Claiming Citizenship: The Political Dimension of Welfare Fraud

This article exposes the political dimension of welfare fraud by investigating—in the context of the Israeli welfare reform of 2003—how forty‐nine Israeli women who live on welfare justify welfare fraud. I find that women's justifications cannot be fully explained by traditional noncompliance theories that view welfare fraud as an individual, private, criminal activity that solely reflects on the fraudster's moral character or desperate need. Instead, women's justifications for welfare fraud are better understood as a sociopolitical struggle for inclusion and deservedness—as a political act that reflects an alternative concept of citizenship with respect to women's unpaid care work.     

土地征用公益目的性探讨——基于可操作性要求

公共利益既是土地征用的理由,亦是其限制.对公共利益这一内涵极不确定的概念,各国立法与判例都有不同之解读.认为基于可操作性要求,从实体上采列举方式界定公共利益的内涵有其必要性,但应明确赋予法院有公益目的的审查权力.鉴于公共利益是一变动不居的价值判断,从程序上增加公益目的听证程序限制公权力的滥用更具有现实意义.     

福利行政调查权与受益人权利保障

作为一种特殊类型的行政调查形式,福利调查在福利领域发挥着重要的作用。通过多种形式的福利调查,公民得以享有一定的福利权益。但在福利调查的过程中,往往可能对公民的隐私等权益造成一定的侵犯。因此,行政机关在获得信息的同时,如何保障公民的权益,这无疑是未来行政调查研究的方向之一。     

Images of welfare in law and society: the British welfare state in comparative perspective

Designed by Beveridge and built by Attlee's post-war Labour government, the welfare state was created during the 1940s. Britain has been seen – in domestic debates and internationally – as a world first: the place where both the idea and the practice of the welfare state were invented. I draw together comparative welfare state analysis with law and society scholarship (previously largely developed in isolation from one another) – as well as using British political cartoons as a source – to develop a revisionist historical critique of this conventional wisdom. First, the British welfare state has always been comparatively parsimonious. Second, the idea of the welfare state seems to have its origins outside the United Kingdom and this terminology was adopted relatively late and with some ambivalence in public debate and scholarly analysis. Third, a large body of socio-legal scholarship shows that robust ‘welfare rights’ were never embedded in the British ‘welfare state’.     

Trapped in Resistance: Collective Struggle through Welfare Fraud in Israel

This paper offers a qualitative empirical examination of the noncompliance of Israeli female welfare recipients with welfare laws and authorities. The paper demonstrates that their behavior, defined as “welfare fraud” by the law, is a limited form of collective resistance to the Israeli welfare state. Although the acts of welfare fraud that the women in my study engaged in entail a political claim against the state, the relationship between these acts and notions of collectivity is very constricted in form. The women's collectivity is shown to be constrained by the welfare authorities' invasive and pervasive investigation practices and methods. Due to fear of disclosure to the authorities, the women emerged as deliberately isolating themselves from their immediate environment and potential members of their like‐situated collective. This weakens the connection between the women's acts of resistance and their collectivity, and prevents their acts of resistance from driving social change, trapping them in their harsh conditions and existence.     

社会福利事业的发展与我国和谐社会建设

随着国家经济、社会的发展,逐渐加大社会福利事业的总支出,逐渐提高国民收入分配中的再分配比率,是当今世界发展的普遍规律.中国建设和谐社会,既要重视在初次分配领域深化分配制度改革,规范分配秩序和在再分配领域健全社会保障体系,又要充分发展社会福利事业."十一五"期间中国社会福利事业应当有一个"中等水平"的发展,增加社会福利的项目,增加财政资金的投入.     

Regulating‐for‐Welfare: A Comparative Study of “Regulatory Welfare Regimes” in the Israeli,British, and Swedish Electricity Sectors

The regulatory state and the welfare state are two institutions that are central to the analysis of the characteristics of capitalist democracies. The regulatory state is seen as focused on market failures and trust‐busting, while the welfare state is said to shield citizens from the negative redistributive effects and externalities of the market. This article explores the relations and boundaries between the welfare state and the regulatory state in the electricity sectors in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Israel. It demonstrates the emergence of social policy within the context of liberalized, privatized, and (de)regulated electricity sectors. This article finds that the boundaries between the regulatory state and the welfare state are blurred in Israel and the United Kingdom but not in Sweden. These findings may imply a connection between the welfare state and the regulatory state, suggesting that a strong welfare state is needed in order to maintain regulation‐for‐competition.     

Support seeking,system avoidance,and citizenship: Social safety net usage after incarceration

Scholars have long described the American penal state and welfare state as joined by a common logic of social marginalization. But researchers have only recently begun to explore how the individuals who pass through the carceral system also interact with welfare state programs. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, in this article, I explore how formerly incarcerated individuals make claims on the welfare state and how participation varies across social programs and states, as well as by race, drawing on theories of social welfare rights-claiming and system avoidance. In so doing, I provide the first nationwide estimates of the extent to which previously incarcerated adults use social safety net resources. I find that participation in welfare programs varies with incarceration history, program structure, and race. Rather than finding patterns consistent with system avoidance, I find that previously incarcerated White Americans seem to engage in active rights claiming, participating in public assistance programs more than similarly eligible never-incarcerated counterparts. All formerly incarcerated individuals, however, have limited access to more generous social insurance programs, and the shift to an increasingly employment-based social safety net seems likely to further limit access to the welfare state for the growing population of Americans leaving prison.     

生态公益林效益补偿法律制度与政策机制的建构创新——结合广东省相关实践考量

森林生态效益补偿制度是实现森林生态价值、发挥森林作为生态环境建设主体作用的基本保障。我国生态公益林补偿历经由政策个别调整到立法普遍调整的渐进过程，且部分地方（如广东省）立法及政策试点实践已获得某些示范性经验。然而，相关政策法律机制还存在亟待解决的矛盾问题，特别是生态公益林补偿的投入与利益保障机制需要合理构建，这是全面推进生态公益林建设的关键。分析生态公益林补偿政策与立法现状，结合广东省等相关实践考量，重在探索我国生态公益林补偿制度规范及实施机制的创新思路。     

WHAT IF ALL THE MONEY CAME HOME?

Since its inception, the public child support program has functioned primarily as a welfare cost recovery mechanism: $2.1 billion of child support collected annually for current and former welfare families is kept by the government to repay welfare costs. However, Wisconsin research findings suggest that low-income fathers pay more support and are less likely to work in the underground economy when support payments are passed through to their children. Regular support reduces poverty and welfare use, and increases child well-being. A consensus has emerged to reform distribution rules so that more child support is paid to the families, not to the government.     

Children's Medicaid enrollment: the impacts of mandates, welfare reform, and policy delinking

From 1984 to 1990. Congress enacted a series of mandates that expanded Medicaid eligibility for low-income children by gradually delinking Medicaid eligibility from welfare eligibility. The 1996 national welfare reform law nominally completed the delinking process when the statutory phase-in of children's Medicaid coverage was preserved even as the states were given increased flexibility for administering welfare programs. This article provides estimates of the impact of these fedcral policy changes on children's Medicaid enrollment rates and analyzes the degree of success in uncoupling children's Medicaid enrollment from welfare. Data from the Current Population Survey for 1979 to 1998 are used to provide standardized enrollment probabilities for the United States and individual states. The results show important enrollment increases associated with the period of the mandated expansions, followed by enrollment declines associated with welfare reform. The largest increases in enrollment during this period were in states with historically restrictive welfare eligibility, but rates also rose in states that previously had relatively expansive welfare eligibility. The net effect was a reduction in the extent of state-to-state variation in enrollment. The Medicaid expansion peaked in 1995, prior to the advent of national welfare reform. Since then, children's Medicaid enrollment has fallen, with the largest declines falling on families with the very lowest incomes. Consistent with the desire to delink children's Medicaid coverage from welfare, the association between Medicaid and AFDC/TANF enrollment weakened during the expansionary period, but there still was a relatively strong relationship between policy outcomes for these two programs. Despite the policy changes, Medicaid coverage of children is still influenced by state-level welfare policy.     

FAMILY GROUP CONFERENCES

Family group conferencing has emerged as a child welfare system–transforming practice that fosters new collaborations between families, child welfare practitioners, and the courts. The key components of the model are explained. This article highlights the strengths and challenges associated with incorporating family group conferencing into traditional child welfare agency and court practice. It suggests future practice considerations and outcome-based study that are necessary to strengthen and sustain family group conferencing as a prevention/intervention strategy.     

Criminalization,Legitimacy, and Welfare

A standard view about criminal law distinguishes between two kinds of offenses, “mala in se” and “mala prohibita.” This view also corresponds to a distinction between two bases for criminalization: certain acts should be criminalized because they are moral wrongs; other acts may be criminalized for the sake of promoting overall welfare. This paper aims to show two things: first, that allowing for criminalization for the sake of promoting welfare renders the category of wrongfulness crimes largely redundant. Second, and more importantly, accepting welfare as a legitimate ground for criminalization implies a certain view about legitimate state action, which makes criminalization for wrongfulness more difficult to justify. If I am right, the view that keeps the two categories of criminalization as largely separate is untenable. I conclude with some remarks about the advantages of welfare (and not wrongfulness) as the basis for criminalization.     

Information exchange through non-binding advance price announcements: an antitrust analysis

We study the welfare effects of non-binding advance price announcements. Applying a simulation-based approach in a differentiated Bertrand model with horizontal products and asymmetric information, we find that such announcements can help firms to gain information on each other thereby allowing them to achieve higher profits. However, our results also show that the overall welfare effects of such announcements in a context of heterogeneous products are not as clear-cut as previous research in a homogeneous products framework has suggested. We conclude that—although non-binding advance price announcements may raise competition concerns—in many settings, their positive effects are likely to outweigh the potential detrimental effects on welfare.     

Wildlife management,the multilateral trade regime,morals and the welfare of animals 1

Abstract

Various states (and groups of states such as the European Community) have adopted legislation designed to raise standards of animal welfare in many areas including agriculture, companion animals, experimentation and testing, transport, and hunting and trapping methods. Much of this legislation has resulted from extensive lobbying and intense political wrangling. Where the legislation affects animals as products (or animal derivative products such as their pelts or their meat), legislators frequently resort to external facing trade measures to support the moral stance taken in the legislative instrument. At this point potential conflicts with the precepts of the multilateral trade regime operated by the World Trade Organisation arise. The extent to which the relevant provisions in the WTO portfolio of agreements (and the predecessor text of the GATT 1947) assist the cause of animal welfare is limited by both the texts themselves and the narrow interpretation of those texts by WTO/ GATT dispute panels. Non‐governmental organisations involved with animal welfare issues are concerned that the WTO regime will inhibit the development of animal welfare protection legislation and are also concerned that the net result may be a retardation of the development of animal welfare measures in the face of open market competition. This article explores the background to, and substance of, this contention particularly in the context of the European and International legislation designed to deal with the welfare of trapped wild animals and also with other animal welfare legislation having international trade implications. Moreover, the findings of such an examination have much broader implications in that they have relevance to any legislation based on public morality which seeks to enforce that morality through external facing trade measures.     

卡多佐的实用主义真理观——读《司法过程的性质》

对于卡多佐,学界基本上认同他是一个实用论者.但是,如果单从社会效用论的实用观出发,我们很难理解在卡多佐的司法观念中对法官精英化意识和遵循先例的强调,两者与社会效用至上的实用观存有一定的冲突.通过对《司法过程的性质》进行分析,并结合符合论和融贯论的基本理论,指出卡多佐的实用主义或实用论的真理观并非是绝对的社会效用至上理论,而是对符合论和融贯论之优点的综合借鉴,所以社会效用与法官精英化意识和遵循先例观念并存.     

The Sooner the Better: The Arguments for the Use of Extended Welfare Assessment Grids in Animal Welfare Cases

Animals are protected under national animal welfare legislation, against intentional acts of cruelty and a failure to act, resulting in neglect and causing an animal to suffer. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) bears the responsibility of investigating and prosecuting the majority of animal welfare offences in England and Wales. In recent years, how they operate has been criticised, and it has been debated whether they should be able to bring private prosecutions, and what their role should actually be. This criticism calls for a change in the way in which the RSPCA approach cases of animal welfare, to strengthen their continuing role in ensuring positive animal welfare is achieved and, where not, prosecuted. This paper outlines the need for a new approach and how it can be managed. Honess and Wolfensohn (Altern Lab Anim 38:205, 2010) have developed an Extended Welfare Assessment Grid (EWAG), a visualisation mapping tool of welfare impact, which has been useful for assessing the welfare of animals used in laboratories. This tool has proven so useful, veterinarians are now using it in veterinary hospitals to help assess whether an animal is likely to further deteriorate, due to disease and illness, and to show any short-term welfare impact on the animal (Williams in UFAW conference, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2018). This paper will explore the potential for the EWAG to be adapted to assess the welfare of animals when owners are not meeting the welfare needs of their companion animals. RSPCA can use it to support their assessments of the current welfare of an animal under a person’s ownership and whether the animal’s welfare will deteriorate should they remain under that ownership. The EWAG will be a useful tool for those working in animal welfare, such as the RSPCA, to help organisations to intervene earlier, work in partnership with an owner, and support their claims of a risk to animal welfare.

     

美国福利行政正当程序模式研究

美国福利行政正当程序模式经历了法定权利模式向授权合同模式的转变。在法定权利模式下,福利是一项新财产权,因而直接获得宪法中正当程序条款的保护。授权合同模式源于1996年福利改革法案,该法案否定了福利的法定权利属性,并要求福利领受人与获得授权的地方政府签订公共救助合同,通过履行一定的义务来获得政府福利。通过授权合同的签署,部分州对福利领受人的程序保护有了新发展。比较而言,司法机关在法定权利模式中处于主导地位,立法机关则在授权合同模式中处于主导地位。美国福利行政正当程序模式的发展,对我国的服务型政府建设具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Changing patterns of addiction and public aid receipt: tracking the unintended consequences of welfare reform

Sharp declines in welfare rolls since the passage of welfare reform legislation have led many to label it a social policy success. Using data from prereform and postreform samples of welfare applicants and recipients, as well as ethnographic data on welfare reform implementation, we examine three hypotheses based on concerns raised during the welfare reform debate about the possible effects of new policies on substance abusers and addicts: First, they would be "scared off," or discouraged from applying to aid by welfare's new requirements surrounding work and treatment. Second, they might be "weeded out," or face discrimination in the application process because of concerns about the difficulty of moving them successfully from welfare to work. Third, they might be "bumped down," or shifted to local aid programs rather than moving from welfare to self-sufficiency. Our empirical analysis finds no evidence of scaring off or weeding out, and some evidence of bumping down. Using ethnographic data, we offer some possible explanations for these findings by placing them in the context of policy change and implementation in the years following welfare reform.     

Distributive Justice and Attitudes Toward the Welfare State

Current debates concerning the viability of the welfare state evoke the question of the social bases of support of the welfare state. Past research has documented fairly consistent relationships between sociodemographic characteristics and attitudes toward welfare policies. Yet, the nature of these relationships is not well understood. In the paper we argue that the level of support for the welfare state is largely determined by the principles of distributive justice espoused by individuals as well as their images of society. We develop a theoretical framework, which outlines the structural relationship between social attributes, principles of justice, perceived conflict, and support for the welfare state. Using data from a recent population survey on the legitimation of inequality, conducted in Israel in 1999 (N = 1057), we test a number of hypotheses. For the empirical analysis we use structural equation modeling with multiple indicators. Our findings reveal substantial support for policies aimed at reducing inequality. At the same time we find strong support for rewards according to merit and unequal earnings distribution. The impact of social attributes on attitudes toward the welfare state is partially mediated by the justice principles and images of society.