Download or read book Switzerland in Europe written by Christine Trampusch and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2011-03-14 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book provides the first systematic overview of Swiss political economy in comparative perspective. It provides an analysis of major socio-economic institutions, economic actors, economic and social policies, and political institutions and their recent changes.
Download or read book The Welfare State Revisited written by José Antonio Ocampo and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The welfare state has been under attack for decades, but now more than ever there is a need for strong social protection systems—the best tools we have to combat inequality, support social justice, and even improve economic performance. In this book, José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph E. Stiglitz bring together distinguished contributors to examine the global variations of social programs and make the case for a redesigned twenty-first-century welfare state. The Welfare State Revisited takes on major debates about social well-being, considering the merits of universal versus targeted policies; responses to market failures; integrating welfare and economic development; and how welfare states around the world have changed since the neoliberal turn. Contributors offer prescriptions for how to respond to the demands generated by demographic changes, the changing role of the family, new features of labor markets, the challenges of aging societies, and technological change. They consider how strengthening or weakening social protection programs affects inequality, suggesting ways to facilitate the spread of effective welfare states throughout the world, especially in developing countries. Presenting new insights into the functions the welfare state can fulfill and how to design a more efficient and more equitable system, The Welfare State Revisited is essential reading on the most discussed issues in social welfare today.
Download or read book Disturbing the Nest written by David Popenoe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-14 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disturbing the Nest assesses the future of the family as an institution through an historical and comparative analysis of the nature, causes, and social implications of family change in advanced western societies such as the United States, New Zealand, and Switzerland by focusing on the one society in which family decline is found to be the greatest, Sweden. The founding of the modern Swedish welfare state was based in large part on the belief that it was necessary for the state to intervene in society in order to improve the situation of the family. Of great concern was the low birthrate, which was seen as a threat to the very survival of Swedes as a national population group. The Social Democrats pioneered welfare measures that aimed to strengthen the family, to alleviate its worst trials and tribulations, and to make possible harmonious living. With the Social Democrats remaining in power continuously until 1976, a period of almost forty-five years, Sweden went on to implement governmental "family policies" that are among the most comprehensive (and expensive) in the world. In view of this major policy goal of family improvement, the actual situation of the Swedish family today presents a genuine irony; some have claimed that Swedish welfare state policies have had consequences that are the opposite of those originally intended. Comparing contemporary Swedish family patterns with those of other advanced nations, one finds a very high family dissolution rate, probably the highest in the Western world, and a high percentage of single-parent, female headed families. Even marriage seems to have fallen increasingly out of favor, with Sweden having the lowest marriage rate and latest age of first marriage, and the highest rate of children born out-of-wedlock. The early pronatalist aspirations of the Swedish government have been spectacularly unsuccessful, as Sweden continues to have one of the world's lowest birthrates and smallest average family sizes.
Download or read book Why Switzerland written by Jonathan Steinberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revised and completely updated edition of Jonathan Steinberg's classic account of Switzerland's unique political and economic system. Why Switzerland? examines the complicated voting system that allows citizens to add, strike out, or vote more than once for candidates, with extremely complicated systems of proportional representation; a collective and consensual executive leadership in both state and church; and the creation of the Swiss idea of citizenship, with tolerance of differences of language and religion, and a perfectionist bureaucracy which regulates the well-ordered society. This third edition tries to test the flexibility of the Swiss way of politics in the globalized world, social media, the huge expansion of money in world circulation and the vast tsunamis of capital which threaten to swamp it. Can the complex machinery that has maintained Swiss institutions for centuries survive globalization, neo-liberalism and mass migration from poor countries to rich ones?
Download or read book The Swiss Way of Welfare written by Ralph Segalman and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1986 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Study of social security and social policy in Switzerland - describes the social structure and social norms which prevent dependency on social assistance; covers old age benefit, unemployment benefit, disability benefit, health insurance and family benefit; outlines administrative aspects, the role of social workers, and the emphasis on work attitude and decentralization; draws conclusions for the prevention of poverty and the enhancement of upward social mobility in the USA and Western Europe. Graphs, references, statistical tables.
Download or read book Downsizing the U S A written by Thomas H. Naylor and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this trenchant analysis of American society, Thomas Naylor and William Willimon take an unabashed stance against the belief that "bigger is better" and contend that there is a price to be paid for our uncritical affirmation of bigness.
Download or read book The Welfare of Nations written by James Bartholomew and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What damage is being done by failing welfare states? What lessons can be learned from the best welfare states? And—is it too late to stop welfare states from permanently diminishing the lives and liberties of people around the world? Traveling around the globe, James Bartholomew examines welfare models, searching for the best education, health care, and support services in 11 vastly different countries; illuminating the advantages and disadvantages of other nations' welfare states; and delving into crucial issues such as literacy, poverty, and inequality. This is a hard-hitting and provocative contribution to understanding how welfare states, as the defining form of government today, are changing the very nature of modern civilization.
Download or read book The Rebirth of the West written by Peter Duignan and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1996 with total page 752 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The years following World War II witnessed perhaps the greatest success story in Western history--the economic and political recovery of European democracies that had been devastated by the cataclysmic war. Peter Duignan and L.H. Gann convincingly demonstrate that the deep involvement of the United States was a key factor in this success. The Rebirth of the West is a broad, narrative analysis of every important aspect of Western society during this formative period--political, economic, social, cultural, and scientific. In addition to providing an interpretive synthesis of the vast literature on the subject, the authors make an important and original contribution to both the historical record of this period and current debates over the future of Europe.
Download or read book The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism written by Gosta Esping-Andersen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few discussions in modern social science have occupied as much attention as the changing nature of welfare states in western societies. Gosta Esping-Andersen, one of the most distinguished contributors to current debates on this issue, here provides a new analysis of the character and role of welfare states in the functioning of contemporary advanced western societies. Esping-Andersen distinguishes several major types of welfare state, connecting these with variations in the historical development of different western countries. Current economic processes, the author argues, such as those moving towards a post-industrial order, are not shaped by autonomous market forces but by the nature of states and state differences. Fully informed by comparative materials, this book will have great appeal to everyone working on issues of economic development and post-industrialism. Its audience will include students and academics in sociology, economics and politics.
Download or read book Self Reliance written by David Marsland and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, Great Britain, Western Europe, and almost everywhere else in the developed world except Switzerland and Japan, a massive bureaucratic apparatus of state welfare has been built up since the Second World War. It has proven to be costly, inefficient, and grossly counterproductive. Everywhere governments are desperately seeking ways to reduce the size of state welfare. Efficiency, particularly in education and health care, must be improved. Above all, an alternative is urgently needed to the inherited cradle to grave welfare approach, which multiplies unemployment, generates dependency, and creates a fractious, subjugated underclass. Self Reliance has been written by four leading experts on welfare and social policy. Using British experience as a case study, the book analyzes the failings of state welfare and provides detailed practical proposals for reform. Specific parallels with the American situation, and implications for United States social policy are examined in a special opening essay by the editor. The key significance of this work for policy personnel and economists is that the authors argue for a structure that can be built up gradually out of the existing outmoded system. They detail methods by which this can be successfully accomplished despite financial constraints likely to be imposed by government officials.
Download or read book The Swiss Labyrinth written by Jan-Erik Lane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-23 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It can be argued that Switzerland has a peculiar set of political institutions, for example decentralized federalism, active referendum democracy, and La formule magique (grand coalition). This volume focuses upon the political and social outcomes of these institutions in the 1990s.
Download or read book The Politics and Government of Switzerland written by C. Church and published by Springer. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Politics and Government of Switzerland is one of very few English language studies of contemporary Swiss politics. Drawing on recent research in Switzerland, and the author's own observations, it offers wide coverage of Swiss political forces, processes and policies. Church argues that Switzerland is actually a vibrant and pluralist polity, in which politics are increasingly competitive. However, it still retains some distinctive characteristics like direct democracy, which mean that the Swiss people play a larger role than in other countries.
Download or read book Social Security Bulletin written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Income Inequality in Capitalist Democracies written by Vicki L. Birchfield and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-08-26 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been much concern about rising levels of income inequality in the societies of advanced industrial democracies. Commentators have attributed this increase to the impact of globalization, the decline of the welfare state, or the erosion of the power of labor unions and their allies among left-wing political parties. But little attention has been paid to variations among these countries in the degree of inequality. This is the subject that Vicki Birchfield tackles in this ambitious book. Differences in political institutions have been seen by political scientists as one likely explanation, but Birchfield shows institutional variation to be only one part of the story. Deploying an original conceptualization of political economy as applied democratic theory, she makes the compelling case that cultural values—particularly citizens' attitudes about social justice and about the proper roles of the market and the state—need to be factored into any account that will provide an adequate explanation for the observable patterns. To support her argument, she brings to bear both multivariate statistical analyses and historical comparative case studies, making this book a model for how quantitative and qualitative research can be effectively combined to produce more complete explanations of political and socioeconomic phenomena.
Download or read book War and the Rise of the State written by Bruce D. Porter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-02-01 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: States make war, but war also makes states. As Publishers Weekly notes, “Porter, a political scientist at Brigham Young University, demonstrates that wars have been catalysts for increasing the size and power of Western governments since the Renaissance. The state’s monopoly of effective violence has diminished not only individual rights and liberties, but also the ability of local communities and private associates to challenge the centralization of authority. Porter’s originality lies in his thesis that war, breaking down barriers of class, gender, ethnicity, and ideology, also contributes to meritocracy, mobility, and, above all, democratization. Porter also posits the emergence of the “Scientific Warfare State,” a political system in which advanced technology would render obsolete mass participation in war. This provocative study merits wide circulation and serious discussion.”
Download or read book Contemporary Switzerland written by H. Kriesi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-06-06 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents the major findings involved in a large scale research programme to describe and analyse the transformation of contemporary Swiss society. The contributions focus on three key areas: the Swiss way of life, the Swiss labour market and the country's political institutions. The chapters give an idea of current trends in Swiss society, each one framing their argument in a comparative perspective.
Download or read book Age in the Welfare State written by Julia Lynch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-06-05 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book asks why some countries devote the lion's share of their social policy resources to the elderly, while others have a more balanced repertoire of social spending. Far from being the outcome of demands for welfare spending by powerful age-based groups in society, the 'age' of welfare is an unintended consequence of the way that social programs are set up. The way that politicians use welfare state spending to compete for votes, along either programmatic or particularistic lines, locks these early institutional choices into place. So while society is changing - aging, divorcing, moving in and out of the labor force over the life course in new ways - social policies do not evolve to catch up. The result, in occupational welfare states like Italy, the United States, and Japan, is social spending that favors the elderly and leaves working-aged adults and children largely to fend for themselves.
