The Welfare State Development - Essay Example

Describe the three main families of explanations for the welfare development. American Welfare Welfare describes providing a minimal level of safety and social sustenance to all citizens also known as public aid. A welfare state explains the concept of government where the state plays an important part in fortification and advancement of economic and social safety of its citizens (University 36-109). Distribution of wealth, equality of opportunities and public responsibility are the principles of a welfare state. There are three main families of explanations in welfare development which include, political institutions, political culture and social actors (University 36-109). a) Political culture Welfare culture explains behavioral consequences through the provision of poverty relief to those who earn low income. After the postwar period, the prevailing clarification for distinct features of the American welfare state reposed on the impact of the political culture of the American public rule (University 36-109). In this view, there are cultures who are comfortable with allocating responsibilities regarding the needs of social welfare to the central political authorities while others prefer families, local community organizations or the market to maintain switch. Public- opinion surveying indicates that political cultures differ among Western democracies. These variations relate in a systematic manner to the modifications in how governments deal with the financial insecurity in their states(Morgan and Campbell 58-308). The societies having more antistatist, individualistic cultures, like the United States have less active governments thus leave far more to the market, the family and the voluntary associations. While culture,ideology and values cannot be overlooked, there are enough reasons to doubt their descriptive purchase. b) Political institutions Scholars suggest that government and party institutions are important factors that affect social policy. State centered, institutionalist and polity centered approaches advocate that there is special attention to structural properties of states and policy legacies which describes the functions of the government. This approach suggests that social policy impassively reflected some previously recognized balance of power in the midst the competing interests. Some scholars suggest that some state actors initiated reforms in advance and in opposition to societal pressures (Morgan and Campbell 58-308). The state actors showed how political institutions and the public policies shapes the group demands and the group identities thus influencing the capability of different interests using power to their advantage. There are some principles that explain the shaping of a welfare development state. The principle explains that, theoretically, logical explanation should look at how the social interests chain with the political institutions to change the environment where the reformers act (Morgan and Campbell 58-308). c) Social actors In many cases welfare and culture state policies connected through the actual or the former activities of the social actors. Through their ideas, the social actors relate to the level of the welfare culture. The social actors include the collective actors, who comprises of political parties, social movements and NGOs (Alber 355-362). The primary actors refers to the potential groups of the actors having similar social positions do not express themselves as collective actors because they lack the resources (Alber 355-362). The social actors may engage in negotiation and conflict processes on the leading cultural values in societies. Welfare state strategies are founded on concepts on one hand and on the interests of the social actors on the other. The opportunities of the social actors to impact the welfare state policies differ in a large way depending on the resources they are able to mobilize. The conditions for social change are appropriate when the level of integration in cultural or the social system is low or the conflict level among the social actors relative to ideas is high (Alber 355-362). Question #2 The main differences between social welfare systems of United State and European countries. I. The Europeans pride themselves over the unique social model which combines the economic competence with social cohesion (K. J. Morgan 403-420). Even with those fully aware of the remarkable assortment of the social models within the EU, there is always an agreement that the European nations vary fundamentally from other regions in the world, particularly US, especially with respect to social policies. II. There is nothing comparable to the European Social Model found in the other parts of the world. The model is rather unique, rooted in shared values not replicated anywhere else so far. Particularly the model differs from the policies and developments in the US (K. J. Morgan 403-420). III. In spite of the desire of the many scholars viewing the social policy history in universal and evolutionary terms, the United States have never been close to owning a modern welfare state, according to the phrase of Swedish people (Kingdon 27-98). In addition, there were no complete American welfare state that arose from the New Deal and World War II. Similarly, history shows that there was not any such welfare state comprehensive throughout the next “big bang” of the United States societal policy innovations (Morel, Palier and Palme 49-289). IV. The other difference is cited in the deep rooted welfare state typology of the Esping-Andersen where classification of US is termed as a liberal welfare state (K. J. Morgan 403-420). Here welfare modest universal transfers, means-tested assistance and social insurance plans predominate to ensure the welfare basically caters to the poor and the working class. Meanwhile, the private insurance and the occupational fringe aid essentially cater to the middle classes (Morel, Palier and Palme 49-289). V. An Irish socialist described that the simplest difference is that Europeans own welfare states while the United States of America lack (Morel, Palier and Palme 49-289). In their memorandum of the new social Europe, the European party stated partly similar ideas stating that the EU had a unique welfare state, which was based on the conviction that performance and social inclusion can work together (Morel, Palier and Palme 49-289). VI. The social models of the Europe occur as the social reality and as an agreed set of collective values. The European welfare states share a lot of common values making them different from other regions(Kingdon 27-98). VII. An argument that the American welfare state varies and its rather incomplete in the recent years of the social spending, belongs to the extravagant social spenders consisting of five European countries. The countries are; Germany, France , Sweden, Belgium and United Kingdom. (Kingdon 27-98). This has an impact on the dual and ambivalent policy and it proposes that US do not signify the socially intemperate form of clean capitalism. That is United states does not share the same ideology as the above named countries (Morel, Palier and Palme 49-289). VIII. Further differences in composition of the social spending is evident in the two large spending social programs, which describes social spending as the great risk shift. The private systems of the US are of great importance in sum (Kingdon 27-98). There are even greater important variations in the alignment of public social spending. When the impact of taxation and the publicly authorized schemes get considered, US will move closer to the European countries(K. J. Morgan 403-420). Works Cited Alber, Jens. "Journal of European Social Policy." sage journals (2012): 355-362. Kingdon, John W. America the Unusual. New York: America the Unusual, 1999. Morel, Nathalie, Bruno Palier and Joakim Palme. Towards a Social Investment Welfare State?: Ideas, Policies and Challenges. New York: Towards a Social Investment Welfare State?: Ideas, Policies and Challenges, 2012. Morgan, K. J. "Politics and Society." sage journals (2013): 403-420. Morgan, Kimberly J. and Andrea Louise Campbell. "The Delegated Welfare State." Oxford Press University (2011 ): 336 . University, Long Beach Charles Noble Professor of Political Science California State. Welfare as We Knew It : A Political History of the American Welfare State: A Political History of the American Welfare State. Washington: Long Beach Charles Noble Professor of Political Science California State University, 1997. Read More