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11. European Social Policy: Progressive Regression

Author:
Wolfgang Streeck
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
European social policy changed with the evolution of European and global capitalism, the scope and shape of European-level international institutions, the size and heterogeneity of “Europe” as a polity, and the politics of the European national welfare state. The paper outlines the long-term trajectory of European social policy, from the intended absorption of national welfare states into one united, federal welfare state to a selective updating of national social policies by European social policies; to multi-level coordination of national systems by special European institutions; to European soft law helping national “modern- ization” on the “Third Way”; to exposure of national systems to international economic competition as an incentive for “structural reform”; and to subordination of social policy, national and European, to the defense of a common hard currency through fiscal consoli- dation – from, in other words, federal social democracy to competitive “adjustment” of national social protection and social life to global markets.
Topic:
Reform, Capitalism, Political structure, Social Policy, Welfare, and Integration
Political Geography:
Europe

12. Provoking Debate on Central European Security

Author:
Robert Gawlowski
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:
Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:
Co-production of public services is an increasingly popular tool in public man- agement, although it is still a new phenomenon in Poland. Despite the attention research- ers give to co-production, some significant gaps remain. In this article, author attempts to examine the legal possibility of implementing co-production by the Polish local government by local initiative and Solecki Fund. The article aims to examine how major Polish cities gathered in Union in Polish Metropolises used local initiatives. The next step in research is to find out how Solecki Fund is spread among rural areas according to statistical data. It is proved that only a handful of local governments in Poland are truly engaged in co-produc- tion. However, Solecki Fund can be shown as an excellent example of citizens’ engagement. It is presented a possible agenda on what can be done to make co-production more popular and used on a regular basis not only in metropolitan but also rural areas.
Topic:
Governance, Public Policy, Welfare, Management, and Public Service
Political Geography:
Europe and Poland

13. Migrants in construction work: Evaluating their welfare framework

Author:
Shamindra Nath Roy and Mukta Naik
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
More than two decades after the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 and the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act, 1996 came into force, the efficacy of this framework remains in question. Correctional steps have the potential to extend social benefits to construction workers, especially migrants who face particular vulnerabilities. Available data regarding implementation of the Acts by States presents a picture of overall tardiness and delay with wide variations. States need to ramp up worker registration; data suggests that lowering entry barriers for migrants improves registration and consequently, access to welfare benefits. While collection of cess funds has improved and is broadly proportionate to construction activity, their utilisation remains dismal. States need to think strategically on how to spend accumulated cess funds—especially on housing, occupational health and safety, grievance redressal and legal aid—and sustain welfare provisions over time. Accumulated unspent funds offer an opportunity for big-ticket, one-time expenditures. Examples from some States show that collaboration with civil society organisations could improve outreach, particularly to migrants.
Topic:
Migration, Labor Issues, Legislation, Labor Policies, and Welfare
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

14. India’s Democracy at 70: Growth, Inequality, and Nationalism

Author:
Ashutosh Varshney
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
Of late, Indian democracy has been confronted with a new political economy. Strong economic growth over the last three decades has generated the world’s fourth-largest collection of dollar billionaires and the third-largest middle class, both for the first time in Indian history, while still leaving the single largest concentration of the poor behind. In a democracy where the lower-income groups have come to vote as much as, or more than, the higher-income groups, the polity must find creative ways of walking on two legs: maintaining the momentum of economic growth while also taking care of mass welfare.
Topic:
Political Economy, Elections, Democracy, and Welfare
Political Geography:
India and Asia

15. Trending Conditional Cash Transfers in Girl’s Education

Author:
Jessica Ruch
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Human Rights Education, University of Denver
Abstract:
Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) in health and education programs have been rapidly growing over the past two decades. They’ve expanded to over 40 countries and are increasingly used to target and improve girl’s education. The volume of CCTs in development projects worldwide raises the question: can they address the greatest barriers to equal education? According to Dr. Michelle Morais de Sae Silva, CCTs have sought to adapt to “identify the ideal balance between cash incentives and conditions that would maximize the kind of behavior that is believed to enhance poor families’ human capital.”(1). Unlike social welfare programs and unconditional cash transfers, CCTs’ conditionalities were established to break intergenerational transmissions of poverty by investing in human capital (2). Analysis of Latin American CCTs illustrate positive impacts: increased educational outcomes (enrollment and attendance), decreased child labor, small improvements to short-term poverty and a shift from agricultural labor to non-agricultural employment (3).
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Poverty, and Welfare
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. Homelessness and Human Rights

Author:
Joey White
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Human Rights Education, University of Denver
Abstract:
For many who have not experienced homelessness its causes lead to stigma and prejudice. But, with 78% of workers in the U.S. living paycheck to paycheck — the probability of experiencing homelessness is more common than most realize. At COHRE we noticed a disconnect between human rights discussions and homelessness. Over the next 5 weeks we have set out to focus on the effects homelessness has on human rights, as well as ways to promote human rights in our community through education on the realities homelessness.
Topic:
Human Rights, Poverty, Welfare, and Homelessness
Political Geography:
Global Focus

17. Preferences on Redistribution in Fragmented Labor Markets in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author:
Sarah Berens
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This study investigates the extent to which labor market duali- zation polarizes preferences on redistribution between formal and in- formal sector workers in Latin America and the Caribbean. Differences in welfare state costs and benefits for these labor market groups are likely to fuel diverging incentives regarding welfare consumption. The article tests whether or not informal workers are driven mainly by eco- nomic self-interest to increase gains from public welfare goods. The study employed a hierarchical model on pooled survey data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) 2008 and 2010 to analyze the risk exposure of formal and informal workers and, subse- quently, their preferences on redistribution. The analysis reveals that while economic self-interest is an influential factor for formal workers, it is (unexpectedly) much less so for informal workers. Also, an increased economically insecure environment, reflected by high unemployment rates, does not motivate informal workers to an exceptional degree to turn towards the state for redistribution, despite greater exposure to economic risk. Labor market dualization does not translate into polariza- tion at the individual level regarding redistributive preferences in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Topic:
Inequality, Welfare, Labor Market, and Redistribution
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, Caribbean, and North America

18. Welfare Analysis of Changing Food Prices: A Nonparametric Examination of Export Ban on Rice in India (pdf)

Author:
Ben Groom and Mehroosh Tak
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
During the world food crisis of 2007-08, the price of staples soared rapidly. Higher food price impacts poor households more as they spend approximately three quarters of their income on food. Together rice and wheat provide more than 50% of the calorific intake in India. Apart from providing food security, millions of poor and small farmers depend on rice for their livelihoods. Using Indian Consumer Household Expenditure surveys for the years 2007-08 and 2009-10 the paper analyses the welfare generated by a ban on export of rice by the Indian government. The paper finds that the net impact of the ban on export of rice was positive, as it was able to cushion the Indian population (87% of whom are net consumers) from the adverse effects of the crisis. It also found that the poor in India aren’t homogeneous in nature. The majority of the rice-producing households that stand to gain from increased prices are relatively poor farmers. At the same time, the poor households that do not cultivate rice are most affected by price increase, as their budget share of rice is higher than richer households, who are more resilient to price rise. In particular, the wage labourers are affected significantly.
Topic:
Agriculture, Poverty, Food Security, Inequality, Exports, and Welfare
Political Geography:
India and Asia

19. DPJ’s Broken Promise and the End of the Anti-Koizumi Era in Japan

Author:
Junghwan Lee
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
The Democratic Party of Japan (hereafter DPJ) has ruled Japan since 2009 but is now at risk with Ozawa Ichiro’s departure from the DPJ only after three years. On July 2, 2012, Ozawa, former DPJ president and influential figure in DPJ intraparty dynamics, announced his departure from the DPJ with 49 fellow Diet members. He and his fellows have criticized the DPJ’s election manifesto and fundamental identity as being broken with Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko’s effort to raise the consumption tax. A split of Ozawa’s group from the DPJ seemed inescapable when Ozawa and 56 fellows voted against a bill for a consumption tax hike in the Lower House on June 26, 2012. Noda’s continued support for the consumption tax hike and Ozawa’s reactive choice to break away have increased political uncertainty in Japan. Japan may undergo Diet dissolution and a general election this fall due to the divided DPJ. How can we understand the DPJ’s endogenous collapse and what will be the impact of this political upheaval on Japan’s political future? I argue that DPJ solidarity did not have a strong foundation beyond an anti-Koizumi framework and that there was no intraparty consensus on some DPJ leaders’ new policy agenda, which is not related to the anti-Koizumi framework. When Koizumi Junichiro aggressively enhanced neoliberal structural reforms in the early 2000s, DPJ politicians were at first perplexed because Koizumi’s key agendas were well matched with their “small government” orientation. However, they soon found a solution for the anti-Koizumi framework with a doctrine for “more universal welfare without a tax hike” under the leadership of Ozawa. The DPJ’s differentiation from Koizumi’s Liberal Democratic Party (hereafter LDP) was successful in the 2007 Upper House election and the 2009 Lower House election. However, Kan Naoto and Noda have tried to deviate from an Ozawa-led manifesto of no tax hike since 2010 because they found that a stable universal welfare system demands sound fiscal conditions and that a consumption tax increase is the only way of relieving the huge fiscal deficit problem. When the anti-Koizumi was exhausted as a core driving force of DPJ solidarity, the DPJ had become stuck in diverging policy orientations between fiscal soundness and no tax hike—and finally split. The divided DPJ symbolizes the end of the anti-Koizumi era in Japanese politics. Koizumi’s structural reform has dominated the discourse of Japanese politics in the last decade. However, the end of the anti-Koizumi era never means the rise of new discourse of Japanese politics. Since the DPJ and the LDP lost their differences on policy orientations, the stable two-party competition structure is dwindling in Japan. The more crucial point is that Japanese political leaders do not have new visions for Japan’s future political economic model beyond Koizumi’s structural reform and the anti-Koizumi framework’s emphasis on welfare.
Topic:
Reform, Elections, Domestic politics, and Welfare
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia

20. Aging Eagle and Dark Clouds on the Security Horizon

Author:
Dong-Joon Jo
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
The financial crisis in 2008 exposed a latent weakness that the United States would not have resources enough to cope with its population aging and maintain its global leadership. The crisis led the federal government to increase its welfare spending, bail out faltering industries, and rely on measures of economic stimulation. These measures resulted in the swelling of the public debt, which increased by $5,077 billion from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2010, and intensified the U.S. federal government’s budgetary difficulties in meeting the welfare and medical needs of senior citizens and carrying out the war on terror abroad (See Figure 1). The belief in the sustainability of the public debt severely weakened, as the interest expense on the public debt rose to 8.6 percent of the total federal spending in 2010; the belief in the comparability between U.S. domestic welfare and its global leadership eroded. The financial crisis evoked a fairly routine set of behavior in partisan politics in 2011. When the public debt was about to reach the ceiling in 2011, Republicans and majority members of the Tea Party threatened not to agree on raising the debt ceiling. They pressured the Barack Obama administration to reduce the federal budget and governmental regulations. Meanwhile, the Obama administration and Democrats wanted to raise the maximum amount of governmental borrowing and keep boosting the economy. In the gunfire between the two parties loomed the possibility of sovereign default. Amid the partisan conflict the credit rating of the U.S. government bonds was downgraded for the first time in history; major market indexes plunged in the third quarter of 2011. The Budget Control Act was the result of bipartisan negotiations, accommodating conflicting goals and instruments from both sides. It provided breathing room for the Obama administration and Democrats by allowing the debt ceiling to increase by $900 billion two times in 2011 and additionally by $1.2 trillion in 2012. Meanwhile, it reduced the budgetary leeway of the administration and gave more power to the House, where Republicans and Tea Party members held the majority. More specifically, it established binding limits on annual appropriations bills to reduce the funding for discretionary programs, relative to the funding in the Congressional Budget Office’s 2010 baseline; it set up a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the “Supercommittee,” to come up with a bill to reduce deficits by at least $1.5 trillion through 2021. The legislation appeared to keep the partisan gunfire under control.
Topic:
Security, Financial Crisis, Budget, and Welfare
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America