In Defense of Welfarism

This paper characterizes welfarist social evaluation in a multi-profile setting where, in addition to multiple utility profiles, it is assumed that there are several profiles of non-welfare information. We prove new versions of the welfarism theorems in this alternative framework, and we illustrate that a very plausible and weak anonymity property is sufficient to generate anonymous social-evaluation orderings.

Anonymous Single-Profile Welfarism

This note reexamines the single-profile approach to social-choice theory. If an alternative is interpreted as a social state of affairs or a history of the world, it can be argued that a multi-profile approach is inappropriate because the information profile is determined by the set of alternatives. However, single-profile approaches are criticized because of the limitations they impose on the possibility of formulating properties such as anonymity. We suggest an alternative definition of anonymity that applies in a single-profile setting and characterize anonymous single-profile welfarism under a richness assumption.

Rationalities, Practices, and Resistance in Post-Welfarism. A Comment on Kevin Stenson

The former welfare arrangements are, according to Stenson, in a process of fundamental re-structuring. Or regarding the topic of this SW&S-Special Issue (was meint ihr genau mit dem vorhergehenden Satz? Man sollte einen Satz besser nicht mit ‘or’ anfangen): the spatial scales of the welfare states are under siege. With this advice Stenson assents to the prevalent description of a fundamental shift of former welfare arrangements since the last third of the 20th century (see for welfare policy research, research on human services and social work: Castel 2003; Clarke 2004; Gilbert 2004; Lessenich 2008/forthcoming; Marston/McDonald 2006; Webb 2006).

Punitiveness and the criminalisation of the other : State wards, unlawful non-citizens and Indigenous youth

This paper explores the genealogies of bio-power that cut across punitive state interventions aimed at regulating or normalising several distinctive ‘problem’ or ‘suspect’ deviant populations, such as state wards, non-lawful citizens and Indigenous youth. It begins by making some general comments about the theoretical approach to bio-power taken in this paper. It then outlines the distinctive features of bio-power in Australia and how these intersected with the emergence of penal welfarism to govern the unruly, unchaste, unlawful, and the primitive. The paper draws on three examples to illustrate the argument – the gargantuan criminalisation rates of Aboriginal youth, the history of incarcerating state wards in state institutions, and the mandatory detention of unlawful non-citizens and their children. The construction of Indigenous people as a dangerous presence, alongside the construction of the unruly neglected children of the colony — the larrikin descendants of convicts as necessitating special regimes of internal controls and institutions, found a counterpart in the racial and other exclusionary criteria operating through immigration controls for much of the twentieth century. In each case the problem child or population was expelled from the social body through forms of bio-power, rationalised as strengthening, protecting or purifying the Australian population.

Offending Youth : Crime, Sex and Justice

Rates of female delinquency, especially for violent crimes, are increasing in most common law countries. At the same time the growth in cyber-bullying, especially among girls, appears to be a related global phenomenon. While the gender gap in delinquency is narrowing in Australia, United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, boys continue to dominate the youth who commit crime and have a virtual monopoly over sexually violent crimes. Indigenous youth continue to be vastly over-represented in the juvenile justice system in every Australian jurisdiction. The Indigenisation of delinquency is a persistent problem in other countries such as Canada and New Zealand. Young people who gather in public places are susceptible to being perceived as somehow threatening or riotous, attracting more than their share of public order policing. Professional football has been marred by repeated scandals involving sexual assault, violence and drunkenness. Given the cultural significance of footballers as role models to thousands, if not millions, of young men around the world, it is vitally important to address this problem. Offending Youth explores these key contemporary patterns of delinquency, the response to these by the juvenile justice agencies and moreover what can be done to address these problems. The book also analyses the major policy and legislative changes from the nineteenth to twenty first centuries, chiefly the shift the penal welfarism to diversion and restorative justice. Using original cases studied by Carrington twenty years ago, Offending Youth illustrates how penal welfarism criminalised young people from socially marginal backgrounds, especially Aboriginal children, children from single parent families, family-less children, state wards and young people living in poverty or in housing commission estates. A number of inquiries in Australia and the United Kingdom have since established that children committed to these institutions, supposedly for their own good, experienced systemic physical, sexual and psychological abuse during their institutionalisation. The book is dedicated to the survivors of these institutions who only now are receiving official recognition of the injustices they suffered. The underlying philosophy of juvenile justice has fundamentally shifted away from penal welfarism to embrace positive policy responses to juvenile crime, such as youth conferencing, cautions, warnings, restorative justice, circle sentencing and diversion examined in the concluding chapter. Offending Youth is aimed at a broad readership including policy makers, juvenile justice professionals, youth workers, families, teachers, politicians as well as students and academics in criminology, policing, gender studies, masculinity studies, Indigenous studies, justice studies, youth studies and the sociology of youth and deviance more generally.-- [from publisher website]

The Government – Voluntary Sector Compacts: Governance, Governmentality and Civil Society

In 1998 government and the main representatives of the voluntary sector in each of the four countries in the United Kingdom published "compacts" on relations between government and the voluntary sector. These were joint documents, carrying forward ideas expressed by the Labor Party when in opposition, and directed at developing a new relationship for partnership with those "not-for-profit organizations" that are involved primarily in the areas of policy and service delivery. This article seeks to use an examination of the compacts, and the processes that produced them and that they have now set in train, to explore some of the wider issues about the changing role of government and its developing relationships with civil society. In particular, it argues that the new partnership builds upon a movement from welfarism to economism which is being developed further through the compact process. Drawing upon a governmentality approach, and illustrating the account with interview material obtained from some of those involved in compact issues from within both government and those umbrella groups which represent the voluntary sector, an argument is made that this overall process represents the beginning of a new reconfiguration of the state that is of considerable constitutional significance.

Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-Being

This paper, which is to be published as a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, provides an introduction to social-choice theory with interpersonal comparisons of well-being. We argue that the most promising route of escape from the negative conclusion of Arrow’s theorem is to use a richer informational environment than ordinal measurability and the absence of interpersonal comparability of well-being. We discuss welfarist social evaluation (which requires that the levels of individual well-being in two alternatives are the only determinants of their social ranking) and present characterizations of some important social-evaluation orderings.

Consistent Relations

Consistency, a natural weakening of transitivity introduced in a seminal contribution by Suzumura (1976b), has turned out to be an interesting and promising concept in a variety of areas within economic theory. This paper summarizes its recent applications and provides some new observations in welfarist social choice and in population ethics. In particular, it is shown that the conclusion of the welfarism theorem remains true if transitivity is replaced by consistency and that an impossibility result in variable-population social-choice theory turns into a possibility if transitivity is weakened to consistency.

Population Ethics

This paper reviews the welfarist approach to population ethics. We provide an overview of the critical-level utilitarian population principles and their generalized counterparts, examine important properties of these principles and discuss their relationships to other variable-population social-evaluation rules. We illustrate the difficulties arising in population ethics by means of an impossibility result and present characterizations of the critical-level generalized-utilitarian principles and of three of their sub-classes.

O processo de gestão de políticas públicas na perspectiva de ruptura social no município de Alterosa - experiência política gestão 1992 a 2005

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

An Australian Perspective on Singaporean Welfare Policy

From a Western perspective, Singapore appears to be an overt example of a neo-liberal welfare regime based on low social expenditure, and limited and discretionary social assistance. But the true picture is arguably more complex. Singapore’s welfare policy is driven by strong cultural assumptions around individual and family self-reliance, and the inappropriateness of state welfare provision. However, there is also a strong emphasis on communal responsibility for supporting the disadvantaged. Some conclusions are drawn about the limitations of existing policies, and possible new directions for the future.

Análisis de las prácticas de promoción social del Mayor de Bolívar : hacia la construcción de saberes desde la investigación activa participativa

A partir de la siguiente pregunta: ¿cómo retroalimentar las prácticas del programa de tecnología en promoción social del colegio mayor de bolívar, para la construcción de saberes desde el conocimiento de lo cotidiano?, Surge el objetivo central del presente artículo que consiste en: analizar las prácticas profesionales del programa de promoción social del colegio mayor de bolívar, para la consolidación de la investigación acción participativa, en aras de enriquecer el currículo y las prácticas pedagógicas, permitiendo recrear y fortalecer procesos instituidos, y detectar vacíos o limitaciones. Ello indica que se fundamentará con postulados teóricos de autores como orlando fals borda, para la comprensión de la iap y ezequiel ander egg para la interpretación del concepto de asistencialismo entre otros. El itinerario metodológico, se acoge al paradigma interpretativo-fenomenológico, en torno a la estrategia cualitativa: inductiva-deductiva. Tendrá inicialmente actividades de análisis de documentación, específicamente referente a los documentos institucionales, además de la implementación de entrevistas y la revisión de la bibliografía con la cual se fundamentará teóricamente la investigación. Se trata de generar dudas y reflexiones acerca la importancia del fortalecimiento de la actividad investigativa en programas tecnológicos, en contra de lo que podría convertirse en procesos asistencialistas.

A DEFICIÊNCIA FÍSICA NAS REVISTAS VEJA, ÉPOCA E ISTOÉ: um estudo de recepção

A maioria das pesquisas sobre mídia e deficiência estuda de que forma as pessoas com deficiência são representadas pelo jornalismo. As representações encontradas pelos pesquisadores são de assistencialismo, normalização, superação e cidadania. Este estudo procura compreender a percepção das pessoas com deficiência física em relação às revistas de atualidades e descobrir como essas pessoas sentem-se representadas por tais veículos de comunicação. Analisaram-se três revistas de atualidades: Veja, Época e Istoé. Para compor o corpus da pesquisa optou-se por textos referentes à deficiência nas edições de julho a dezembro de 2012, período em que aconteceram os jogos paraolímpicos, e nas datas relacionadas à luta das pessoas com deficiência. Quanto aos procedimentos metodológicos destaca-se, em um primeiro momento, a análise de conteúdo e, em seguida, a análise retórica do discurso de três textos jornalísticos, um de cada revista, de acordo com a representação predominante. Por último analisa-se a recepção, com 16 entrevistados, sendo oito estudantes da Universidade Metodista de São Paulo e oito pacientes da Associação de Paraplégicos de Taubaté (Aparte). A análise revelou que a representação que mais apareceu no período foi a da superação, e que as pessoas que têm deficiência física querem ser representadas de uma forma mais humana e inclusiva. .

Cadburys' new factory system, 1879-1919

This thesis examines the reasons for Cadburys' move from a city centre site to a greenfield site in Bournville in 1879 and the subsequent development of the factory and the Bournville community. The founding of the Bournville Village Trust by George Cadbury is discussed in relation to the Garden City movement. The welfare and personnel management policies which Cadburys adopted in the 1900s are considered in relation to welfarism in general, especially in the United States. The extent to which the idea of a `Quaker employer' can explain Cadburys policies is questioned both methodologically and empirically. The early use of scientific management at Bournville is described and related to Edward Cadbury's writings on the subject. Finally, the institution of a Works Council Scheme in 1918 is described and its uses are discussed. It is concluded that Cadburys instituted a new factory system in this period which consisted of a synthesis of ideas borrowed from elsewhere and that for a variety of reasons Cadburys was an appropriate site for their implementation.