San Antonio College Library

From housing, pensions, and family benefits, to health-care, unemployment insurance, and social assistance, the welfare state is a key aspect of our lives. But social programs are contested political realities that we can't hope to understand without locating them within the "big picture." This book provides a concise political and sociological introduction to social policy, helping readers to grasp the nature of social programs and the political...

Introduces readers to the policy debate of welfare reform, presenting an overview of the issue; discussing politics, businesses and nonprofit organizations, and international implications; and providing a chronology, bibliographies, and several related articles and documents.

The grip of conservative ideas on political agendas has been a feature of the latter part of the 20th century. Waddan examines this phenomenon and sets the stage for the policy battles at the turn of the century.

"Gary Teeple examines the transformation of the economic and political conditions that allowed for the rise of the welfare state and the politics of social democracy. He critically analyzes the neo-liberal policies that are being introduced by governments everywhere, arguing that they are the policy counterpart to the globalization of the economy. If globalization represents the "triumph of capitalism" and the decline of the welfare state, then it...

From the Publisher: The Welfare State Nobody Knows challenges a number of myths and half-truths about U.S. social policy. The American welfare state is supposed to be a pale imitation of "true" welfare states in Europe and Canada. Christopher Howard argues that the American welfare state is in fact larger, more popular, and more dynamic than commonly believed. Nevertheless, poverty and inequality remain high, and this book helps explain why so much...

In this trenchant challenge to social engineering, Paul Gottfried analyzes a patricide: the slaying of nineteenth-century liberalism by the managerial state. Paul Gottfried does more than analyze historical facts, however. He builds on them to show why it matters that the managerial state has replaced traditional liberalism: the new regimes of social engineers, he maintains, are elitists, and their rule is consensual only in the sense that it is unopposed...

A dozen essays interpret case study research on the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Weil and Finegold (Assessing the New Federalism project, Urban Institute, Washington, DC) overview the history of welfare reform and policy implications of the latest act. While the value of supporting low-income working families has been demonstrated, Act II requires meeting diverse recipients' needs through all economic phases. Appends notes on case studies. Annotation...

"The issue of social welfare and individual responsibility has become a topic of international public debate in recent years as politicians around the world now question the legitimacy of state-funded welfare programs. David Schmidtz and Robert Goodin debate the ethical merits of individual versus collective responsibility for welfare. David Schmidtz argues that social welfare policy should prepare people for responsible adulthood rather than try...