To what extent has the process of European integration re-drawn the boundaries of national welfare states? What are the effects of such re-drawing? Boundaries count: they are essential in bringing ...together individuals, groups, and territorial units, and for activating or strengthening shared ties between them. If the profile of boundaries changes over time, we might expect significant consequences on bonding dynamics, i.e. on the way solidarity is structured in a given political community. The book addresses these two questions in a broad historical and comparative perspective. The first chapter sets out a novel theoretical framework which re-conceptualizes the welfare state as a 'bounded space' characterized by a distinct spatial politics. This reconceptualization takes as a starting point the 'state-building tradition' in political science and in particular the work of Stein Rokkan. The second chapter briefly outlines the early emergence and expansion of European welfare states till World War II. Chapters 3 and 4 analyse the relationship between domestic welfare state developments and the formation of a supranational European Community between the 1960s and the 2000s, illustrating how the process of European integration has increasingly eroded the social sovereignty of the nation-state. Chapter 5 focuses on new emerging forms of sub-national and trans-national social protection, while Chapter 6 discusses current trends and future perspectives for a re-structuring of social protection at the EU level. While there is no doubt that European integration has significantly altered the boundaries of national welfare, de-stabilizing delicate political and institutional equilibria, the book concludes by offering some suggestions on how a viable system of multi-level social protection could possibly emerge within the new EU wide boundary configuration. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/politicalscience/0199284660/toc.html
China 2030 World Bank, the People's Republic of China Development Research Center of the State Council
2012., 2013, 2012, 03-22-2013, 2013-03-22, 2013-03-26
eBook, Book
Open access
China's economic performance over the past 30 years has been remarkable. The report is based on the strong conviction that China has the potential to become a modern, harmonious, and creative high ...income society by 2030. The report proposes six strategic directions for China's new development strategy: 1) rethinking the role of the state and the private sector to encourage increased competition in the economy; 2) encouraging innovation and adopting an open innovation system with links to global research and development networks; 3) looking to green development as a significant new growth opportunity; 4) promoting equality of opportunity and social protection for all; 5) strengthening the fiscal system and improving fiscal sustainability; and 6) ensuring that China, as an international stakeholder, continues its integration with global markets.
In this unique and provocative contribution to the literatures of political science and social policy, ten leading experts question prevailing views that federalism always inhibits the growth of ...social solidarity. Their comparative study of the evolution of political institutions and welfare states in the six oldest federal states - Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, the US - reveals that federalism can facilitate and impede social policy development. Development is contingent on several time-dependent factors, including degree of democratization, type of federalism, and the stage of welfare state development and early distribution of social policy responsibility. The reciprocal nature of the federalism-social policy relationship also becomes apparent: the authors identify a set of important bypass structures within federal systems that have resulted from welfare state growth. In an era of retrenchment and unravelling unitary states, this study suggests that federalism may actually protect the welfare state, and welfare states may enhance national integration.
Among the arenas that reproduce inequality for marginalized groups, housing remains one of the most important. Guided by scholarship on housing insecurity among the poor and parenting amidst poverty, ...this article investigates the lived experience of parenting within the intricate landscape of housing insecurity. To do so, we draw on in-depth interviews with 100 low-income parents who rent a house in Israel. Our findings show that amidst severe housing challenges, parents constantly enact strong social agency by striving to secure decent housing for their children. Our analysis also reveals how three main facets of housing insecurity permeate and shape everyday parent–child relationships: overcrowded living conditions, economic tensions, and emotional and health challenges. We employ the concept of “negotiation” to offer a threefold conceptualization of our findings regarding parenting experience in the shadow of housing insecurity.
Gender planning is not an end in itself but a means by which women, through a process of empowerment, can emancipate themselves. Ultimately, its success depends on the capacity of women's ...organizations to confront subordination and create successful alliances which will provide constructive support in negotiating women's needs at the level of household, civil society, the state and the global system.Gender Planning and Development provides an introduction to an issue of primary importance and constant debate. It will be essential reading for academics, practitioners, undergraduates and trainees in anthropology, development studies, women's studies and social policy.
State Formation and Radical Democracy in India analyzes one of the most important cases of developmental change in the twentieth century, namely, Kerala in southern India and begs the question of ...whether insurgency among the marginalized poor can use formal representative democracy to create better life chances. Going back to pre-independence, colonial India, Manali Desai takes a long historical view of Kerala and compares it with the state of West Bengal, which like Kerala has been ruled by leftists but has not had the same degree of success in raising equal access to welfare, literacy, and basic subsistence. This comparison brings the role of left party formation and its mode of insertion in civil society to the fore, raising the question of what kinds of parties can effect the most substantive anti-poverty reforms within a vibrant democracy. This book offers a new, historically based explanation for Kerala’s post-independence political and economic direction.
This book examines the potential role of European Union law in combating poverty and social exclusion in the European Union. Anti-poverty strategies have been part of the European Union agenda for ...decades. Most saliently, over a decade ago, the EU’s Member States pledged to lift 20 million people out of poverty. In spite of this commitment, the EU did not even meet a quarter of this target, and over 113 million people still were at risk of poverty and social exclusion by the end of 2020. This book addresses the incongruence between a quite developed EU policy strategy and a well-embedded legal objective on the one hand, and the lack of direct legal action on the other. Analysing the role of social policy instruments, fundamental rights, and the constitutional framework of the European Union, it makes a detailed case for a contribution of EU law to the policy objective of combating poverty and social exclusion. Drawing on work in law, politics, social policy and economics, this book will interest scholars and policymakers in the areas of EU law, labour and social security, human rights, political science and social and public policy.
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