Showing papers on "Retrenchment published in 2016"

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

Abstract: 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...

The politics and policies of welfare chauvinism under the economic crisis

Abstract: The ongoing economic crisis that emerged in the wake of the global recession in 2008, and was followed by the more recent crisis of the Eurozone, has introduced new themes and remoulded old ways of approaching the welfare state, immigration, national belonging and racism in Northern Europe. This article identifies two main ways of understanding welfare chauvinism: 1) as a broad concept that covers all sorts of claims and policies to reserve welfare benefits for the ‘native’ population; 2) an ethno-nationalist and racialising political agenda, characteristic especially of right-wing populist parties. Focusing on the relationship between politics and policies, we examine how welfare chauvinist political agendas are turned into policies and what hinders welfare chauvinist claims from becoming policy matters and welfare practices. It is argued that welfare chauvinism targeting migrants is part of a broader neoliberal restructuring of the welfare state and of welfare retrenchment.

A Welfare State for Whom? A Group‐based Account of the Austrian Freedom Party's Social Policy Profile

Abstract: What explains the social policy profile of populist radical right parties (PRRPs)? Building on the argument made by Mudde (2007) that socio-economic policies are secondary elements within the populist radical right ideology, this paper conjectures that the primary elements of that ideology (nativism, authoritarianism, and populism) structure the PRRP's attitudes in the social policy domain. Based on a discussion of the PRRP's core ideology a number of expectations are derived as to which groups should be viewed as deserving or undeserving of support. These expectations are examined through an analysis of the social policies put forward in the election manifestos of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) between 1983 and 2013. The analysis confirms most of the expectations and highlights an important shift in the FPO's social policy agenda, from welfare populist arguments and some retrenchment proposals under Jorg Haider to strong welfare chauvinism after the leadership change in 2005.

Out of Adolescence and Into Adulthood: Critical Race Theory, Retrenchment, and the Imperative of Praxis

Abstract: In commemoration of the germinal 1995 critical race theory (CRT) in education manuscript offered by Gloria Ladson-Billings and William Tate IV, the following account seeks to perform several tasks....

International financial flows in the new normal: Key patterns (and why we should care)

Abstract: This paper documents recent trends in international financial flows, based on a newly assembled dataset covering 40 advanced and emerging countries. It highlights four stylized facts: first, the "Great Retrenchment" that took place during the crisis has proved very persistent; second, this fall can predominantly be related to advanced economies, especially in Western Europe; third, net flows have fallen substantially relative to the years preceding the crisis; and fourth, profound changes have occurred in the composition of international financial flows in ways which should help to strengthen resilience and deliver genuine cross-border risk-sharing. This paper then turns to possible explanations for and likely implications of these changes, with regard to international financial stability issues.

Professional Resistance in Social Work: Counterpractice Assemblages

Abstract: The goal of this article is to deepen understanding of the concept of professional resistance. Studies show that social workers in various parts of the world are increasingly confronted with regulations, programs, and policies that challenge their ability to carry out their professional mission in an ethical manner. Social workers may also find themselves under the pressure of periodic retrenchment resulting from budgetary constraints and subjected to worsening working conditions and threats of wage or social benefit reduction. Therefore, it is not surprising that social workers are sometimes required to engage in actions to oppose these negative realities or, in other words, to practice professional resistance. However, despite its growing relevance, the term "professional resistance" remains both theoretically obscure and marginal to social work practice. This article traces the presence of the concept in social work history, examines divergent uses of the concept in social work literature, introduces theoretical perspectives that may help practitioners enlarge their professional repertoire, provides concrete cases of resistance in different contexts, and finally proposes some paths to professional resistance.

Migration and welfare state spending

Abstract: Is international migration a threat to the redistributive programmes of destination countries? Existing work is divided. This paper examines the manner and extent to which increases in immigration are related to welfare state retrenchment, drawing on data from 1970 to 2007. The paper makes three contributions: (1) it explores the impact of changes in immigration on social welfare policy over both the short and medium term; (2) it examines the possibility that immigration matters for spending not just directly, but indirectly, through changes in demographics and/or the labour force; and (3) by disaggregating data on social expenditure into subdomains (including unemployment, pensions, and the like), it tests the impact of immigration on different elements of the welfare state. Results suggest that increased immigration is indeed associated with smaller increases in spending. The major pathway is through impact on female labour force participation. The policy domains most affected are ones subject to moral hazard, or at least to rhetoric about moral hazard.

'Housing first' and the changing terrains of homeless governance

Abstract: Over the last fifteen years, programs based on ‘housing first’ models have swept to prominence as solutions to homelessness. Such programs serve a small subset of the overall homeless population, namely the ‘chronically’ homeless, offering direct access to permanent housing with comprehensive and flexible support services attached. Hailed as socially progressive responses to homelessness—based on their opposition to traditional emphases on client passivity, sobriety and moralised deservingness—the popularity of housing first models has often depended on congruence with wider projects of welfare retrenchment and fiscal austerity. Despite the rapid globalisation and high public profile of housing first ideas, they have been largely overlooked in geographical accounts of homeless governance. In response, this article discusses the growing importance and influence of housing first ideas, before looking to contemporary debates on homeless governance for interpretive insights. Informed by these debates, we sketch conceptual areas to which future research on housing first models and programs might attend: first, to their ambivalent politics and, second, to the processes and practices of translation that are central to their implementation and political consequence. Moving beyond questions of operational efficacy, efficiency and fidelity, we call for critical but constructive accounts focused on the constitutive relations between housing first ideas and governance transformations at and across a range of scales and sites.

Environmental Policy, Federalism, and the Obama Presidency

Abstract: Environmental policy is a central piece of President Obama’s domestic policy agenda. Congressional gridlock, however, has frequently compelled the Obama Administration to turn to the tools of the administrative presidency to achieve its goals. While executive authority has enabled the President to pursue a relatively ambitious environmental agenda, it has often engendered conflict with Congress, industry, and some states. High levels of intergovernmental conflict have plagued the Obama Administration in several areas of environmental policy, including investment in renewable energy, Environmental Protection Agency regulations on air pollution, and executive actions to manage public lands. And, for their part, states have continued to pursue their own policy goals in the absence of federal policy, with episodes of both policy innovation and retrenchment. Although President Obama’s approach continues a trend of presidents primarily using the tools of the administrative presidency, the President’s signature climate change policy, the Clean Power Plan, may signal an evolving intergovernmental partnership in environmental policy.

Mind the Gap: 20 Years of Progress and Retrenchment in School Funding and Achievement Gaps

Abstract: Although there has been significant progress in the long term, achievement gaps among the nation's students persist. Many factors have contributed to the disparities in outcomes, and societal changes can explain progress, or lack thereof, over the past few decades. This is well documented in the 2010 Educational Testing Service (ETS) report Black–White Achievement Gaps: When Progress Stopped, which explored achievement gap trends and identified the changing conditions that may have influenced those trends. In this report, we extend that work by focusing on the relationship between school funding, resource allocation, and achievement among students from low-income families. We tackle the assumption that greater resources, delivered through fair and equitable school funding systems, could help raise academic outcomes and reduce the achievement gap. The goal is to provide convincing evidence that state finance policies have consequences in terms of the level and distribution of resources, here limited to staffing characteristics, and that the resulting allocation of resources is also associated with changes in both the level of academic achievement and achievement gaps between low-income children and their peers. Using more than 20 years of revenue and expenditure data for schools, we empirically test the idea that increasing investments in schools generally is associated with greater access to resources as measured by staffing ratios, class sizes, and the competitiveness of teacher wages. When the findings presented here are considered with the strong body of academic literature on the positive relationship between substantive and sustained state school finance reforms and improved student outcomes, a strong case can be made that state and federal policy focused on improving state finance systems to ensure equitable funding and improving access to resources for children from low-income families is a key strategy to improve outcomes and close achievement gaps.

HRM and Performance: The vulnerability of soft HRM practices during recession and retrenchment

Abstract: This multi-method case explores how change in HRM implementation can impact performance metrics in a recessionary climate. Qualitative HR outcome data are mapped against financial metrics to explor ...

U-Turn: The Portuguese Radical Left from Marginality to Government Support

Abstract: The 2015 legislative elections in Portugal led to a major shift in the characteristics of the party system through the formation of a socialist minority government supported by the Left Block and the Portuguese Communist Party. This study examines the trajectory of the radical left in Portugal since the implementation of the 2011 EU–International Monetary Fund bailout and analyses the possible reasons for the parties becoming coalition partners. We argue that left–left cooperation is primarily explained by the impact of austerity policies – in particular the huge welfare state retrenchment – and party leadership interests. In addition, the study confirms the importance of centralisation and intra-party cohesion in establishing a new politics of alliance.

On matters of balance: an examination of the deployment, motivation and management of the Special Constabulary

Abstract: The Special Constabulary – a branch of warranted, uniformed volunteers with full police powers within British police services – has a long history. However, whilst it is an important resource for swelling the size of the warranted police service, it is firmly embedded in the mixed economy of policing and promoted as a practical response to state retrenchment and fiscal constraint; we know very little about the motivations of special constables, how they are deployed within the organisation or the management of this sizable volunteer force. Bringing together extant literature on these matters and drawing on the results of a small empirical study conducted in one English constabulary, this paper draws out implications for the recruitment and retention of special constables, their training and their supervision and oversight. It is argued that at the heart of the challenge of developing effective strategies for deploying, managing and motivating special constables lies the need to balance a series of competi...

Urban Education in the United States: A Historical Reader

Abstract: Introduction: The Development of Urban Education in the United States J.L. Rury PART ONE: THE ORIGINS OF URBAN SCHOOL SYSTEMS Introduction Common Schools before the 'Common School Revival': New York Schooling in the 1790s C.F.Kaestle The Origins of Public Education in Baltimore, 1825-1829 T.H.Sheller Popular Education in Nineteenth Century St. Louis S.K.Troen PART TWO: EARLY URBAN SCHOOL REFORM Introduction Bureaucracy and the Common School: The Example of Portland, Oregon, 1851-1913 D.B.Tyack Urban Reform and the Schools: Kindergartens in Massachusetts M.Lazerson The Baltimore School Building Program, 1870 to 1900: A Study of Urban School Reform A.R.Andrews Missing the Mark: Intelligence Testing in the Los Angeles Public Schools, 1922-32 J.Raftery PART THREE: THE EVOLUTION OF URBAN SCHOOL LEADERSHIP AND POLITICS Introduction Pilgrim's Progress: Toward a Social History of the School Superintendency, 1860-1960 D.B.Tyack Progressivism and Curriculum Differentiation: Special Classes in the Atlanta Public Schools, 1898-1923 B.Franklin Taxation and Social Conflict: Teacher Unionism and Public School Finance in Chicago, 1898-1934 M.Murphy The Politics of Educational Retrenchment in Detroit, 1929-1935 J.Mirel PART FOUR: URBAN SCHOOLS IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY Introduction Race, Space, and the Politics of Chicago's Public Schools: Benjamin Willis and the Tragedy of Urban Education J.L.Rury The Community is Beginning to Rumble: The Origins of Chicano Educational Protest in Houston, 1965-1970 G.San Miguel Bureaucratic Order and Special Children: Urban Schools, 1950s-1960s J.L.Tropea Race, Social Class, and Educational Reform in an Inner City School J.Anyon The Milwaukee Voucher Experiment J.F.Witte High Stakes in Chicago B.Jacobs Epilogue: Past as Prologue: The Uncertain Future of Urban Schooling

Estimating the Value of Overseas Security Commitments

Abstract: Today, there is intensifying debate over the resources devoted by the United States to its overseas commitments, with important voices calling for wholesale and unprecedented retrenchment in the face of mounting fiscal pressures. Using advanced econometric techniques and new data on overseas security commitments, RAND researchers explore whether and to what extent the United States derives economic benefits from its overseas security commitments.

Conditionality, austerity and welfare: Financial crisis and its impact on welfare in Italy and Korea

Abstract: What happens to welfare states when conditional financial aid is provided by an external financial actor? The conventional wisdom is that conditionality brings about welfare state retrenchment. The...

How important are state transfers for reducing poverty rates in later life

Abstract: Financial welfare in later life is of prime concern as the funding of pensions and care rises up policy agendas. In this context, work and family histories are well known to impact on late-life income, generally reducing state and private pensions for women. In a political context where benefits are under threat as part of the retrenchment of the welfare state, we consider two key questions. First, how do state pension and benefit transfers interact with work and family histories to reduce poverty risks in later life? Second, who is kept out of poverty by state benefits and transfers? Using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we examine how work, family and health histories are associated with poverty in later life and estimate how far and in what ways state pensions, income support and disability benefits play a mediating role. We conclude that state support is key to maintaining incomes above official poverty lines for substantial numbers whose work, family and health histories would otherwise have led to their incomes falling below these lines. While disability benefits are designed to compensate for the additional costs of disability, it is likely that many in receipt experience poverty (even though they are not captured in official poverty statistics); even more so for those incurring the costs of disability but not in receipt of these benefits.

Rationality, responsibility and rage: the contested politics of emotion governance

Abstract: Analyses of contemporary governance face a particular challenge. The current period of austerity and retrenchment means that the state appears to be shrinking, leaving citizens to assume responsibility for things it had previously provided. But at the same time, the state seems to be playing a more expansive role through its concern with the well-being and happiness of its citizens. In health, education, social care, neighbourhood work, in equality policies and policies concerned with environmental sustainability, human feelings and relationships are now at the centre of governing strategies. This concurrent process of shrinking and expansion generates significant contradictions that are explored in this chapter. I begin by challenging the idea that governing with or through emotion represents a fundamental shift in governing logics. In the politics of theory I locate emotion governance in contested theorisations of neoliberalism, states and persons. But these, ‘big theory’ questions cannot, I suggest, be understood without a simultaneous focus on the politics of social practice. The chapter draws on both registers to explore tensions in the concept of emotion governance itself.

HRM retrenchment practices and firm performance in times of economic downturn: exploring the moderating effects of family involvement in management

Abstract: A substantial number of studies have indicated a significant negative relationship between human resource management (HRM) retrenchment practices such as downsizing, and firm performance. However, a consideration of the potential effects of business family involvement in management is largely absent from the general employment restructuring literature. Using a sample of 218 Taiwanese publicly listed firms, this study seeks to further our understanding in this area by examining the moderating effects of family involvement in management on the relationship between the adoption of HRM retrenchment practices and firm performance during the period of global economic downturn that erupted in the middle of 2008. Data analysis reveals that HRM retrenchment practices had a negative influence on firm performance, and that the relationship between HRM retrenchment practices and firm performance was negatively and significantly moderated by family involvement in management.

The 2014 Scottish Referendum and the Nationalism-Social Policy Nexus

Abstract: During the campaign leading to the 2014 Scottish referendum on independence, social policy issues played a central role. This article explains the nature of Scottish nationalist mobilization and its relationship with social policy, from the drive for ‘home rule’ in the 1980s and early-mid 1990s to the 2014 referendum campaign. As shown, the idea that Scotland must become independent from the United Kingdom to protect its more progressive nation from social policy retrenchment originating from the central (British) government appeared long before the 2014 referendum campaign. In fact, the march towards devolution in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s had featured a similar argument about how political autonomy could enable Scots to make social policy better suited to their social democratic preferences. Through a comparison with the 1980 and 1995 Quebec referendums on sovereignty, this article offers a comparative and historical perspective on the social policy debate surrounding the Scottish referendum while focusing primarily on health care and pensions.

US strategic retrenchment and security-seeking behaviors of the US allies in Northeast Asia

Abstract: Kang, Seok Ryul. Ph.D., Purdue University, August 2016. US Strategic Retrenchment and Security-Seeking Behaviors of the US Allies in Northeast Asia. Major Professor: Keith L. Shimko. This research is planned to explore how a regional state could improve its security during the time of its patron’s strategic retrenchment. It introduces a theory of a regional state’s security-promoting behaviors during the time of its patron’s retrenchment. According to this theory, it is hypothesized that there is covariation between the level of a regional state’s security concern and the scope of its domestic drives to increase societal contribution to autonomous defense posture. It also hypothesizes the existence of covariation between the level of a regional state’s security concern and the level of its commitment to the pursuit of a military policy against its patron’s strategic interests. Empirical findings from the case study of the security-seeking behaviors of the US allies in Northeast Asia support the two research hypotheses. A reader may want to test the validity of the theory against another context of a superpower’s strategic retrenchment .

Burden sharing and the future of NATO: wandering between two worlds

Abstract: The US role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Alliance is a 65-year history of retrenchment and renewal. When Washington has sought a retrenchment from the world, it traditionally increased burden sharing pressure on Europe to do more. During times of increased global ambition, the USA reaffirmed its traditional leadership role in the Alliance and its commitment to NATO effectiveness and relevance. This cycle of NATO retrenchment and renewal, however, is halting. Though the USA will continue to go through periods of relative increases and decreases in security policy ambition, signs point to a permanent defense and security retrenchment in Europe. Germany is the ally singularly capable of filling the resulting security gap. If NATO is to avoid the drift toward irrelevance many critics have predicted, Germany will need to cast off old inhibitions toward security and defense leadership. These trends and their implications for NATO's future are explored through historical case studies ...

The effect of economic change and elite framing on support for welfare state retrenchment: A survey experiment:

Abstract: How do economic downturns affect citizens’ support for welfare state retrenchment? Existing observational studies fail to isolate the effect of economic conditions and the effect of elite framing of these conditions. We therefore designed a survey experiment to evaluate how economic change in conjunction with different elite frames impact citizens’ support for welfare state retrenchment. We hypothesise and demonstrate that the effects of these frames differ by income group and partisanship. Our survey experiment – carried out in the United Kingdom – demonstrates that poor economic prospects generally motivate support for unemployment benefits vis-a-vis deficit reduction. Emphasis on inequality does not change this picture. Emphasis on government debt and deficits increases support for retrenchment compared with objective information. We find support for the hypothesis that partisans are less responsive to the economy than independents. However, income differences are a surprisingly weak moderator of our t...

Transferring from the poor to the rich: Examining regressive redistribution in Chinese social insurance programmes

Abstract: Liu J., Liu K., Huang Y. Transferring from the poor to the rich: Examining regressive redistribution in Chinese social insurance programmes Social insurance promotes progressive redistribution through risk pooling and cross-subsidy. However, in China, risks and protection are mismatched, with benefits and protection accruing to the privileged while high-risk groups are inadequately protected. This article reports on a study of the sources of regressive redistribution in Chinese pension, health and unemployment insurance programmes, and discusses the possible cause of this redistribution paradox. It argues that the government has adopted different strategies for welfare reform towards different socioeconomic groups. For the core groups, such as public employees, reform has been characterised by replacing old programmes with new (i.e., a replacement strategy). For marginal groups, the government has handed off its responsibilities to individuals and the market (a retrenchment strategy). This political pecking order of welfare reform is the cause of distorted distributional outcomes. As social policy programmes continue to spread in developing countries, China’s case illustrates that they may reinforce existing disparities rather than realise progressive redistribution, risk management and social inclusion.

‘A Common Sense of the Times’? Neo-liberalism and Changing Public Opinion in New Zealand and the UK

Abstract: Neo-liberalism represents a significant and enduring shift in the politics shaping social policy. Although frequently ascribed a hegemonic, all-powerful status that focuses our attention on the coherence found in neo-liberal policies, this article builds on scholarly work highlighting variegation in the neo-liberal project across different policy areas, national settings and time periods. Specifically, it employs Peck's and Tickell's (2002) view that neo-liberalism has gone through multiple phases in response to both external and internal crises as an entry point for studying neo-liberalism's impact on public support for the welfare state. Drawing upon New Zealand and British attitudinal data, the article argues that public reactions to an early period of retrenchment (‘roll-back’ neo-liberalism) differ from those reported in the ‘roll-out’ or embedding phase of neo-liberalism implemented by Third Way Labour Governments in both countries. Indeed, continuing public support in many policy areas arguably contributed to the internal crisis that provoked an adaptation to the neo-liberal project. The article further explores public support for the welfare state following the external crisis provoked by the financial meltdown of 2008–09 asking whether New Zealand and British attitudes showed signs of resisting austerity measures or whether they, instead, indicated a third, ‘roll-over’ period of neo-liberalism where the public accepted not only a neo-liberal economic agenda but also the need for further retrenchment of the welfare state. Conclusions about the politics of social policy at the level of public opinion offer both good and bad news for welfare state advocates.