The Scandinavian Welfare Model in Crisis? Achievements and Problems of the Danish Welfare State in an Age of Unemployment and Low Growth

The "Scadinavian welfare model" is often considered vulnerable to mass unemployment. The Danish welfare state provides and opportunity to examine the capacities of the "Scandinavian model" to adapt to this situation. This article explores a number of alleged crisis problems of th welfare state, ground into budgetary pressures, incentive problems and legitimacy problems. It is conclude that most of these problems have been exasggerated and that the rrreal threats to the economic foundations of the welfare state should be found in political steering and incentive problems rather thant in the exogenous pressures from the social and economic system, or in pressure from th unintended side effects of welfare arrangement. It is furthermore argued that one of the main achievements of the Danish welfare state has been so prevent unemployment and labor market marginalization from developing into a broad-ranged social marginalizaton and a political po-larization which could undermine citizenship and solidarity in society.     

Housing and the Welfare State in Norway

This article discusses housing and the welfare state in Norway in 1980 and 2005 by applying Esping‐Andersen's theories of welfare state regimes to this sector. How should Norwegian housing policy be understood in light of Esping‐Andersen's conceptual framework, and what is the impact of post‐industrial change? In 1980, Norwegian housing policy was mainly characterised by social‐democratic traits such as market regulation, substantial public expenditure and universal subsidies for both renters and a large owner‐occupied housing sector. The effects of post‐industrial changes, including deregulation of the credit and housing markets, marked a major turn in housing policy and the housing market in Norway. By 2005, Norwegian housing policy was mainly characterised by traits that are typical of a liberal welfare regime: market economics, low public expenditure and subsidies for small, targeted groups, while other segments of the Norwegian welfare state remain characterised by social‐democratic traits. Esping‐Andersen's claim that the effect of post‐industrial transformation was different in different welfare regimes is thus not supported by the case of the Norwegian housing sector.     

An African American Welfare State

Histories of the American welfare state have been white histories, in part because scholars have presumed that welfare state institutions are benevolent and exist to assist those in need. But if we take seriously work that instead focuses upon the degree to which welfare state regimes affect citizens' freedom to survive apart from dependence on the labor market or upon a male breadwinner, along with scholarship that highlights the malign functions of relief, then explicitly repressive institutions become legitimately within the purview of welfare state analysis. This article makes the formative case that slavery, Jim Crow, and the prison might be considered welfare state institutions, given their impact upon the material well-being of so many Americans. Because these institutions have most affected blacks, we might have reason to distinguish between a white welfare state and an African American welfare state, and reject the notion that we can coherently speak of the welfare state.     

新马克思主义福利国家理论探析——兼谈对我国福利制度建设的启示

社会福利领域的新马克思主义是分析福利国家危机的重要路径.欧费发展了马克思的观点,提出资本主义的自我瘫痪趋势.他指出为了克服这种趋势,资本主义开始实行福利国家保障战略和行政性再生产战略,最终形成了福利国家.然而旨在维持商品交换关系的福利国家的各种政策、措施却是去商品化的策略,它排斥商品交换关系,侵蚀商品形式,福利国家的产生导致了资本主义更深层次的矛盾.欧费认为只有通过新社会运动达到生态社会主义才能解决这一难题.欧费的理论对中国福利转型有一定借鉴意义.     

Decentralization,Local Government,and the Welfare State

Despite growing interest in decentralized governance, the local government systems that comprise the most common element of decentralization around the world have received little systematic attention. This article, drawing on the first systematic index of decentralization to local government in 21 countries, demonstrates a close relation between Social Democratic welfare states and an intergovernmental infrastructure that in important respects ranks as the most decentralized among advanced industrial countries. This empowerment of local government in these countries was less an outgrowth of Social Democratic welfare state development than a preexisting condition that helped make this type of welfare state possible.     

家庭、国家与儿童福利供给

儿童抚育事务在传统上主要由家庭承担。工业革命之后,西方国家才开始系统关注并发展儿童社会福利,为抚育儿童的父母提供制度化的国家支持,并对父母亲权的实践进行国家监督。尽管不同的儿童社会福利理论对于如何界定家庭与国家在儿童抚育与儿童福利供给过程中的关系模式存有分歧,但是,关注得不到家庭适当抚育的儿童的福利,并为其提供必要的福利服务,已经成为现代国家的共识。鉴于我国传统的以家庭为主的儿童抚育模式出现失灵,积极发展选择性的儿童福利服务具有其充分的合理性。