Avishai Benish

Re‐Bureaucratizing Welfare Administration

In the spirit of new public management and new governance concepts, states have shifted from hierarchical and bureaucratic models of welfare administration to more flexible and market‐oriented arrangements. As part of this transformation, states designed new accountability structures to cope with the accountability challenges of these administration regimes. The article examines the suitability and effectiveness of these new structures of accountability through an in‐depth case study of the Wisconsin Works program, one of the most prominent experiments in new governance methods of welfare administration. The article shows that, during a decade of implementation, the Wisconsin Works program shifted back to a centralized and bureaucratized style of administration. The article analyzes the underlying forces that led to re‐bureaucratization. It suggests that relatively tight methods of control are inherent in the administration of such complex and politically sensitive welfare programs.

The Regulatory Welfare State in Pension Markets: Mitigating High Charges for Low Income Savers in the United Kingdom and Israel

How does the rising ‘regulatory welfare state’ address social policy concerns in pension markets? This study examines this question by comparing the regulatory responses to high charges paid by low-income workers in pension markets in the UK and Israel. In the UK, with the recognition that the market would not cater to low-income workers, the regulatory response was the creation of a publicly operated low-cost pension fund (NEST), a ‘public option’ within the market. This allowed low-income workers access to a low level of charges, previously reserved for high-income and organised workers. In Israel, regulation sought to empower consumers, while providing minimal social protection by capping pension charges at a relatively high level, thereby leaving most of the responsibility for reducing the charges with the individual saver. By comparing these two cases, the article develops an analytical framework for the study of the regulatory welfare state, making two contributions. First, it highlights different types of regulatory citizenship: minimal regulatory social protection as opposed to a more egalitarian approach. Second, it identifies an overlooked regulatory welfare state strategy: creating ‘public option’ arrangements, whereby a state-run (but not funded) service operates within the market.

When the Clients Can Choose: Dilemmas of Street-Level Workers in Choice-Based Social Services

How does the increased use of choice-based management strategies in social services influence the behavior of street-level workers? In this article, we provide an analytical framework for understanding street-level logic in choice-based environments. We then turn to the case of home-nursing care in Israel to examine how choice plays out in street-level workers’ day-to-day practices. By relying on 34 interviews with social workers working in home-care agencies, we illustrate how street-level workers’ jobs have expanded beyond implementing public policy to include the “new job” of recruiting and retaining clients. The article shows how a choice-based environment gives higher priority to clients’ preferences, while at the same time these preferences are subordinated to the economic interest of the providers. It also demonstrates how market pressures may push street-level workers to develop new practices and coping strategies that go beyond, but often also counter to, formal policy.

The Privatization of Social Services in Israel

This chapter discusses the privatization of social services in Israel and examines its implications for recipients and providers, and the public at large. After providing an overview of the privatization of social services in Israel, it offers lessons and dilemmas from the Israeli case that might be of interest internationally. The chapter concludes by revisiting the consequences of the privatization of social services and looks to the future of privatization in this field through the vision of a “regulatory welfare state,” according to which welfare state values are maintained in the new structure via regulatory means.