Three Decades of Social Work in France: from Security within the Welfare State to a State of «Disembedded Modernity»

This article gives an overview of trends in policy on the functions and role of social work in French society over the past twenty years. The author suggests several reasons for the current feeling of crisis of professional identity among professionals and the complexities of the political demands made on social work. These are analysed as a consequence of the specific French context of decentralisation of the State and of the multitude of approaches to organisation and to professional training programs. On a broader level, it seems that French social work reflects many characteristics of “modernity” being concerned with difficulties in defining a clear identity, lack of a clear territorial and institutional base (or “disembeddedness” to borrow Giddens term) and difficulties in finding a clear voice to make its values heard in an increasingly politicised arena of public debate.

Equality and Diversity in the Dutch Welfare State

Under the Constitution, the equality principle is very important in the Netherlands. This article argues that there is little evidence for equal citizenship in the Netherlands. There is anti-discrimination legislation in the Netherlands, but it is not very robust. The core argument in this article is that the equality principle must be supplemented by the diversity principle. Diversity is multi-dimensional and can refer to religion, philosophy of life, political persuasion, race (ethnicity), gender, nationality, sexual orientation, age, disability and chronic illness. In this paper multi-culturalism and disability are taken into account and we make a comparison of the social position of disabled people and people from ethnic minorities. Policies on diversity are needed to arrive at diverse citizenship in a varied society. This implies that a distinction has to be made between political citizenship and cultural citizenship. The former has to do with equality, and the latter with diversity.

Victim Support in a Changing Welfare State

This article discusses how new kinds of individual needs develop parallel to the changes in the welfare state. From a study of Victim Service in Sweden it is shown how this organisation has grown parallel to the changes in the welfare state. In the empirical material it is also shown that the need of support often comes from secondary victimisation. Those who are helped by Victim Support are often people with loose bonds to society and people of low class. As victims they can get help from Victim Support, but the need derives from lacking service in the welfare state. NGOs has replaced organisations in the public sector at the same time as the neo-liberal conception of crime, threats and risk has replaced the social democratic ideas of social security.

The Increasing Importance of Administrative Practices in the Shaping of the Welfare State

Dans cet article, nous analysons les changements de l' Etat-providence suédois a l' exemple des services municipaux de soins pour personnes agées. On montre qu'il est possible de tracer des processus de transformation à trois niveaux. Analysées comme phénomènes complèmentaires cela montre à quelle envergure les pratiques administratives sont devenues le lieu primordial de la mise en forme de l' Etat-providence. L'incorporation du managérialisme, comme mode prévalent de gouvernance et d'organisation de services et des politiques sociales mène a la conclusion qu'on devient temoin d'une transformation d' un regime (d Etat-providence) moral et politique à un regime administratif. Dans le dernier paragraphe, nous argumentons que cette transformation affaiblit la citoyenneté sociale et transfère les valeurs et principes de la politique sociale a la sphère administrative. Nous argumentons dès lors que cette perspective analytique a des implications plus larges pour la charactérization des “Welfare regimes” et pour l'analyse des différences transnationales.

Cohort-specific effects of the expansion of the welfare state on job opportunities: a longitudinal analysis of three birth cohorts in the Federal Republic of Germany

Ziel der Untersuchung war es, Einflüsse auf den Arbeitsmarkt der Bundesrepublik durch das Anwachsen des Wohlfahrtsstaates zu ermitteln. Zu diesem Zweck wurden zwischen 1981 und 1983 2.171 Männer und Frauen der Geburtskohorten 1929-31, 1939-41 und 1949-51 mit standardisierten Interviews befragt zu ihrem Lebensverlauf, speziell unter den Gesichtspunkten: Soziale Herkunft, Ausbildung, Beschäftigung, Familie, Mobilität. Insbesondere interessierte die Frage nach der Beschäftigung im öffentlichen Dienst oder in der Privatwirtschaft bzw. ob und wann ein Wechsel von einem in den anderen Bereich stattgefunden hat. Einige Ergebnisse: Die Bildungsexpansion in den 70er Jahren führte dazu, daß eine steigende Anzahl von Universitätsabsolventen im öffentlichen Dienst Beschäftigung fand; seit der Stagnation des Wohlfahrtsstaates ab ca. 1980 sind die Beschäftigungschancen für hochqualifizierte Berufsanfänger dort wieder gesunken. In der Privatwirtschaft wird unqualifizierte Beschäftigung durch höher qualifizierte ersetzt, während im öffentlichen Dienst bei geringerem Arbeitsplatzangebot weniger hochqualifizierte Berufsanfänger nachgefragt werden.

Choosing the path of austerity: how parties and policy coalitions influence welfare state retrenchment in periods of fiscal consolidation

What are the conditions under which some austerity programmes rely on substantial cuts to social spending? More specifically, do the partisan complexion and the type of government condition the extent to which austerity policies imply welfare state retrenchment? This article demonstrates that large budget consolidations tend to be associated with welfare state retrenchment. The findings support a partisan and a politico-institutionalist argument: (i) in periods of fiscal consolidation, welfare state retrenchment tends to be more pronounced under left-wing governments; (ii) since welfare state retrenchment is electorally and politically risky, it also tends to be more pronounced when pursued by a broad pro-reform coalition government. Therefore, the article shows that during budget consolidations implemented by left-wing broad coalition governments, welfare state retrenchment is greatest. Using long-run multipliers from autoregressive distributed lag models on 17 OECD countries during the 1982–2009 period, substantial support is found for these expectations.