welfare state' today in contemporary Britain?
The British view of welfare has always been one of conducting government as a beneficent and paternalistic entity that was engaged in making sure citizens had what they needed for basic survival (Field, 2011). This view was first garnered by the liberals of the 1960's and it was furthered, as the years went along, until the present day. There were some hiccups in the process during the Thatcher years, but welfare continued to grow.

The term for this continued growth of the welfare rolls and the benefits received by the people enrolled in welfare is the "welfare state" (Will, 2011). The government in Britain spends more money on welfare than any other nation on Earth and the British public sector is the sixth largest jobs supplier globally (Will, 2011). The welfare state is basically a beast that consumes almost everything that people work for, and….

Welfare State in Britain had its beginnings in 1598 when Elizabeth I's ninth parliament established by Elizabethan poor-law system (Bruce, 1966). According to Bruce, the "Acte for the eleife of the Poore" of 1598 consolidated and extended laws passed earlier in Elizabeth's reign. Essentially, these laws had originated in 1536, during the time of her father's reign, and were focused on raising local taxes as well as appointing overseers of the poor in every parish for the purpose of:
setting to work of the children of all such whose parents shall not be thought able to keep and maintain their children," together with "all such persons, married or unmarried, as, having no means to maintain them, use no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their living by";

providing a convenient stock of materials "to set the poor on work";

the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind and such….

Complicating matters in Spain was the duty to the State that the Franco regime saw as a natural extension of these Catholic (and admittedly pan-Western) traditional beliefs of gender roles and the proper actions and attitudes for women to hold. At times, this belief and the demands that it placed on Catholic women in both Italy and Spain were in conflict with other expectations placed on them by the family and the Church. In her book True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco's Spain, Aurora G. Morcillo asserts that "the language and true nature of Catholic womanhood was not fixed," and that the women of Spain (and by extension Italy) had to navigate an increasingly complex world of often conflicting demands while largely attempting to retain their traditional Catholic identities.
This is not to suggest that women quietly accepted traditional limitations in the period of prosperity following the war. Rather,….

Habermas' idea of democratizing the welfare state unrealistic? If so, does this make it any less valuable for us to think about?
Do we need utopian thinking?

What kind of conception of democracy does Habermas have in mind here?

What does Habermas mean by a two-tiered public sphere?

What do you think Habermas meant when he entitled his book Between Facts and Norms

Habermas idea of democratizing the welfare state is the following: The public sphere must actively deal with problems, dramatize and vocalize them so that they are taken up by official sources and dealt with. The ability of the public sphere to tackle problems on their own is limited. The public sphere however (namely society) must ascertain that such and similar problems do not arise again and that they are dealt with as effectively and speedily as possible.

This idea is certainly not unrealistic and, actually is something that has become increasingly current….

Thus the dependence of so many people on government handouts is very soon to reach a point of crisis and possible social unrest.
elfare Statism is not only a manifestly politically unjust system. It is also a wholly unsustainable one from the perspective of political economy. It is based upon expanding budgets and a continually young and growing population. In a society like America where the average age and life expectancy is getting higher every year, welfare programs are a recipe for utter and complete financial collapse. In addition to not really helping the already existing poor, the elfare State can only add to their numbers. Libertarianism seeks to highlight that fact and return the country to its original political system and ideology: classical liberalism.

orks Cited

Edwards, James Ralph. "Economics, Politics, and the Coming Collapse of the Elderly elfare

State." Journal of Libertarian Studies 17:1 (2003): 1-16.

Gottfried, Paul Edward. After Liberalism: Mass….

Public Policy
The Canadian welfare state arose in the 1930s as a response to the poverty of the era, and was bolstered in the subsequent decades to include numerous elements of the social safety net. Prior to the development of the modern Canadian welfare state, the country relied on a classic liberal economic model, with few restrictions on enterprise and the commoditization of labour. Workers had few protections, the central government exerted limited taxation power and provided little in the way of social services. Anderson (1990) argues that Canada constitutes a modern liberal welfare state, one characterized by "means-tested assistance, modest universal transfers and modest social-insurance plans" (p.26). The role of government in such a state emphasizes the promotion of commerce, with social welfare elements often ranking as a lower priority. In the middle decades of the 20th century, Canada shifted more towards a welfare state, instituting elements such as universal….

POLITICAL ECONOMY ANALYSIS & IMPLICATIONS FO SOCIAL POTECTION POLICY & POGAMS IN AFICA
SOCIAL POTECTION POLICY AND POGAMMES IN AFICA

Analysis and Implications for Social Protection Policy and Programs in Africa

Analysis and Implications for Social Protection Policy and Programs in Africa

the role of the welfare state

The perception of welfare state requires the government to promote and protect the social well-being of citizens and their economic situation. This is guided by the doctrine of public responsibility, capital sharing, and equal opportunity. The general term covers a wide variety of social and economic organization. Social welfare is an imprecise and encompassing term. In most cases, it is defined in terms of interventions and organized activities or some other elements that suggest programs and policies aimed at improving the well-being of individuals at risk and responding to recognized social problems. (Handa, Devereux, and Webb, 2011) have shown that the concept of social welfare and….

Oicials in the newly ormed Ministry o Finance drew rom a talented pool o
economists rom the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Privileged positions
were illed rom within the bureaucracy and were obtained through
exceptional perormance instead o cronyism or nepotism. O great
importance to their autonomy, oicials were able to disconnect themselves
rom total reliance on local unding thanks to inancial assistance rom
the international community and reparations rom Germany. Two igureheads
within the government guaranteed a decisive and coherent economic policy:
Levi Eshkol o the Ministry o Finance, and Pinhas Sapir o the Ministry o
Commerce and Industry. They worked hand-in-hand to ormulate a uniying
agenda that bureaucrats rom both departments could pursue towards a single
common goal.
The end-product o this labor in both nations was a inancial
structure in which banks, and by extension the government at large,
controlled the low o capital. On one hand, banks in Israel were
autonomous only to the extent that the central bank's severe regulations
and restrictions….

Mothers -- Transitioning from elfare to Corporate America
elfare in the United States is both a complex and controversial subject. The issue focuses on several aspects of public policy: economics, cultural diversity, actualization, incentives, education/training, taxation and even the actual role of the government. e first begin this study with an overview of the idea of a state welfare system, its origins, development, purpose, and particularly view the manner in which the welfare system has changed since the Great Depression. It is then important to understand the implications of the 1988 Family Support Act (FSA) and the change in attitude and policy regarding welfare, and the newer focus on finding ways to train, retrain, or educate those on welfare so they can find gainful employment -- particularly those who move into the corporate world. Challenges, interventions, and potential outcomes are examined, among which looking at the juxtaposition between the fiscal….

Nearly all of the existing models for financial redistribution available in American politics isolate potential applications on lines of income, while others divide along racial, ethnic, and religious lines to help insure the same standard of living for all of those in need -- adults and families included.
The current situation in America highlights the need to isolate welfare recipients further, by more than just income and instead to also take into account the idea of regional differences that foster not only varied opportunities of employment, but also a wide array of external sources of lifetime substance. Because America is still trying to balance the difference of tax revenues, budget allotments, and other sources of welfare subsidy, it is most important that both social scientists and legislators illuminate the regional discriminations that exist between the urban and rural poor.

Deavers, Kenneth L. "Social Science Contributions to Rural Development Policy in the….

benefiting from U.S. social welfare funds? Is it just the poor, or are other groups also receiving financial benefits from the U.S. Treasury? This paper delves into those issues and provides credible resources to ferret out the real facts.
Not for people in poverty exclusively: After pointing out that the Reagan Administration's conservative agenda created an "historic shift" in welfare benefits, journalist Mimi Abramovitz reports that subsequent to the Reagan cuts social welfare programs in fact dole out more taxpayer money to "middle and upper classes" than to poor people (Abramovitz, 2001). The federal government (in 2000) spent $235.9 billion on assistance programs for those in the low income bracket, and yet some $793.9 billion of taxpayer money went to programs that "do not use poverty or need as a criteria…" (Abramovitz, 299). Moreover, the Social Security (and other social insurance programs) "grants" increase with inflation, allowing the purchasing power….

Interpretive sociology does not agree with the thought that behavior is related to society as effect is related to cause since this entire idea is dysfunctional with that which composes social life in reality. Interpretive sociology holds that understanding of our fellow man should be the pursuit of each day as sense is made of their individual societal existence. Seeking to understand is the concept held in interpretive sociology instead of the seeking of an explanation. Therefore it is understood that "structural" or that of Marxism and Functionalism (i.e. The interpretive/interactionist/social action sociologies) as well as Weber's interactionism, ethnomethodology and the Structural arguments in sociology that a "science of society" is likely. Therefore, there exists an agreement even among the interpretive sociologies. The natural science argument is based on "cause and effect" principles. That claim that the behavior of humans is the effect of some cause in society or….

The private sector thus becomes the most important factor in the decision making process. Unfortunately, as bad as it sounds the fact that states are losing their powers in front of the private sector, globalization has proved to work, at least in the more developed countries. The weakness of a state is the price to pay for a prosper society.
It is true that globalization weakens the state, but this must not necessarily be seen as a bad thing. More important than a powerful government is a powerful economy, which gives people better lives. States that have adopted the rules of international capital market have known economic growth, at various levels. The price that must be paid is that multinational corporations have the power to dictate policies that are in their own interest and not necessarily in the interest of citizens.

However, when speaking of a state in its cultural dimension,….

Nazi State
In the 1960s and 1970s, New Left historians in the Federal Republic of Germany reexamined the Third Reich in ways that created major controversies, especially because they found continuity between the Nazi era and attitudes and institutions that existed both before and afterwards. This meant "purging society" of its racist, authoritarian and paternalistic tendencies, and preventing revived Nazi movements like the National Democratic Party (NDP) from gaining a foothold in political life again (Gassert and Steinweiss 1). Fritz Fischer had helped initiate this historical controversy in Griff Nach der eltmacht (Germany's Drive for orld Power) in which he asserted that Germany had been the aggressor in orld ar I and that Hitler and the Nazis borrowed their ideas about Lebensraum and an empire in the East from their Second Reich predecessors. Indeed, the historical record demonstrates that during the Third Reich, the German people, the old conservative elites, industrialists….

Government-Business Relations 1004 PPP -- Reading Report
Tutorial (e.g. Monday 10.00am-11.30am):

Reading full reference

Wilson, G. (2003). Business and politics: A comparative introduction. 3rd ed. New York: Chatham House Publishers. Chapter 2. "Business and Politics in the United States," pp. 27-57.

Main point(s) made by the author(s)

In contrast to modern European democracies, the United States has embraced a form of capitalism that is extremely hostile to proactive social welfare policies. Within U.S. culture there has tended to be a more uncomplicated celebration of such values as individualism and self-reliance. Even the Democratic Party, which is currently considered the more liberal of the two major governing parties, is less supportive of comprehensive social welfare policies such as universal healthcare vs. European nations. The U.S. has a very weak welfare state, one of the weakest in the modern industrialized world. The U.S. also has a federalist system, which accords considerable power to state governments vs. The….

1. The Concept of Justice in Rawls and Nozick's Political Theory:
- Analyze and compare John Rawls' and Robert Nozick's theories of justice.
- Discuss the implications of their views on social and economic equality.
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their respective arguments.


2. Utilitarianism vs. Deontology: A Comparative Analysis:
- Compare and contrast the ethical theories of utilitarianism and deontology.
- Explore the strengths and weaknesses of each theory in terms of their application to political decision-making.
- Discuss the relevance of these theories in contemporary political debates.


3. The Legitimacy of Political Authority:
- Examine different theories of....