The American Welfare State Decoded: Uncovering the Neglected History of Public‐Private Partnerships

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre Oakley
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Public Private Partnerships ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Income Sources ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Organizational Arrangement

The American welfare system has always been characterized by extensive public‐private partnerships in the provision of social services. In addition, government financial support became important to private charitable agencies long before the emergence of nationally administered social welfare programs in the 1930s. Although recent research has acknowledged the expanded use of private organizations to deliver government‐sponsored services since the Reagan Era, and focused more fully on public‐private arrangements since the welfare reform initiatives of 1996, the larger historical context has received scant attention. This article presents a case study of the public‐private organizational and financial arrangements in the provision of relief service both before (up to 1934) and after (1935 and beyond) the emergence of nationally‐sponsored programs. The study addresses the following questions: (1) What was the public‐private organizational arrangement in the delivery of welfare services prior to the expanded government role initiated with the New Deal Legislation of the mid 1930s? (2) How has this arrangement changed since then? (3) How dependent have private charitable organizations (known today as nonprofits) become on government funding? Findings indicate that the inter‐organizational arrangement of government entities contracting services through community organizations remains in place despite the emergence of the welfare state. This study also reveals that government‐nonprofit partnerships extend beyond funding in the form of citywide coordinating coalitions. Lastly, although investigation of the distribution of nonprofit income sources in 1929 and 1999 reveals a shift away from private funds (the typical agency now receiving between 7 and 61.4 percent of total revenues from government resources), this has not negated the importance of other private income sources. Thus, even though nonprofit agencies have become more financially dependent on government resources, they have maintained a significant degree of independence.

Innovation without Reputation: How Bureaucrats Saved the Veterans’ Health Care System

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin D. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Social Services ◽  
State Building ◽  
Public Private Partnerships ◽  
Veterans Health ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs

The Veterans Health Administration (VA) is among the most unusual and misunderstood institutions in the American welfare state. Unlike most American social services, veterans’ medical care continues to be administered directly by the state, contrary to the “antibureaucratic strategy” of “hidden” or “submerged” state-building that has dominated US social policy for decades. Drawing on extensive archival research, I attempt to make sense of the VA’s unique policy trajectory by exploring two puzzling episodes of institutional change in the delivery of veterans’ health care. Although many bureaucratic models predict large new undertakings initiated by agencies only when they benefit from the advantages of being well-regarded and relatively autonomous, both instances of institutional change occurred at the nadir of the VA’s reputation as a competent, innovative, and politically-powerful agency. To explain these unexpected transformations, I investigate the role of bureaucrats in shaping the development of the American welfare state and develop the concept of collaborative state-building to demonstrate how public-private partnerships may contribute to the expansion of social welfare programs in liberal states. Although public-private partnerships are usually seen as an erosion of state power or a way to hide the state’s role in the provision of social services, the case of the VA suggests that such partnerships may be used to support and expand such programs. I also focus on the VA’s many scandals and show how agency officials used these policy failures to expand the VA.

The Rise of Block-Granting as a Tool of Conservative Statecraft

The Forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-247
Author(s):  
Ryan LaRochelle
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Block Grant ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Block Grants ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Political Weapon ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractThis article sheds new light on how conservatism has affected American state development by tracing the history of how block-granting transformed from a bipartisan tool to solve problems of public administration in the 1940s into a mechanism to roll back and decentralize the welfare state that had reached its zenith in the 1960s. By the early 1980s, conservative policymakers had coopted the previously bipartisan tool in their efforts to chip away at the increasingly centralized social welfare system that emerged out of the Great Society. In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan successfully converted numerous categorical grants into a series of block grants, slashing funding for several social safety net programs. Block-granting allows conservative opponents of the postwar welfare state to gradually erode funding and grant more authority to state governments, thus using federalism as a more palatable political weapon to reduce social welfare spending than the full dismantlement of social programs. However, despite a flurry of successes in the early 1980s, block-granting has not proven as successful as conservatives might have hoped, and recent efforts to convert programs such as Medicaid and parts of the Affordable Care Act into block grants have failed. The failure of recent failed block grant efforts highlights the resilience of liberal reforms, even in the face of sustained conservative opposition. However, conservatives still draw upon the tool today in their efforts to erode and retrench social welfare programs. Block-granting has thus transformed from a bipartisan tool to improve bureaucratic effectiveness into a perennial weapon in conservatives’ war on the welfare state.

scholarly journals KONSEP WELLFARE STATE DI INDONEISA

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Winda Roselina Effendi
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Services ◽  
The State ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Market Economy System ◽  
Economy System

Walfare State concept born in the era of the 20th century as a correction of the development of the concept of the country as night watchman, the phenomenon of economic capitalism that gradually leads to lameness in the distribution of sources of prosperity. In the Walfare State concept, the state is required to extend its responsibility to the socio-economic problems facing the people. The functions of the state also include activities that were previously beyond the scope of state functions, such as extending the provision of social services to individuals and families in specific matters, such as social security. The role of the state can not be separated with Welfare State because the state that plays a role in managing the economy which includes the responsibility of the state to ensure the availability of basic welfare services in certain levels. Welfare State does not reject the existence of a capitalist market economy system but believes that there are elements in the public order that are more important than market objectives and can only be achieved by controlling and limiting the operation of such market mechanisms.Keywords: walfare state, country, economic systemKonsep Walfare State yang lahir di era abad ke-20 sebagai koreksi berkembangnya konsep negara sebagai penjaga malam, gejala kapitalisme perekonomian yang secara perlahan-lahan menyebabkan terjadinya kepincangan dalam pembagian sumber-sumber kemakmuran bersarma. Dalam konsep Walfare State, negara dituntut untuk memperluas tanggung jawabnya kepada masalah-masalah sosial ekonomi yang dihadapi rakyat. Fungsi negara juga meliputi kegiatan-kegiatan yang sebelumnya berada diluar jangkauan fungsi negara, seperti memperluas ketentuan pelayanan sosial kepada individu dan keluarga dalam hal-hal khusus, seperti social security, kesehatan.  Peran negara tidak bisa dipisahkan dengan Welfare State karena negara yang berperan dalam mengelola perekonomian yang yang di dalamnya mencakup tanggung jawab negara untuk menjamin ketersediaan pelayanan kesejahteraan dasar dalam tingkat tertentu. Welfare State tidak menolak keberadaan sistem ekonomi pasar kapitalis tetapi meyakini bahwa ada elemen-elemen dalam tatanan masyarakat yang lebih penting dari tujuan-tujuan pasar dan hanya dapat dicapai dengan mengendalikan dan membatasi bekerjanya mekanisme pasar tersebut. Kata Kunci: walfare state, negara,sistem ekonomi 

The Transformation of American Liberalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Klosko
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Liberalism ◽  
Social Security Act

With passage of the Social Security Act, in 1935, the American government took on new social welfare functions, which have expanded ever since. As a work of political theory “on the ground,” The Transformation of American Liberalism explores the arguments American political leaders used to justify and defend social welfare programs since the Social Security Act. Students of political theory note the evolution of liberal political theory between its origins and major contemporary theorists who justify the values and social policies of the welfare state. But the transformation of liberalism in American political culture is incomplete. Beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, the arguments of America’s political leaders fall well short of values of equality and human dignity that are often thought to underlie the welfare state. Individualist—“Lockean”—values and beliefs have exerted a continuing hold on America’s leaders, constraining their justificatory arguments. The paradoxical result may be described as continuing attempts to justify new social programs without acknowledging incompatibility between the arguments necessary to do so and individualist assumptions inherent in American political culture. The American welfare state is notably ungenerous in its social welfare programs. To some extent this may be attributed to the shortcomings of public justifications. An important reason for the striking absence of strong and widely recognized arguments for social welfare programs in America’s political culture is that its political leaders did not provide them.

The German Right to anExistenzminimum, Human Dignity, and the Possibility of Minimum Core Socioeconomic Rights Protection

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Leijten
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Minimum Level ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Wage Bill ◽  
The Public ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Socioeconomic Rights ◽  
The One

Due to the financial crisis, European states are struggling to make both ends meet and comply with budgetary requirements, This results in cutting pensions and the public wage bill, as well as in phasing out subsidies and other forms of assistance, Although welfare state arrangements have become more limited in the past several decades, especially now, in these times of austerity, it is worth asking how far states can go in limiting social welfare programs, On the one hand, it can be said that there need to be fundamental rights-based limits to the legitimate phasing out or cutting down of existing arrangements to ensure that a minimum level of social arrangements is at all times guaranteed. On the other hand, it is hard to curtail the legislature's freedom by setting such limits, as the political sensitivity, technical aspects, and budgetary implications of social measures seemingly do not allow for too much fundamental rights rhetoric.

Resignation at the Treasury: the Social Services Committee and the Failure to Reform the Welfare State, 1955–57

1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Constructive Development ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
Main Protagonist ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
Welfare Expenditure

ABSTRACTBetween 1955–7 welfare expenditure in Britain came under serious attack. The main protagonist was the Treasury and its chosen implement a five-year review of the social services, to be presided over by a ministerial Social Services Committee. The attack rebounded, for the Committee provided the opportunity for the consolidation of the defence of welfare expenditure and for a frontal attack on Treasury assumptions. This neglected episode in Conservative government social policy places in historical context the early defeat of monetarism (with Thorneycroft's resignation in 1958) and provides the background to the establishment of the Plowden Committee and of the Public Expenditure Survey Committee. It also raises questions about the degree of post-war consensus and the failure to make the constructive development of the welfare state an objective of ‘conviction’ politics.

Swedish Austerity: Benefits at Risk

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Eero Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Service Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Working People ◽  
The Right ◽  
Social Service Programs ◽  
The Welfare State

The Swedish welfare state is facing the greatest threat since its inception. Attacks stem from the country's sharp economic downturn since 1989 and the related currency crisis of September 1992. Politicians of the right and left have responded to the economic crisis by initiating cutbacks in social welfare programs and supporting policies that will lead to a massive transfer of income from working people to corporations. The focus on cutting social programs is misplaced. The Swedish economy flourished for decades with the network of social service programs in place; the welfare state cannot be blamed for economic problems that have only recently arisen.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Klosko
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Security Act ◽  
The Welfare State

With passage of the Social Security Act, in 1935, the American government took on new social welfare functions, which have expanded ever since. The Transformation of American Liberalism explores the arguments American political leaders used to justify and defend social welfare programs since 1935. Students of political theory note the evolution of liberal political theory between its origins and major contemporary theorists who justify the values and social policies of the welfare state. But the transformation of liberalism in American political culture is incomplete. Beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, the arguments of America’s political leaders fall well short of values of equality and human dignity that are often thought to underlie the welfare state. Individualist—“Lockean”—values and beliefs have exerted a continuing hold on America’s leaders, constraining their justificatory arguments. The paradoxical result may be described as continuing attempts to justify new social programs without acknowledging incompatibility between the arguments necessary to do so and individualist assumptions inherent in American political culture. The American welfare state is notably ungenerous in its social welfare programs. To some extent this may be attributed to the shortcomings of public justifications. An important reason for the striking absence of strong and widely recognized arguments for these programs in America’s political culture is that its political leaders did not provide them.

scholarly journals Welfare-State Retrenchment Revisited: Entitlement Cuts, Public Sector Restructuring, and Inegalitarian Trends in Advanced Capitalist Societies

1998 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Clayton ◽  
Jonas Pontusson
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
Advanced Capitalist

In recent years it has become commonplace for comparativists to emphasize the resilience of welfare states in advanced capitalist societies and the failure of neoliberal efforts to dismantle the welfare state. Challenging some tenets of the resilience thesis, this article seeks to broaden the discussion of welfare-state retrenchment. The authors argue that a sharp deceleration of social spending has occurred in most OECD countries since 1980, that welfare states have failed to offset the rise of market-generated inequality and insecurity, and that welfare programs have become less universalistic. They stress the distributive and political consequences of market-oriented reforms of the public sector.

scholarly journals Challenges of the Welfare State: The Spanish Case

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Miryam de la Concepcion Gonzalez-Rabanal
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Contributions ◽  
The One ◽  
Spanish Model ◽  
The Welfare State

Recent events - especially the economic crisis- have revealed the need to maintain the welfare state, especially in developed countries (the most attacked by the crisis) which are also hit the hardest by the recession and job losses. On the one hand, the increase in demand for social services joins the decreased capacity to collect taxes as a result of the fall in economic activity and declining social contributions because of the rising unemployment. On the other, economic difficulties to prop up the welfare of citizens have caused the most unrest and political debate about whether social spending is precisely that what must suffer cuts to balance the public accounts. The answer of each country to this question will depend on its ability to meet new challenges without compromising the future of younger generations. The objective of this paper is to discuss the Spanish model of welfare, taking into special consideration the demographic effects of an aging population and the reversal of migration flows in order to discern which direction and what concrete measures can answer the previous question. This has been a response that in the Spanish case, has highlighted the need to review the excessive benevolence in granting a benefits system and the existing pockets of fraud in the tax system.

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