Ramesh Mishra

Beyond the Nation State: Social Policy in an Age of Globalization

The paper proceeds from the assumption that globalization has placed significant constraints on the autonomy of nation states in the making of social policy. It argues that the post-World War II welfare state represented a social system highly successful in combining economic efficiency and dynamism with equity and solidarity. This historic achievement at the nation-state level is being undermined by economic globalization. It is both necessary and feasible to recreate and institutionalize this mixed system globally. The paper argues that the concept of social rights, which has served as the basic underpinning of the welfare state, has many weaknesses—logical as well as empirical. While the principles of civil and political rights are being consolidated and extended worldwide the principle of social rights is in decay. The paper presents the case for replacing social rights by social standards as the major concept for buttressing systems of social protection. To be applicable globally a social standard must be conceptualized as a level of social development which corresponds to an appropriate level of economic development. Finally, the paper considers the problems and prospects of developing social standards transnationally. It reviews, briefly, the nature and extent of transnational social policy-making by inter-governmental organizations and concludes that despite difficulties of global action advances towards global social standards remain possible.

Typologies of the welfare state and comparative analysis: The “liberal” welfare state

Abstract The paper begins by reviewing briefly two academic streams or traditions in the study of the welfare state from the viewpoint of the development of typologies. This sets the context for the examination of a recent typology of welfare state regimes (Esping-Andersen, 1990) with special reference to the notion of a “liberal” regime. The paper argues that the “liberal” regime conflates two distinct traditions in political ideology and practice: the classical liberal or laissez-faire and the social liberal or coFDFllectivist tradition represented by such thinkers as Keynes, Beveridge and Galbraith. This distinction has been important in the politics and ideology of the welfare state of English-speaking countries such as Britain and Canada. The Canadian welfare state, in particular, can be seen as an empirical referent of this centrist social-liberal approach to welfare. The distinction between these two models is blurred, in part, because Esping-Andersens “liberal” regime type appears to represent bo...

Globalization and Welfare States

In focusing largely on Western industrial countries recent scholarship on the welfare state has tended to gloss over important implications of globalization for systems of social protection. These include the destabilization of economies through financial liberalization, the influence of international financial institutions on social policy of nations, and the erosion of alternative forms of social protection through global economic integration. This chapter seeks to substantiate this argument by examining the relationship between globalization and social protection in four different groups of countries: less developed, newly industrializing, ex-communist and Western industrial. The nature of the relationship varies in important ways across these groups of countries.

Riding the new wave: social work and the neo-conservative challenge

As the 1980s draw to a close, neo-conservative ideas continue to be a major presence in the world of social welfare in the West. This is particularly true of Great Britain and the United States, two major English-speaking countries which form the basis for the principal arguments and conclusions of this paper. There is little doubt, however, that the rise of neo-conservatism is a general phenomenon confined neither to the above countries nor indeed to the Englishspeaking world. Neo-conservatism, in the context of social welfare, is not simply a question of cutbacks in social expenditure and general restraint in public spending. That has happened quite generally throughout Western countries. It is one thing when economic growth stops, resources are in short supply and governments find that they have to economize on social as on other forms of public expenditure. It is quite another thing when economic recession or other difficulties become the occasion for a general attack on the basic principles and practices of the postwar welfare state. This is where neo-conservatism comes in.

Social welfare: national and international dimensions

Social welfare may be defined as collective action concerned with meeting basic human needs. This definition remains the same whether we think of need within the national boundary or beyond. Yet there seem to be important differences of both principles and practice between domestic and international social welfare. What are these differences and what are their implications for collective action in the field of international social welfare?

Richard Titmuss and Social Policy

David Reisman, Richard Titmuss: Welfare and Society (2nd edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, vii+307 pp., £50.00. Peter Alcock, Howard Glennerster, Ann Oakley & Adrian Sinfield (eds.), Welfare and Well-Being: Richard Titmusss Contribution to Social Policy , Bristol: Policy, 2001, vi+249 pp., £16.99 pbk.

Globalization and Poverty in the Americas

Globalization the increasing openness of nation states to supranational influences is a multidimensional phenomenon. This paper will focus on the economic dimension which has the most direct relevance to poverty and social welfare. Economic globalization refers to the increasing integration of national economies into the global economy by way of freer trade and investment, intensified competition, and a general extension of the scope of markets. In so far as regional economic associations such as the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) promote supranational economic integration, they may also be seen as a part of the process of globalization. However these associations will not be considered specifically in this paper. The removal of capital controls by industrialized and other countries, along with the incorporation of former communist countries into the global market economy, marks out the last two decades as a period of intensified globalization (Mishra, 1999). The paper will focus on this period.

Book reviews : Deacon, Bob with Michelle Hulse and Paul Stubbs (1997) Global Social Policy: International Organizations and the Future of Welfare. London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi: Sage. 252pp. £32.50 (hbk), ISBN 0-8039-8953-9; £12.95 (pbk), ISBN 0-8039-8954-7

As we reach the end of the millennium, globalization economic, cultural and ideological is emerging as the essential context of national welfare states. Yet the implications of globalization for social policy are only beginning to be explored. Deacon’s book is therefore timely. It is both an invitation to the new and emerging landscape of global social policy and a guide to this largely uncharted and unwieldy terrain.

Book reviews : Welfare and Worker Participation: Eight case studies Patrick Kerans, Glenn Drover and David Williams Macmillan Press, London, 1988

relationships between the pupils and between the staff and pupils, especially in terms of how they all learn and grow around topics of sexuality. She links this with questions of morality, discipline and the more evident issues of gender in the curriculum. This aspect of the book alone will make it essential reading as there is nowhere such a full and closely argued analysis of these issues. However, the part entitled Sexuality, containing three substantive chapters and an introduction, is sandwiched between a section on Discipline and Control also with three substantive chapters and one about the curriculum, which, too, is subdivided into three. In part one the question of gender is only really addressed in the third chapter and in part three it again becomes a rather subordinate issue. The general thrust of these two sections is to show how theoretically inadequate feminist studies of education in schools are, by reference almost exclusivly to the data produced by the ethnography. It is here that one almost feels that Wolpe is so wedded to a particular form of Marxist analysis that she cannot give up what now reads like blind faith. The criticisms of feminism, at this level, almost go without saying, as they make feminism out to be banal and without substance. As she is one of the sources of inspiration for this approach to the sociology of education, I am at a loss to understand why Wolpe has now made this kind of argument. She also provides a Foucauld-