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.     

State Political Culture and Welfare Reform

I investigate the link between the general features of state governments and their ability to reform welfare. The best indicator of governments' characteristics is Elazar's political cultures. I define what successful welfare reform means, drawing on implementation research and experience. My criteria stress process, the avoidance of political and administrative problems. I then test the link between the Elazar cultures and successful reform using recent case studies of state implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Elazar's "moralistic" states perform best, and the association holds, even controlling for other influences. Results depend, however, on how welfare reform is defined.     

Changing Welfare Cultures in Region and State

The article takes a regional case study of three northern counties—Durham,Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire—to examinehow the hardships of communities, devastated by long-term structuralunemployment, exposed the inadequacy of a locally based welfaresystem, where poverty was itself expected to relieve destitution.Local welfare administrators put up a sustained challenge tomany of the preconceptions and practices of central governmentin their administration of a hierarchy of relief, assistanceand benefits in public welfare. In doing so, these northernadministrators precipitated draconian central action in an exemplarytakeover of administration in three out of the five local administrationsthat suffered this strategic intervention nationally, whileseveral others were threatened. This crucible of confrontationprovided a regional catalyst for the traditional concept ofconditional benefits, and a stigmatized welfare dependency tobegin to be superseded by a more egalitarian, democratic viewof entitlements as a citizen's right within a mixed economyof welfare. The article ends with a brief reflection on thewider and longer-term significance of this changing culture.     

The Role of Public Input in State Welfare Policymaking

This article reports findings from a survey of 257 state officials involved in public assistance policymaking in the American states during the early to mid-1990s. Respondents were asked to comment on the impetus for welfare reform, on methods employed to gauge public preferences, and on sources of policy ideas. These officials, including state legislators, social service agency directors, and senior advisors to governors, revealed a variety of forums for gathering public input. Although few respondents affiliated with elective office reported significant direct electoral challenges on welfare issues, they often cited constituent contacts regarding welfare reform.     

Spillover Effects of Welfare Reforms in State Labor Markets

This paper estimates the effects of welfare reforms on a state's employment and wage rates. Welfare reforms include: pushing welfare recipients into the labor force, financial incentives to recipients for working, wage subsidies to employers of recipients, and community service jobs for recipients. The effects of these policies are analyzed using a newly estimated model of state labor markets. Simulations show that jobs found by welfare reform participants cause sizable displacement effects for nonparticipants. Displacement effects of labor supply policies are highest when a state's unemployment is high, whereas displacement effects of labor demand policies are highest when a state's unemployment is low.     

国家资本及其国有企业是新中国工业化的基础和主干

中国20世纪50年代以来形成的国家资本,是对前半个世纪官僚资本的否定,是社会主义公有制的初级形式。它并不是什么人幻想的产物,也并非机械地照搬“苏联模式”的恶果,而是中国经济、政治、文化矛盾演化的必然。国家资本及其国有企业奠定了中国工业化的基础,是中国工业化的主干。     

State building and European integration in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes the impact on statebuilding as an aspect of Ukraine’s integration with the EU. The Euromaidan had a profound, yet hardly recognized, effect on EU-Ukraine relations, particularly in terms of the EU’s subsequent support of domestic reforms in Ukraine. Following the Euromaidan, the EU supported Ukraine’s aspirations to enter “economic integration and political association” by concluding an Association Agreement – an agreement which exceeded the capacity of the Ukrainian state to implement it. To increase this capacity, the EU has supported reform of public administration and has provided far-reaching assistance on capacity building in the government. This article posits that since 2014 European integration has become tantamount with (re)building the state structures in Ukraine. Therefore, the significance of European integration for Ukraine goes beyond the implementation of the Association Agreement and extends to root-and-branch reform of Ukrainian state structures.     

Going It Alone: Belarus as the Non-European European State

In the second paper of a symposium devoted to the contemporary status of Belarus, a noted American specialist on the electoral geography of the states of the former Soviet Union challenges assertions in the preceding article (Ioffe and Yarashevich, 2011) that only Russia and Ukraine are valid comparators against which to gauge the success of the Lukashenka model. Expanding the scope of comparison to include the three other countries neighboring Belarus (Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland), he demonstrates that a broader range of policy changes can be considered by its leadership in efforts to limit damage from the economic crisis in Belarus and position the country for renewed growth within a global economic frame-work. Examination of a wide range of social and economic indicators and government policies reveals, however, that in many ways an unreformed Belarus is poorly positioned for competition in an increasingly interconnected world, in which the elements for successful development are quite different from those providing economic stability in the past. A closing section of the paper revisits the debate on whether most Belarusian citizens actually aspire to a more "European" way of life or instead prefer the "Eastern" alignment and reliance on a Russian benefactor whose own economic future looks increasingly uncertain.     

No Race in Any Direction: State Welfare and Income Regimes

This paper has two objectives. First, we examine state adoption and implementation of income support policies under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. We develop a composite measure of income support that includes welfare programs that scholars traditionally investigate and adds optional policies that encourage independence through work. Second, we engage a substantive focus on the administrative ability and willingness of states to adopt and implement sophisticated income support policies. We investigate the extent to which state government professionalism, ideology, economic resources, and racially based policies have shaped state policy. We find that the percentage of the state population is liberal; state racial demographics and governmental professionalism are critical determinants of state welfare and income support regimes. Significantly, we find no evidence that states are converging toward high‐quality, effectively financed welfare policies or income regime policies to help the poor move into and economically survive in the job market.