Workfare–Warfare: Neoliberalism, "Active" Welfare and the New American Way of War

Abstract:  In recent decades, welfare reform in the USA has increasingly been based on a political imperative to reduce the number of people on welfare. This has in large part taken place through the establishment of a "workfare" state, in which the receipt of state benefits requires a paid labor input. Designed to reduce expenditure on civil social services, welfare-to-work programs have been introduced. At the same time, the restructuring of US defense provision has seen the "military–industrial complex" emerge as a key beneficiary of state expenditure. Both of these trends can be characterized, this paper argues, as manifestations of neoliberal thinking—whether in the form of the "workfarism" that is undertaken to bolster the US economy, or the "defense transformation" that has been intended to enhance US war-making capacity. While these two aspects have been analyzed in detail independently, the aim of this paper is to probe the similarities, connections and overlaps between the workfare state and the recent American emphasis on high-technology warfare—the so-called "Revolution in Military Affairs"—and "defense transformation". There are, the paper argues, strong homologies to be drawn between the restructuring of the American defense and welfare infrastructures. Furthermore there are also instances where warfare and welfare are being melded together into a hybrid form "workfare–warfare", in which military service is increasingly positioned as a means of gaining welfare and, conversely, traditionally military industries are becoming involved in the area of welfare provision. The result, it is argued, is an emergent form of workfare–warfare state in the USA.     

Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia

This article attempts to explain changes and continuity in the developmental welfare states in Korea and Taiwan within the East Asian context. It first elaborates two strands of welfare developmentalism (selective vs. inclusive), and establishes that the welfare state in both countries fell into the selective category of developmental welfare states before the Asian economic crisis of 1997. The key principles of the selective strand of welfare developmentalism are productivism, selective social investment and authoritarianism; inclusive welfare development is based on productivism, universal social investment and democratic governance. The article then argues that the policy reform toward an inclusive welfare state in Korea and Taiwan was triggered by the need for structural reform in the economy. The need for economic reform, together with democratization, created institutional space in policy‐making for advocacy coalitions, which made successful advances towards greater social rights. Finally, the article argues that the experiences of Korea and Taiwan counter the neo‐liberal assertion that the role of social policy in economic development is minor, and emphasizes that the idea of an inclusive developmental welfare state should be explored in the wider context of economic and social development.     

MAJORITY AND MINORITY NATIONALISM IN THE DANISH POST‐WELFARE STATE

The future of the nation and the Danish welfare state is one of the most important political issues today. The transition in neoliberal governance from welfare state to security state, the ongoing securitization of global and European mobility, the restructuring of public services and the re‐scaling of political and economic power has made the debate around the welfare state central. In this article I take an approach to the welfare nation state that is based on the practices and narratives of everyday life. The argument is that narrative practices in everyday life constitute a central sphere inviting studies of the struggle over the welfare community and meaning. The empirical material draws on two recent research projects that include narratives and perspectives from minority and majority population in Denmark. By analysing different perspectives on the nation the article intends to open up for both shared narratives on the welfare state but also differences in the ongoing struggle over the right to the nation.     

The Italian welfare state after the financial crisis

The essential characteristics of the Italian welfare state as it developed after the Second World War generated social cleavages and inequities that affected the Italian economy and provided grist for future reforms. At the same time, the welfare state provided political actors with incentives and resources that constrained attempts at reform. With the financial crisis beginning in 2008, serious reform was no longer optional. But austerity politics have generated pressures for changes to the welfare state which are unlikely to moderate most of the underlying inequities generated by the post-war system. Going forward, Italian policymakers must chart a path that is informed by efforts to overcome the pathologies of the past without further undermining the social and economic health of the country.     

Beyond the Property Rights Approach: Welfare Policy and the Reform of State‐Owned Enterprises in China

During the pre‐reform era, Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) operated not only as firms, but also as mini‐welfare states, providing employees with lifetime employment, inexpensive housing, free health care, and pensions. Since China’s market transition began in the late 1970s, however, SOEs have had to bear increasingly heavy burdens for welfare provisions to their employees. The steep increase in welfare spending has not only eroded the base of state revenue, but has also impeded further SOE reforms. To lighten welfare burdens upon SOEs and to remove institutional obstacles to marketization and privatization embedded in the existing welfare system, the Chinese state has imposed many welfare reforms aimed at shifting responsibilities for welfare provision from SOEs to a combination of government, enterprises, communities, and individuals. This article examines the belated welfare reforms in China’s state sector and their impact upon the reform of SOEs. It finds that reform implementation has been sluggish. To achieve the policy goal of welfare reforms, high degrees of state autonomy and capacity are needed.     

Competitive Pressures and the Emergence of Mothers' Aid Programs in the United States

Do states compete in providing (or not providing) welfare services? Do competitive pressures shape state welfare program adoption? Even though interstate competition is viewed by some to be a ubiquitous feature of the American federal system and welfare state, there is mixed evidence as to whether such pressures have influenced cash assistance policy in the United States. Although evidence exists of competitive pressures in contemporary welfare program decisions, such pressures have not been found in examinations of early state welfare programs. To reconcile this seeming contradiction, I examine the impact of neighboring state behavior on the emergence of state Mothers’ Aid cash assistance programs during the early part of the twentieth century. Linking theory of intergovernmental competition to program diffusion, I argue that competitive pressures may play a greater role as programs evolve past the circumstances of initial adoption to decisions about program maintenance. Contrary to previous research, I find that state decisions regarding Mothers’ Aid were responsive to similar decisions in neighboring states. Further, there is evidence that women's political organizations were important to Mothers’ Aid adoption but not to how states subsequently structured those programs.     

试论魏玛"福利国家"的早期实践(1918-1920)

一战结束后,德国社会遭遇了政治、经济与社会的多重危机,政府权力亟待合法性认同,社会期稳定。魏玛政府力图把福利国家作为控制与解决危机的一种手段。1918-1920年间,魏玛的福利国家建设曾规范劳动市场、协调劳资关系、改革保险和救济政策、解决住房问题以及调整经济运作模式等方面掀起高潮从短时段看,这些实践活动确立了基本的福利国家原则,维护了政府权威,初步解决了战后德国的社会危机然而从长时段看,这一时期的福利实践存在许多问题,埋下了日后经济危机、社会危机乃至民主危机的隐患。     

Environmentalists,Rubber Tappers and Empowerment: The Politics and Economics of Extractive Reserves

Extractive reserves are important initiatives in tropical forest zones which seek to integrate conservation of natural resources with development and human welfare objectives. Increasingly in such initiatives empowerment of local communities is seen as both a means of achieving this integration and as an end in itself. This article presents a theoretically informed analysis of the interactions between rubber tappers and environmental organizations in the establishment and implementation of extractive reserves in Rond? nia, Brazil. It distinguishes two dimensions of empowerment — political and economic — and examines how the alliances between organizations have impacted differentially on the two dimensions. The analysis suggests that these alliances have so far been more successful in enabling political rather than economic empowerment. Advances in political empowerment are shown, in the short‐term at least, not to have resulted in improvements in livelihood conditions of poor forest dwellers.     

When the personal becomes political: using legal reform to combat violence against women in Ethiopia

This article focuses on Ethiopia's first civil society organisation, the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), which has been campaigning for legal reform to secure women's rights and address violence against women. Implementing legal changes to benefit women in Ethiopia is impeded by difficulties in using the formal legal system, by poverty and deeply embedded gender inequalities, by plural legal systems, and by entrenched cultural norms. However, the article argues that the most significant challenge is the increasing degree of authoritarianism in Ethiopian state politics, that this is crucial in determining the space for activism, and that this shapes the successful implementation of legal change. The research shows how women's activism around personal rights challenges public/private and personal/political boundaries and can be seen as a political threat by governments in contexts where democracy and rule of the law are not embedded, leading to repression of women's activism and hindering the implementation of measures to protect women's rights when states become more authoritarian. Little is known empirically about the impact of democratisation on the implementation of measures to protect women's rights in Africa. This article shows how the emergence of democracy and legal reform intersects with the emergence of women's rights, especially with respect to gender-based violence. It shows how trying to secure women's personal right to be free from violence through the law is profoundly political and argues that the nature of democratisation really matters in terms of the implementation of measures such as legal changes designed to protect women's rights.     

A perfect storm? Welfare, care, gender and generations in Uruguay

This article claims that welfare states modelled on a contributory basis and with a system of entitlements that assumes stable two-parent families, a traditional breadwinner model, full formal employment and a relatively young age structure are profoundly flawed in the context of present-day challenges. While this is true for affluent countries modelled on the Bismarckian type of welfare system, the costs of the status quo are even more devastating in middle-income economies with high levels of inequality. A gendered approach to welfare reform that introduces the political economy and the economy of care and unpaid work is becoming critical to confront what may very well become a perfect storm for the welfare of these nations and their peoples. Through an in-depth study of the Uruguayan case, the authors show how the decoupling of risk and protection has torn asunder the efficacy of welfare devices in the country. An ageing society that has seen a radical transformation of its family and labour market landscapes, Uruguay maintained during the 1980s and 1990s a welfare state that was essentially contributory, elderly and male-oriented, and centred on cash entitlements. This contributed to the infantilization of poverty, increased the vulnerability of women and exacerbated fiscal stress for the system as a whole. Furthermore, because of high levels of income and asset inequality, the redistribution of risk between upper- and lower-income groups presented a deeply regressive pattern. The political economy of care and welfare has begun to change in the last decade or so, bringing about mild reforms in the right direction; but these might prove to be too little and too late.     

Towards an Archaeology of the Welfare State in Britain, 1945–2009

In this paper I develop an argument for the specific contribution which archaeology might make to the study of the ‘classic’ welfare state in Britain (c. 1945–1975) and its aftermath (c. 1976 to present). This period saw massive state investment in infrastructure which transformed both the material and social worlds of its citizens, through new state policies, new networks of political and social control, the centralisation and nationalisation of a range of existing aspects of civilian life and the construction of housing on a monumental scale. While this is a topic which has been studied in detail by historians and sociologists, despite the massive investment in construction and the accompanying effects on the physical landscape of Britain, there has been relatively little work on the ‘material worlds’ of the welfare state. In developing this argument I focus particularly on public housing, an area which has been the subject of some previous archaeological comment and which provides a clear case study in the contribution which such an approach might make. State subsidised housing policy developed as a brave utopian socialist experiment during the interwar period in Britain, reaching its zenith in the mid-1970s, at which time the state supplied almost a third of the nation’s housing. Public housing projects became an area of experimentation in the realisation of modernist ideals of high density private accommodation and in the use of new building technologies and materials. However, following the demise of the classic welfare state, for various reasons high density public housing has come to be viewed as part of a dystopian social cycle, the buildings and associated landscapes themselves becoming a symbol of poverty, substance abuse and violence. From an early history associated with slum clearance and the development of idealised homes for the nation’s poor, many high rise/high density public housing developments from the classic welfare state are now more often viewed themselves as slums, their design and ‘materiality’ perceived as contributing to, or even creating, a series of social problems. I suggest, following earlier work by Miller (Man (New Series) 23(2):353–372, 1988), Buchli (The Archaeology of Socialism, Berg, New York, 1999) and Buchli and Lucas (Archaeologies of the contemporary past. Routledge, London, 2001) that an archaeological approach to the material world of public housing has the potential to reveal not only the ways in which changing state ideologies are expressed through their design, but also the ways in which individuals have (and continue to) engage with their spaces and material culture to manage the conditions of everyday life, and how such places exist within counter-discursive urban and suburban worlds. I also suggest that part of the role of an archaeology of the welfare state is to consider the circumstances under which the welfare state fails through a focus on the archaeology of poverty and homelessness.     

Second‐Order Devolution and Administrative Exclusion in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program

With the passage of welfare reform in 1996, state and local governments gained substantial authority to design and implement their own welfare programs. Proponents of devolution asserted that, under devolution, local governments would be better able to tailor program administration to meet local economic needs. However, opponents contended devolution could lead to local governments seeking to control costs by limiting access to welfare. Meanwhile, existing research suggests that economics will not play an important role in determining welfare provision. This article investigates these competing claims by assessing the relationship between economic conditions and administrative exclusion, which is making programs so hard to access that potential and current recipients decide to forgo benefits, in a state that gives counties significant authority over welfare provision. To do so, I assess whether county application denial, sanctioning, and case closure rates are influenced by changes in local economic characteristics. I find that, even during periods of substantial economic distress, county practices related to administrative exclusion are largely unresponsive to changes in unemployment, child poverty, and fiscal constraints. These findings call into question the responsiveness of the devolved social safety net for poor families.     

Changes and turning points in welfare history. A case study: a comparison of France and Italy in the 1940s

An interesting case study in the history of welfare systems is the comparison between France and Italy. In fact, in the 1940s both countries had to tackle a very similar dilemma: the corrective reform of their existing welfare or the institution of reforms in line with the ‘universal’ model. This was a crucial turning point. Understanding these dynamics means grasping the significance of one of the most important moments in the history of the welfare state. The proposed reforms were ultimately rejected. Why? The aim of this article is to try to provide an answer to this question, examining the issue at various levels. It highlights the interactions between the top-down choices (the theoretical reflections and the political decisions) and grassroots dynamics (of social groups), and illustrates the decision-making process that led to the final outcome. The article is based largely on documents, often unpublished, from both French and Italian archives.     

Modernization, welfare and 'third way' politics: limits to theorizing in 'thirds'?

The current period of welfare reform in British politics is taking place within a discourse of modernization described in terms of a 'third way'. The ideas which constitute this discourse resonate with recent developments within human geography, namely a movement to theorizing 'in-between' spaces, a turn to culture and to issues of globalization. This paper suggests that welfare reform is a restructuring project which allows the nature of thinking and acting 'in thirds' to be questioned. It problematizes the 'third way' approach to cultural modernization and economic globalization as a de-politicized discourse, and argues for the cultural politics and political economics which underpin welfare reform to be foregrounded. As a form of political discourse analysis, it points to the developing need for a welfare geography that is attuned to the languages and practices through which dominant systems of social and economic distribution are constituted.     

Making Space for “Neo‐communitarianism”? The Third Sector,State and Civil Society in the UK

During the 1990s the urban became an important "institutional laboratory" for state‐initiated policy experiments to address the social costs and political repercussions of economic polarisation and social exclusion associated with neo‐liberalism. One such policy experiment has been neo‐communitarianism, emphasising the contribution of the "third sector" to improving social welfare and reinvigorating a sense of civil society. Focusing on the UK, I examine the background to and implications of the emergence of a neo‐communitarian strategy under the "new" Labour government, which came to power in 1997. First, I consider the repositioning of the third sector within contemporary policy discourse as a result of the Labour government's programme of welfare reforms and Prime Minister Blair's "Third Way" political philosophy, which attempts to combine neo‐liberalism with a neo‐communitarian stance of stressing the importance of civil society for social cohesion. Then, I draw on Foucauldian notions of governmentality to examine how Labour's neo‐communitarian agenda has involved a fundamental reconfiguration of the governance of the third sector, centred on the creation of government–voluntary sector "compacts" at national and local levels. These compacts are of strategic importance for the restructuring of the UK third sector and so the local implications of such restructuring are then considered. In particular, case study evidence from Glasgow is used to critically evaluate government claims that the third sector can contribute to the "reinvigoration of civic life" by highlighting the importance of the internal characteristics and political environment of local third sector organisations for the differential development of social capital and citizenship.     

Not My Taxes! Explaining Tax Resistance and its Implications for Australia's Welfare State

In discussing Australia's need to increase taxes to pay for future social security, Michael Keating worries that voters see taxes as a ‘burden’ and that ‘the link between taxation and citizenship has been broken’. This paper deals with the problem of tax resistance (preferring lower taxes even when tax cuts risk public services) for Australia's welfare state. First, I describe how two Australian fiscal institutions—a residual welfare system and visible income taxes—promote tax resistance among voters. Second, I draw on these insights to develop several explanations for tax resistance: voter self-interest, voter hostility to minorities, voter disengagement (low trust and lack of interest in politics), and individualistic attitudes. The main conclusion is that tax resistance in Australia is institutionalised, making it easier to mobilise interests around low taxes, and harder to advocate for alternatives. Results of multivariate analysis using AES 2004 data indicate that an ‘anti-tax coalition’ can build on three diverse publics; one of higher and middle-income earners attuned to self-interest, another hostile to welfare beneficiaries, and another ‘tuned out’ of politics and willing to support any call for tax cuts. Inevitably, the debate about the welfare state is shadowed by a debate about voter willingness to pay taxes that finance it.     

Bill Clinton and Welfare Reform: A Perspective from Oral History

Complicating the conventional wisdom, President Bill Clinton did not sign welfare reform legislation in 1996 for entirely short-term political reasons. Oral history interviews with administration officials demonstrate that his support for welfare reform was rooted in longstanding policy concerns and in his long-term desire to restore the Democratic Party to competitive viability.     

Symbolic Racism,Institutional Bias,and Welfare Drug Testing Legislation: Racial Biases Matter

Since the devolution of welfare policymaking to the states after the passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, there has been contentious debate about drug testing welfare applicants. Beyond elite rhetoric and debate points about the implications of welfare drug testing, extant research remains limited insofar as providing theoretical understanding about what factors influence state proposal of legislation requiring welfare applicants to submit to drug tests. I develop and test expectations that derive from research on welfare attitudes, social construction theory, and policy design—specifically, hypotheses that the proportion of blacks on state temporary assistance for needy families caseloads, as well as state‐aggregate levels of symbolic racism, significantly influence state proposal of drug testing legislation. My multilevel analysis of every state proposal of welfare drug testing legislation from 2008 to 2014 yields strong evidence in support of these hypotheses and paints a more complete picture of the influence of racial attitudes on state welfare policymaking. Specifically, while much research finds evidence of institutional racial biases in the implementation of welfare policy, the evidence presented herein shows that these biases, as well as public biases, influence policymaking at the proposal stage. Implications of these findings are discussed in light of recent significant electoral gains made by Republicans in state legislatures.     

Welfare Caseload Change: An Alternative Approach

In the last decade, caseloads in AFDC/TANF have shifted dramatically up, then down. Of existing studies based on time series or state panel data, some tend to underplay the role of welfare reform. All say little about what policies drove the decline or about the role of governmental quality. An approach using cross-sectional models explains interstate differences in caseload change rather than the national trend but allows more discussion about the role of policy and government. Results suggest that grant levels, work and child support requirements, and sanctions are important explainers of change, along with some demographic terms and unemployment. These policies in turn are tied to states' political opinion, political culture, and institutional capacity. Moralistic states seem the most capable of transforming welfare in the manner the public wants.