scholarly journals Welfare transformations and expectations of sameness. Living on the margins in Denmark.

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-84
Author(s):  
Camilla Merrild ◽  
Rikke Sand Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Work Ethic ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Socially Disadvantaged ◽  
Original Intention ◽  
The Welfare State

In Denmark, as in other welfare societies worldwide, the organisation and ideology of welfare are becoming increasingly influenced by neoliberal ideas. In practice, this means that the original intention behind the provision of social support, which was grounded in the notion of social responsibility, is gradually being pushed aside by notions of responsibilisation, with concepts such as deservingness and work ethic appearing to dominate the discourse. Based on long-term fieldwork and interviews conducted with socially disadvantaged Danes living on social security, this article engages with the current debates regarding responsibility and highlights some of the challenges arising from living a life that diverges from what has been termed Danish ‘in-between middle-classness’. We argue that the divergence between the promise of welfare, the current landscape of political regulation and expectations of individual responsibility leads to new forms of uncertainty, as experienced by those who depend on the services provided by the welfare state. One implication of this is that welfare seems to increasingly be tied to an agenda of sameness, whereby citizenship stems less from a imagination of sameness than from an expectation of sameness.

scholarly journals Moral economies of the welfare state: A qualitative comparative study

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Taylor-Gooby ◽  
Bjørn Hvinden ◽  
Steffen Mau ◽  
Benjamin Leruth ◽  
Mi Ah Schoyen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Work Ethic ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Moral Economies ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Welfare State

This paper uses innovative democratic forums carried out in Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom to examine people’s ideas about welfare-state priorities and future prospects. We use a moral economy framework in the context of regime differences and the move towards neo-liberalism across Europe. Broadly speaking, attitudes reflect regime differences, with distinctive emphasis on reciprocity and the value of work in Germany, inclusion and equality in Norway, and individual responsibility and the work-ethic in the UK. Neo-liberal market-centred ideas appear to have made little headway in regard to popular attitudes, except in the already liberal-leaning UK. There is also a striking assumption by UK participants that welfare is threatened externally by immigrants who take jobs from established workers and internally by the work-shy who undermine the work-ethic. A key role of the welfare state is repressive rather than enabling: to protect against threats to well-being rather than provide benefits for citizens. UK participants also anticipate major decline in state provision. In all three countries there is strong support for continuing and expanding social investment policies, but for different reasons: to enable contribution in Germany, to promote equality and mobility in Norway, and to facilitate self-responsibility in the UK.

Epilogue: ‘Mummy Maybot’: a new age of authoritarian neoliberalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
New Age ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Liberal Feminism ◽  
The Government ◽  
Policy Discussion ◽  
Theresa May

This book has examined the good parenting scripts emerging from popular culture, policy discussion, public debate and across media, and how these scripts have championed affluent, ambitious and aspirational maternity in particular, and created and sustained a vocabulary of ‘individual responsibility’ and ‘hardworking families’. It has also discussed how neoliberalism co-opted liberal feminism and has highlighted increasingly unsympathetic and lurid portrayals of poverty, as well as the rising resentments over social security that they animate. This epilogue discusses the rise of a new trans-Atlantic age of neoliberal authoritarianism in Britain under the government of Prime Minister Theresa May, focusing in particular on her early commitments to ‘just about managing’ families (JAMs) and her initiatives aimed at containing resentments about austerity and the crushing material privations caused by the retrenchment of the welfare state.

Le vie cristiane della sicurezza sociale. I cattolici italiani e il welfare state

2013 ◽  
pp. 91-120
Author(s):  
Edoardo Bressan
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Model ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social State ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Christian Socialism ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Welfare State

In Italy, from the 1930s until the end of the century, the relationship between the Catholic world and the development of the Social state becomes a very relevant theme. Social thought and Catholic historiography issues witness a European civilisation crisis, by highlighting problems of poverty and historical forms of assistance. Furthermore, by following the 1931 Pope Pius XI encyclical Quadragesimo anno these issues interacted with fascist corporativism. After 1945, other key experiences arose, as the discussion on social security as the conclusion of the whole public assistance debate shown. These themes are reported in the Bologna social week works in 1949 and in Fanfani's and La Pira's positions, which present several correspondences with British and French worlds, such as Christian socialism, Reinhold Niebuhr's thought and Maritain's remarks. The 1948 Republican Constitution adopts the Welfare State model assumptions, and it is in those very years that the problem of a system based on a universal outlook arose. Afterwards, governments of coalition led by centre and left-wing parties fostered social security through welfare and health reforms until the '80s. While this model falls into crisis, and new social actors begin to be involved in a context of subsidiarity.

Last Rights? Funerals, Poverty and Social Exclusion

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK DRAKEFORD
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Poor People ◽  
The Public ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

This article considers the current state of help with funeral expenses in Britain. It argues that assistance has been progressively and deliberately eroded to the point where the famous ‘from the cradle to the grave’ protection of the welfare state has been removed from increasing numbers of poor people. The article sets these developments within the context of the contemporary British funeral industry, with emphasis upon its treatment of less-well-off consumers. The changing nature of social security provision for funeral expenses is traced in detail, including the actions of the incoming 1997 Labour government. This article investigates the public health role of local authorities in the case of burials, concluding that such services are insufficiently robust to meet the new weight placed upon them. The article ends with a consideration of the impact which these different changes produce in the lives of individuals upon whom they have an effect.

Social Security and the Welfare State

1950 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Corson
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
The Welfare State

War and the State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Ball
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
British State ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter characterizes the relationship of the British state to war over the long term. It analyses two epistemic turning points for the war–state relationship, one occurring in the 1860s, the other in the 1970s. It explains the importance of war to the British state under the ‘fiscal security’ compromise.The chapter traces the long and uneven emergence of the ‘welfare state’ as a successor to the ‘warfare state’. It argues that the ‘warfare state’ paradigm loses much of its empirical and conceptual force if it were to be extended beyond 1970. The relationship of the state to war changed so fundamentally at that point that history, the chapter suggests, ceased to be a useful guide for future conduct.

The Case for the Welfare State: From Social Security to Social Equality

1979 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 514
Author(s):  
Thomas Payne ◽  
Norman Furniss ◽  
Timothy Tilton ◽  
Alicia H. Munnell ◽  
Kirsten A. Gronbjerg
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
The Welfare State
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