Download or read book Towards More Democracy in Social Services written by Gaby Flösser and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-10-13 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Development Democracy and Welfare States written by Stephan Haggard and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to compare the distinctive welfare states of Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman trace the historical origins of social policy in these regions to crucial political changes in the mid-twentieth century, and show how the legacies of these early choices are influencing welfare reform following democratization and globalization. After World War II, communist regimes in Eastern Europe adopted wide-ranging socialist entitlements while conservative dictatorships in East Asia sharply limited social security but invested in education. In Latin America, where welfare systems were instituted earlier, unequal social-security systems favored formal sector workers and the middle class. Haggard and Kaufman compare the different welfare paths of the countries in these regions following democratization and the move toward more open economies. Although these transformations generated pressure to reform existing welfare systems, economic performance and welfare legacies exerted a more profound influence. The authors show how exclusionary welfare systems and economic crisis in Latin America created incentives to adopt liberal social-policy reforms, while social entitlements from the communist era limited the scope of liberal reforms in the new democracies of Eastern Europe. In East Asia, high growth and permissive fiscal conditions provided opportunities to broaden social entitlements in the new democracies. This book highlights the importance of placing the contemporary effects of democratization and globalization into a broader historical context.
Download or read book Social Democratic America written by Lane Kenworthy and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014-02 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eminent scholar Lane Kenworthy shows that, despite fierce political debates and pretensions to exceptionalism, the US is well along the path toward becoming a social democratic society.
Download or read book Social Democratic Parties and the Working Class written by Line Rennwald and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book carefully explores the relationship between social democracy and its working-class electorate in Western Europe. Relying on different indicators, it demonstrates an important transformation in the class basis of social democracy. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the working-class vote is strongly fragmented and social democratic parties face competition on multiple fronts for their core electorate – and not only from radical right parties. Starting from a reflection on ‘working-class parties’ and using a sophisticated class schema, the book paints a nuanced and diversified picture of the trajectory of social democracy that goes beyond a simple shift from working-class to middle-class parties. Following a detailed description, the book reviews possible explanations of workers' new voting patterns and emphasizes the crucial changes in parties' ideologies. It closes with a discussion on the role of the working class in social democracy's future electoral strategies.
Download or read book Social Democracy in the Global Periphery written by Richard Sandbrook and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Democracy in the Global Periphery focuses on social-democratic regimes in the developing world that have, to varying degrees, reconciled the needs of achieving growth through globalized markets with extensions of political, social and economic rights. The authors show that opportunities exist to achieve significant social progress, despite a global economic order that favours core industrial countries. Their findings derive from a comparative analysis of four exemplary cases: Kerala (India), Costa Rica, Mauritius and Chile (since 1990). Though unusual, the social and political conditions from which these developing-world social democracies arose are not unique; indeed, pragmatic and proactive social-democratic movements helped create these favourable conditions. The four exemplars have preserved or even improved their social achievements since neoliberalism emerged hegemonic in the 1980s. This demonstrates that certain social-democratic policies and practices - guided by a democratic developmental state - can enhance a national economy's global competitiveness.
Download or read book Democracy in Action written by Kristina Smock and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In cities across the US, grass-roots organizations are working to revitalize popular participation in disenfranchised communities by bringing ordinary people into public life. This book examines the techniques used to achieve these goals.
Download or read book Democracy and the Welfare State written by Amy Gutmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume explore the moral foundations and the political prospects of the welfare state in the United States. Among the questions addressed are the following: Has public support for the welfare state faded? Can a democratic state provide welfare without producing dependency on welfare? Is a capitalist (or socialist) economy consistent with the preservation of equal liberty and equal opportunity for all citizens? Why and in what ways does the welfare state discriminate against women? Can we justify limiting immigration for the sake of safeguarding the welfare of Americans? How can elementary and secondary education be distributed consistently with democratic values? The volume confronts powerful criticisms that have been leveled against the welfare state by conservatives, liberals, and radicals and suggests reforms in welfare state programs that might meet these criticisms. The contributors are Joseph H. Carens, Jon Elster, Robert K. Fullinwider, Amy Gutmann, Jennifer L. Hochschild, Stanley Kelley, Jr., Richard Krouse, Michael McPherson, J. Donald Moon, Carole Pateman, Dennis Thompson, and Michael Walzer.
Download or read book In search of social democracy written by John Callaghan and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-26 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The search for social democracy has not been an easy one over the last three decades. The economic crisis of the 1970s, and the consequent rise of neo-liberalism, confronted social democrats with difficult new circumstances: tax-resistant electorates, the globalisation of capital and Western deindustrialisation. In response, a new bout of ideological revisionism consumed social democratic parties. But did this revisionism simply amount to a neo-liberalisation of the Left or did it propose a recognisably social democratic agenda? Were these ideological adaptations the only feasible ones or were there other forms of modernisation that might have yielded greater strategic dividends for the Left? Why did some social democratic parties feel it necessary to take their revisionism much further than others? In search of social democracy brings together prominent scholars of social democracy to address these questions. Focusing on the social democratic heartland of Western Europe (although Australia and the United States also figure in the analysis), it gives the first detailed assessment of how the new social democratic revisionism has fared in government. The book begins by considering the underlying causes of the end of social democracy’s golden age and the magnitude of the challenges faced by social democratic parties after the 1970s. It then proceeds to examine detailed case studies of how particular social democratic parties responded to this changed political terrain. Finally, it contributes to a broader conversation about the future of social democracy by considering ways in which the political thought of ‘third way’ social democracy might be radicalised for the twenty-first century. The contributors offer a variety of perspectives – some are sceptical of social democracy’s prospects, others more sanguine; some supportive of the performance of social democratic parties in government, others bitingly critical. But they are united by the conviction that the themes addressed in this book are crucial to understanding the current politics of the industrialised world and, in particular, to determining the feasibility of more egalitarian and democratic social outcomes than have been possible so far in the era of neo-liberalism.
Download or read book Social Media and Democracy written by Nathaniel Persily and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A state-of-the-art account of what we know and do not know about the effects of digital technology on democracy.
Download or read book Social Democratic Capitalism written by Lane Kenworthy and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the configuration of institutions and policies most conducive to human flourishing? The historical and comparative evidence from the world's rich democratic countries suggests that the answer is capitalism, a democratic political system, good elementary and secondary schooling, a big welfare state, employment-conducive public services, and moderate regulation of product and labor markets. This set of policies and institutions, which sociologist Lane Kenworthy calls social democratic capitalism, improves living standards for the least well-off, enhances economic security, and very likely boosts equality of opportunity. And it does so without sacrificing the many other things we want in a good society, from liberty to economic growth and much more. While the Nordic nations have been social democratic capitalism's chief practitioners, there is good reason to think other affluent countries, including the United States, will move in this direction in coming decades.
Download or read book Democracy and the Left written by Evelyne Huber and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although inequality in Latin America ranks among the worst in the world, it has notably declined over the last decade, offset by improvements in health care and education, enhanced programs for social assistance, and increases in the minimum wage. In Democracy and the Left, Evelyne Huber and John D. Stephens argue that the resurgence of democracy in Latin America is key to this change. In addition to directly affecting public policy, democratic institutions enable left-leaning political parties to emerge, significantly influencing the allocation of social spending on poverty and inequality. But while democracy is an important determinant of redistributive change, it is by no means the only factor. Drawing on a wealth of data, Huber and Stephens present quantitative analyses of eighteen countries and comparative historical analyses of the five most advanced social policy regimes in Latin America, showing how international power structures have influenced the direction of their social policy. They augment these analyses by comparing them to the development of social policy in democratic Portugal and Spain. The most ambitious examination of the development of social policy in Latin America to date, Democracy and the Left shows that inequality is far from intractable—a finding with crucial policy implications worldwide.
Download or read book Freedom in the World 2018 written by Freedom House and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 1040 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom in the World is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The methodology of this survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories.
Download or read book Democratic Professionalism written by Albert W. Dzur and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing expert knowledge to bear in an open and deliberative way to help solve pressing social problems is a major concern today, when technocratic and bureaucratic decision making often occurs with little or no input from the general public. Albert Dzur proposes an approach he calls &“democratic professionalism&” to build bridges between specialists in domains like law, medicine, and journalism and the lay public in such a way as to enable and enhance broader public engagement with and deliberation about major social issues. Sparking a critical and constructive dialogue among social theories of the professions, professional ethics, and political theories of deliberative democracy, Dzur reveals interests, motivations, strengths, and vulnerabilities in conventional professional roles that provide guideposts for this new approach. He then applies it in examining three practical arenas in which experiments in collaboration and power-sharing between professionals and citizens have been undertaken: public journalism, restorative justice, and the bioethics movement. Finally, he draws lessons from these cases to refine this innovative theory and identify the kinds of challenges practitioners face in being both democratic and professional.
Download or read book The Age of Social Democracy written by Francis Sejersted and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-10 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of how Norway and Sweden became the envy of the modern world This is the history of how two countries on the northern edge of Europe built societies in the twentieth century that became objects of inspiration and envy around the world. Francis Sejersted, one of Scandinavia's leading historians, tells how Norway and Sweden achieved a rare feat by realizing grand visions of societies that combine stability, prosperity, and social welfare. It is a history that holds many valuable lessons today, at a time of renewed interest in the Scandinavian model. The book tells the story of social democracy from the separation of Norway and Sweden in 1905 through the end of the century, tracing its development from revolutionary beginnings through postwar triumph, as it became a hegemonic social order that left its stamp on every sector of society, the economy, welfare, culture, education, and family. The book also tells how in the 1980s, partly in reaction to the strong state, a freedom and rights revolution led to a partial erosion of social democracy. Yet despite the fracturing of consensus and the many economic and social challenges facing Norway and Sweden today, the achievement of their welfare states remains largely intact.
Download or read book Transforming Post Communist Political Economies written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1998-03-02 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking new volume focuses on the interaction between political, social, and economic change in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States. It includes a wide selection of analytic papers, thought-provoking essays by leading scholars in diverse fields, and an agenda for future research. It integrates work on the micro and macro levels of the economy and provides a broad overview of the transition process. This volume broadens the current intellectual and policy debate concerning the historic transition now taking place from a narrow concern with purely economic factors to the dynamics of political and social change. It questions the assumption that the post-communist economies are all following the same path and that they will inevitably develop into replicas of economies in the advanced industrial West. It challenges accepted thinking and promotes the utilization of new methods and perspectives.
Download or read book Wealth Health and Democracy in East Asia and Latin America written by James W. McGuire and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some societies fare well, and others poorly, at reducing the risk of early death? Wealth, Health, and Democracy in East Asia and Latin America finds that the public provision of basic health care and other inexpensive social services has reduced mortality rapidly even in tough economic circumstances, and that political democracy has contributed to the provision and utilization of such social services, in a wider range of ways than is sometimes recognized. These conclusions are based on case studies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, as well as on cross-national comparisons involving these cases and others.
Download or read book Social Democracy Capitalism and Competition written by Marcel Boyer and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2023-10-15 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our social democracies and welfare states face economic and governance challenges that threaten their very survival. Against this backdrop, Social Democracy, Capitalism, and Competition argues that a true social democracy requires a clear definition and a refocusing of the roles of the public and private sectors. Using his novel competition-based social democracy and new competition-based capitalism models, Marcel Boyer goes back to the basics. Returning to the foundational characteristics of what social democracy and capitalism are supposed to be, he reimagines how public and social goods and services – such as education, healthcare, and transport infrastructure – can be provided in a way that aligns with citizens’ best interests. Boyer shows how recent decades have witnessed a shift away from competition and competitive processes, toward more bureaucratic control of public and social goods and services and more ironclad protection of state providers against contestation by potentially competitive organizations. This crony capitalism results in loss of purpose, organizational inefficiency, and outcomes that increasingly deviate from their original objectives of social wellbeing. Boyer maintains that productivity gains, economic growth, and prosperity for all actually require a degree of income and wealth inequality. Written with a facility that will appeal to anyone interested in public policy and economic reform, Social Democracy, Capitalism, and Competition is a book all governments should have on their reading list.
