Social welfare needs of residents in polluted areas: A case of Dioxin pollution in southern Taiwan

This article defines the social welfare needs of residents living in a severely polluted community by examining a set of communities around the An‐shun plant in southern Taiwan that were polluted by dioxin. The study examines the inhabitants' economic status, the communities' manpower utilization, and the prevention of social contingencies and the provision of aftercare. A survey conducted between March–April 2008 revealed the need to reduce poverty in these highly polluted communities, to identify and maximize each community's human resources, to address illness, aging, pollution, and lack of professional skills, and to better inform residents about pollution so that they can understand how to protect themselves. The article concludes with suggested programs to meet the social welfare needs of residents in a highly polluted community. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

论强化对西部非公有制经济的法律保护

计划经济时代，非公有制经济几乎无容身之地。在我国向社会主义市场经济转型过程中，非公有制经济的发展是社会化大生产、大分工发展和经济全球化、一体化的必然结果。由于体制的顾虑和历史的隔膜，非公有制经济现处于博弈之中的弱势地位。特别在西部较东部更为不发达的社会环境下更需进一步转变观念，加强对非公有制经济的法律保护力度。     

户籍制度与流动人口福利权益的平等保障

我国户籍制度的变革是与国家的工业化和城市化战略紧密相连的。在城乡二元格局下，当前的户籍制度改革促进了公民迁徙自由权以及劳动和社会保障权的发展。但是由于这种改革更多地是从城市经济的发展角度来设计的，因而在整体上忽视了对外来流动人口的劳动和社会保障权益的维护。面对我国当前城市保障能力有限的事实，地方政府可以依据某种立法分类来实行“有差别”的平等保障。     

BEYOND COMMUNITY: REACTIONS TO CRIME AND DISORDER AMONG INNER-CITY RESIDENTS

Research on fear of crime has been primarily quantitative, focused mostly on "fear,""crime," and "disorder." Little work has investigated alternative reactions, including "safety," when crime/disorder are prevalent. With the purpose of exploring reactions to crime and underlying processes, this study applies a grounded theory approach to in-depth interviews and field observations with a group of 69 disadvantaged urban residents, randomly selected from a sample of Chicago welfare recipients. Results suggest that fear, absent in neighborhoods with incivilities and in many violent areas, is not the prevalent response to local crime/disorder; "cues" other than crime/disorder trigger fears; fear may not be of crime/disorder; and neighborhood problems elicit precautions, which neither influence fear nor "paralyze" respondents. The processes underlying these reactions are discussed.     

美、德、日实施宪法公共利益条款之比较研究

公共利益问题是各国宪法普遍关注的问题.早在200多年前,美国就将"公共使用"条款写入宪法修正案,德国、日本也分别在各自的宪法中规定了"公共福利"和"公共福祉"等内容.宪政理论与实践证明,公共利益条款的实施并非单纯的法治过程,它总是与本国具体的社会经济制度相联.由于美、德、日三国的市场经济体制存在一定差异性,因而,这些国家关于宪法公共利益条款的实施情况也不尽相同.研究发达国家公共利益条款运行的宪政模式,对于我国实践宪法公共利益原则具有一定的借鉴意义.     

新中国成立以来社会福利制度的演变与发展——基于社会权利视角的分析

新中国成立70年来,社会福利制度体系经历了深刻的变迁。尝试从社会权利视角出发,通过构建福利资格准入、福利制度安排和福利结果的解释框架,对四个历史阶段的社会福利制度演变进行梳理和分析,可以发现:新中国的社会福利制度经历了国家主义统揽、发展主义主导、新世纪初期政策扩张和新时代政策深化的变迁过程,并面临严峻的现实挑战。为了建构新时代中国特色社会福利制度体系,应该克服福利发展上的认知悖论,重视福利制度安排的积极作用,着力解决福利责任主体不清的问题,形成多元的社会福利供给模式,并通过改变社会福利制度碎片化格局,构建统一公民身份的社会中国。     

Exploring Indian Child Welfare Act implementation and case outcomes

Despite the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) more than four decades ago, little is known about how or how well it is being implemented into practice by the state courts or how implementation may be related to improved outcomes for Indian children and families. This study explores how ICWA implementation in five state court sites is related to case outcomes. One hundred and fifty-one ICWA cases were reviewed for factors including active efforts findings, tribal presence at hearings, use of qualified expert witness (QEW) testimony, notice, and confirmation of ICWA status. Results are mixed. Specific ICWA implementation measures and aggregate measures were mostly not related to outcomes, but early implementation, such as having the tribe present at the first hearing, did appear related to timely permanency. Implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.     

Cabinet ministers and inequality

Scholars and commentators increasingly wonder whether governments’ failure to address socio-economic inequalities is the result of unequal representation. Recent literature on policy responsiveness in the United States and Europe finds evidence that party and parliamentary policy proposals and actual policy outcomes are closer to the preferences of the rich than of the poor. However, the extent and character of such unequal representation remains thinly understood. Among the most thinly understood mechanisms are the political conditions that link socio-economic inequalities to unequal representation. This paper thickens our understanding of (unequal) representation by investigating the class composition of parliamentary cabinets and its effect on social welfare policy. With the aid of a new dataset on cabinet ministers’ social class, the paper shows that responsiveness to the social welfare preferences of poorer voters varies by cabinet ministers’ professional backgrounds, above and beyond the partisan orientation of the government.     

The inversion of the ‘really big trade-off’: homeownership and pensions in long-run perspective

Abstract

The hypothesis of a trade-off between homeownership and welfare state provision, first proposed by Jim Kemeny around 1980, is a foundational claim in the political economy of housing. However, the evidence for this hypothesis is unclear at both macro and micro levels. This paper examines the link between welfare and homeownership at the macro level using new long-run data and a multilevel modelling approach. It shows that the negative cross-sectional correlation between homeownership and public welfare provision observed in the earliest available data disappears and becomes neutral by the 1980s and possibly positive subsequently. Within-country trajectories vary, but are significantly positive in more countries than significantly negative, suggesting that in some contexts welfare and homeownership are complements rather than competitors. The paper posits a dual ratchet effect mechanism in both pension benefits and homeownership capable of producing this inversion, and further suggests that rising public indebtedness and the debt-stabilising effects of welfare states may account for the emergence of complementarity in the pension?homeownership relationship. The latter supports the hypothesis that some countries have avoided the trade-off by ‘buying time’ on credit markets.     

Political parties,globalization and labour strength: Assessing differences across welfare state programs

This article investigates how globalization and organized labour condition partisan effects on different welfare state programs. The main argument is that the conditional effect of globalization on government partisanship depends on how relevant a program is to the needs of vulnerable groups and that organized labour additionally affects this relationship. Analyzing 21 OECD countries between 1980 and 2011/2014, empirical evidence largely corroborates this argument: Firstly, the expectation that partisan differences decrease with globalization in general and especially in weak labour countries in the case of programs that are less relevant for compensation holds true for old-age provision and partly for sick pay insurance. Secondly, and in accordance with theoretical expectations concerning programs that are primarily relevant for compensation, partisan differences increase with globalization, in general regarding education and only in strong labour countries regarding unemployment benefits. Therefore, while globalization constrains national politics’ room for manoeuvre in some areas, parties are still able to follow their ideologically preferred policies and respond to compensation demands in others.