the argument that microfinance schemes are a neoliberal development strategy, primarily advanced to realise a dual purpose: (1) financial sector liberalisation and commercialisation, while extending microfinance as a means to “poverty reduction”, and (2) the dampening and undermining of resistance to neoliberal development policies, by relying on the disciplinary potential of these schemes. I illustrate this argument through an examination of the politics of microfinance and development in Bangladesh, which includes analyses of policies prescribed by the World Bank (and also the CGAP). The analysis also draws out the implications (legal and institutional) for many NGOs who have been required to change their status to Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). Microfinance schemes are exemplary of (new) efforts to build markets in Asia in accordance with neoliberal visions of development, and in ways that advance and capitalise on the contradictions of neoliberal development. But they also challenge us to reflect more deeply on the limits of “market society”.     

Slanted Newspaper Coverage of Immigration: The Importance of Economics and Geography

When compared to studies of media effects, relatively few studies of the media focus on factors that influence the behavior of media organizations. Specifically, there are few empirical studies of the attributes and incentives of news organizations that might lead to slanted coverage of particular policy issues. In this study, we identify factors that lead to negatively slanted coverage of a specific policy issue: immigration. Using content analysis, geographic information systems (GIS) data, and contextual data, we find that newspaper ownership and proximity to the U.S.–Mexico border are related to slant in news articles and opinion pieces regarding immigration.     

Civic Governmentality: The Politics of Inclusion in Beirut and Mumbai

Abstract:  This article is concerned with the politics of inclusion. It analyzes the institutionalization of participatory citizenship as the formation of regimes of "civic governmentality". Through the study of key civil society organizations such as SPARC and Hezbollah, it studies three dimensions of civic governmentality: an infrastructure of populist mediation; technologies of governing (for example, knowledge production); and norms of self-rule (for example, concepts of civility and civicness). However, such regimes of civic governmentality operate within frontiers of urban renewal and indeed often facilitate and manage such types of development. The article examines the limits and contradictions of the politics of inclusion in the context of the bourgeois city and also studies radical forms of citizenship that emerge to challenge these limits.     

When The Past is slipping. Value tensions and responses by heritage management to demographic changes: a case study from Oslo,Norway

Despite vibrant paradigmatic shifts in archaeological thought, Norwegian heritage legislation remains unchanged since the 1970s and is anchored in a traditional identity ideology assuming continuous links between contemporary populations and ancient societies. In the context of current and expected major demographic changes as a result of global migration, policy-makers and developers of alternative frameworks face the challenge of epistemic standstill and recycling of ideas. This article examines and seeks insights into causes for the current status, focusing on tensions between paradigms of value and between various levels of heritage management in and around Oslo, one of the fastest growing urban areas in Europe. Combining the discourse theoretical concept of nodal points with the method of qualitative coding analysis, we study responses by heritage management to perceived challenges of globalisation and demographic changes in all available official white papers produced after the year 2000. By reflecting on present narratives, our discussion relates to struggles over defining ‘Norwegianness’ and criticism of such notions. The identification of four levels of tension allows us to centre attention on key issues of importance to the societal aim of including and engaging an increasingly heterogeneous population, and to argue for a bottom-up and recursive approach.     

The Historical Impact of Welfare Programs on Poverty: Evidence from the American States

Over the years, there has been a spirited debate over the impact of the welfare expansion associated with the War on Poverty. Many analysts have maintained that public assistance expansion during this period decreased poverty by raising the incomes of the poor (an income enhancement effect), while others have contended that welfare expansion increased poverty by discouraging the poor from working (a work disincentive effect). There has been considerable empirical research about the historical effect of welfare on poverty, nearly all of which relies on the poverty rate (i.e., the percentage of persons with income less than the “poverty threshold”) as an indicator of the extent of poverty. However, this work has not employed designs that allow researchers to sort out distinct income enhancement and work disincentive effects. We develop a model of poverty rates in the American states that permits estimation of these distinct effects—based on state‐level time‐series data observed annually for the years 1960–90—and we find that welfare had both effects during our period of analysis. We also calculate the net impact of increases in welfare benefits on the poverty rate—taking into account both work disincentive and income enhancement effects. Our results indicate that this net impact is dependent on three variables: the initial level of cash benefits, wage levels for unskilled workers, and the share of the benefit increase provided through cash rather than in‐kind assistance. Because of historical trends in these variables, since the 1970s welfare spending has become increasingly less effective in reducing the poverty rate. However, the significance of this result for policymakers must be tempered by evidence that flaws in the poverty rate as an indicator of poverty make it so that any finding about the net effect of an increase in welfare benefits on the poverty rate underestimates welfare's ability to lessen the true extent of poverty.     

The Whereabouts of Power: Politics, Government and Space

Abstract In a world where it has become almost commonplace to talk about power as centralised or distributed, concentrated or diffuse, deterritorialized or dispersed even, it is all too easy to miss the diverse geographies of power that put us in place. The binary talk that forces us to choose between a centred or a decentred view of power, or to shuffle between them in an effort to blur clearly demarcated scales, leaves little room to move beyond defined distances and settled proximities in relation to the exercise of power. In this paper, a more spatially‐curious dialogue of power is opened up which foregrounds associational as well as instrumental forms of power which can make a difference to how we act politically.     

民初知识分子对议会政治的反思与建构

民国初年,面对议会政治的失败,知识分子在反思中进行了新的探索。大致表现出三种路向:第一是认为中西社会条件不同,代议制不适合中国;第二种主张用普选制、职业团体选举来改造代议制;第三种要用直接民权取代代议制。但民初政治发展的实际走向是从移植西方代议制转向由集权走向宪政的曲折道路。     

One Model Does Not Fit All: The Varied Politics of State Immigrant Policies, 2005–16

This article addresses conceptual and measurement challenges that complicate the study of state immigrant policies. First, given the multiple facets of immigrant‐related policy, policy‐specific effects may be obscured by highly aggregated outcomes variables. Second, variables of interest often capture both time‐varying and time‐invariant effects, potentially producing coefficients that are uninterpretable averages of both processes. This article presents a research design that addresses both of these obstacles and applies it to an original dataset of both integrative and punitive policies adopted over the period 2005–16. The findings suggest that the causal roles of growing immigrant populations, partisanship, and wealth vary across different clusters of immigrant policies and that average, cross‐state effects often differ from within‐state effects. Future research would do well to clearly link theoretical expectations to specific types of policy outcomes and test hypotheses over both integrative and restrictive outcomes.     

Seeking a Sense of Belonging: The Exclusion of Female Doctorate Holders in South Korea and the US

Despite the vast literature on East Asian international students in higher education during the current era of globalization, few studies examine how the international migration of doctorate holders is gendered. The migration and career choices of Korean women who hold doctorates from American universities, we argue, are shaped by geographical imaginations based on the political connections between South Korea and the US and their personal experiences from their home and host countries. The notion of the US as an ally of South Korea and the hegemony of US higher education in Korean academia have led Korean women to pursue doctorates in the United States. Yet, the Korean women who participated in this study revealed that earning a doctorate from a world-class university did not necessarily bring them greater mobility. Whether the interviewees returned to Korea or not, they found themselves situated within the hierarchy of gendered power relations and excluded from everyday practices such as decision-making both at home and at work. Consequently, they attempted to build a sense of belonging at various geographic scales. This study found that Korean women scholars’ migration and career choices were the multi-layered outcome of gendered power relations within the family, political connections between the two countries, and cultural values of their home and host countries.     

The Politics of European Union Immigration Policy: Institutions, Salience, and Harmonization

This article examines recent attempts to create a common European Union (EU) immigration policy. This "harmonized" policy has faced political blockages, despite being seen by most observers as necessary if the EU is to meet its goal of free movement of labor. Because of this resistance, immigration harmonization has lagged behind other EU policy areas. To explain national resistance to harmonizing immigration policy, our article develops a theoretical and conceptual model of how immigration policy is potentially harmonized at the EU level, but how this harmonization can be blocked or restricted. We explain these political blockages with a model of intergovernmental bargaining that focuses on political salience, political partisanship, and institutions that protect immigrant rights. We argue that these national-level factors have determined the success and the nature of various harmonization proposals, by determining the positions of member states when negotiating in the European Council. Our primary hypothesis is that when the political salience of a given immigration issue is high, any harmonization that results is more likely to be restrictive toward immigrant rights. We also hypothesize that the impact of institutions that protect immigrant rights, and of political partisanship, is variable depending on the issue area and the national context. We use literature on European integration, immigration politics, agenda-setting, venue-shopping, and two-level games to theorize, operationalize, and test these hypotheses. The article helps to advance scholarly work on immigration politics, but our model could also conceivably be applied to other high-salience policy areas in the EU.     

The Red Cross and the Establishment of Maternal and Infant Welfare in the 1930s Gold Coast

In 1932 the Gold Coast Branch of the British Red Cross Society was inaugurated in Accra. Its central, stated purpose was to maintain and expand health and welfare services for women and children. This article examines closely the work of the Red Cross as it set up and ran clinics, fundraising campaigns and building programmes in the Gold Coast. It asks how a humanitarian organisation became so integrated into services for mothers and infants in the course of the 1930s. In so doing, it contributes to a burgeoning area of historiography that looks at humanitarianism as a key component of Empire. During the 1930s, as the British Empire became subject to oversight by new international networks that the League of Nations sat at the heart of. In this context, the colonial government was under pressure to provide welfare for African subjects, particularly mothers and babies. This article argues that state, mission and eventually humanitarian organisation – the Red Cross – were interdependent in providing these services. The Red Cross became politicised as it shored up the colonial state’s health infrastructure, intervening as a solution to dilemmas over who was responsible for maternal and infant health.