关于我国残疾人福利法律制度构建之思考

构建残疾人福利法律制度是残疾人权益保障事业的重要一环,目前我国残疾人福利保障的立法体系仍未建立,现有相关法律制度对各类残疾人福利的保障有欠平等,国家责任原则未得到充分体现。今后,应科学构建残疾人福利法律制度体系,明确保障残疾人福利权理念和维护残疾人的尊严之理念,贯彻残疾人福利保障的国家责任原则。     

Child protection as surveillance of African American families

The over-representation of black children in US out of home care results from racial bias in placement decisions and a political choice to address startling rates of child poverty by investigating parents instead of tackling poverty's societal roots. The impact of state disruption and supervision of African American families is intensified when it is concentrated in inner-city neighbourhoods – the system's ‘racial geography.’ A small case study of a black neighbourhood in Chicago with high rates of out of home placement found profound effects on both family and community social relationships, as well as reliance on child protective services for financial assistance, linking surveillance of black families to the neoliberal shrinking of public programmes. The surveillance of African American women by the child welfare system is also intensified by these women's disproportionate involvement in the prison system. Acknowledging racial bias in child welfare reveals the need to radically transform the system from one that relies too much on punitive disruption of families to one that generously supports them.     

中国的环境管理思想必须适应市场经济体制

对长期统治中国环保工作的思想体系,即"环保靠政府"、环保工作要以"政府直接控制为主"提出了质疑,建议代之以新的适应市场经济体制的思想体系.     

Beveridge at Eighty: Learning the Right Lessons

The eightieth anniversary of the Beveridge inquiry is a timely moment to consider how the landmark report is used within contemporary UK politics. Calls for a ‘new Beveridge’ reflect a desire for a rupture with the past and the creation of a radical new welfare consensus. But this reflects a misunderstanding: Beveridge's approach was organic in nature, building on decades of experimentation, politically contested rather than consensual, and intellectually pluralist rather than moored to a single ideological worldview. The real insight Beveridge offers us today flows not from his substantive agenda—which was rooted in a particular set of historic circumstances—but as an approach to securing social reform. Successful welfare advances over the last generation have drawn on these ‘Beveridgean instincts’. Rather than calling for a new twenty-first century blueprint to be handed down from above, reformers should build on experimentation and successful incremental change, from within the UK and abroad.     

How governments strategically time welfare state reform legislation: empirical evidence from five European countries

Abstract

Building on studies on the political business cycle, the literature on welfare state retrenchment has argued that governments which cut the welfare state try to avoid blame by implementing painful measures in the beginning of the mandate and expanding benefits as elections approach. In contrast to this linear relationship, this article argues that governments often feel pressured to fulfil (mostly expansionary) campaign promises during the first months in office. Consequently, cutting right away is not what should be expected. Instead, a more nuanced, U-shaped timing trajectory is probable with a period in the beginning characterised by both cuts and fulfilment of expansionary pledges, followed by a period of cutbacks, and finally an expansive phase towards the end of a mandate. This argument is tested on our new original dataset of legislative changes in five European countries – Britain, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany – during the last four decades.     

Institutional Abuse: A Long History

ABSTRACT

This article explores the long history of institutions for children in Australia and of the existence of abuse within them. By examining the function that such institutions were designed to perform, and the forms and structures that were devised to best achieve such purposes, the article argues that abuse was all too often not simply inherent in, but essential to, institutional operation. It pays particular attention to the classification of children deemed to be in need of institutional “care” and shows how, through a process of “othering”, their institutionalisation too often rendered them vulnerable to abuse.     

中国反贫困进程中的福利制度建构——基于“社会中国”的视角

中国政府为何在大力推进社会保障制度建设的同时,实施大规模的反贫困战略与行动?立足于这一战略追问,从社会政策学的视角,回顾、比较早期中西福利制度建设中的基本理念、基本概念与内涵的差异,提炼中国反贫困政策实践中的福利元素,以此理解中国福利制度建设中存在的理念、政策与对象等几大困惑,并在此基础上论述"社会中国"视角下反贫困机制的福利制度建设框架。研究认为:(1)中国的反贫困政策中包含了大量的社会福利元素,体现了科学社会主义而非社会民主主义的战略安排、中国共产党的"初心"理念、全民参与的政策特征、每家每户的对象特征;(2)从"社会中国"的福利框架对反贫困政策的实践进行理论整合,可以建构以社会公民权为基础的福利理念、具有整合性的跨越地域与身份差别的社会福利体系、以无差别的社会公民身份为识别对象的社会福利建设模式。     

The development and pilot testing of a family treatment court best practices assessment: The model standards implementation scale

In 2019, the family treatment court (FTC) best practice standards (the Standards) were published to clarify attributes of FTC programs associated with superior child, parent, and family outcomes. The Standards cover the breadth of FTC operations including program structure and leadership, substance use treatment and complementary services, and behavioral responses to participants. This study aimed to develop an instrument (the Model Standards Implementation Scale; “MSIS”) that stakeholders can use to assess implementation of the Standards by individual FTCs. The MSIS balances usability with scientific validity. Interrater reliability (IRR), internal consistency, and several types of validity were assessed. Results indicated moderate to strong IRR, high internal consistency, mixed known groups validity depending on Standard, and high convergent and divergent validity. Initial findings suggest good validity and usability of the MSIS for evaluating FTC Standards' implementation. Notably, the process of using the tool functioned to educate FTC team members on the Standards. Although implementation of the MSIS is a resource-intensive process, the opportunity to receive constructive feedback proved to be an effective incentive for initial and subsequent participation in the evaluation among FTCs. Future research is needed to examine predictive validity, including association between Standards' implementation and family outcomes in FTCs.     

Accountability from the perspective of the forum: citizens’ attitudes towards accountability in Europe

The aim of this article is to analyse citizens’ attitudes towards governmental accountability in 24 European countries and to examine the influence of contextual and individual factors on perceptions of accountability. Using as a dataset the 2012 European Social Survey, the results show that citizens respond positively when the media provides reliable information on which to judge the government, when individuals perceive that governments perform well, when individuals live in more extensive and generous welfare states and when they live in countries where the rule of law is firmly established. In addition, the findings also provide evidence that compared to politically left-wing citizens, right-wing supporters have, on average, a higher perception of governmental accountability. In particular, the findings show strong positive evaluations of right-wing governments by right-wing voters in comparison with left-wing governments by left-wing voters.     

The settlement utopia: brotherly love,discipline, and social critique

The Settlement movement, which originated in late nineteenth-century England, was a pioneer in bettering the conditions of the working poor. It pursued the utopian project of locating ‘settlements’ within poverty-ridden neighbourhoods where respectable students should meet slum dwellers on equal terms. This article explores the trajectory of the comparatively under-researched Danish offspring of the movement. It demonstrates the tempering and compromise that occurred when utopian ideals of ‘brotherly love’, ‘God’s Kingdom’, and ‘radical social change’ were realized in concrete social arrangements. Contradictions and ambiguities arose when utopian ideas were confronted with what could be done. The Settlement became a highly ambiguous space, a ‘heterotopia’. The roots of the contradictions cannot simply be identified in the external pressure of legal requirements and funding criteria represented by public welfare agencies. The contradictions can also be excavated from the Settlement’s own ideological doctrines and its historical development.