Poli 427 Midterm Flashcards
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What is social policy?
- Social policy is “the policy of governments [that directly impacts] the welfare of the citizens by providing them with services and income.” (T.H. Marshall)
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What is a welfare state?
- Focuses on the development and politics of social programs
- All of these social programs together make up a welfare state
- Welfare state development is shaped by several economic and political factors ranging from economic growth and cultural values to partisan mobilization and political institutions.
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What are the 5 theoretical perspectives on welfare states?
1) Industrialism
2) National values
3) Power resource
4) Business power
5) Historical institutionalism
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What is the industrial perspective?
- It is the functionalist sturctural explanation
- Industrialization and related demographic and social trends foster welfare expansion (Wilensky);
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What is the national values theoretical perspective?
- It is a functionalist ideational explanation
- Variation in cultural beliefs explains cross-national variation in social policy
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What is the power resource theoretical perspective?
- It is conflict-based institutional explanation.
- The political strength of the working class is the key factor (Korpi)
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What is the business power theoretical perspective?
- It is conflict-based structural explanation
- Business power is the key factor
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What is the historical institutionalism theoretical perspective?
- It is an institutional explanation
- Stresses the impact of political institutions and policy legacies overtime
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What are the three main types of social programs?
1) Social assistance
2) Social insurance
3) Universal transfers and services
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What differentiates the three types?
1) Operation
2) Who pays (where does the money come from)
3) Under which criteria is someone entitledto the service and/or money?
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What is the difference between unemployed and jobless?
- Unemployed: looking for a job
- Jobless: not looking
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What are factors which influence the type of social program someone receives?
- Kids
- Single and/or married
- Are you able to work?
- Do you have a permanent disability or is it temporary?
- Age (65 or over?)
- Race
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
How does social assistance operate, what is the criteria, are there issues and name an example
Operation:
- Is the oldest form of social program.
- Based on need, entitled to benefit based on perceived need (poor)
- Operates based on self-reliance and dependence: dependent on others who do pay taxes
Target populations: Some target populations are better perceived than others (temporary disability = lazy)
Who pays:
- Money comes from general tax
- Redistribution of taxes
Criteria:
- Do not need to pay taxes to receive benefit (not dependent on fiscal contribution)
- Income tested: how much money you earn (Less intrusive than mean-tested)
- Are you under the threshold
- Unemployed = get assistance
- Means-tested: about income and assets.
Controversial because inspectors have to visit the house (invasive)
Issues with program:
- Hard to prove you have a disability
- You have to continually reprove that you need the money
- Welfare is a tainted word, all about language
- People do not stay on social assistance as long as people perceive
**Example: **
Provincial welfare benefits; Guaranteed Income Supplement)
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
How does social insurance operate, what is the criteria, are there issues and name an example
Operation:
- Benefits related to payroll contributions for wageworkers
- Called that because it reduces uncertainty
- Not related to poverty
- Pensions: age –> allocated to a certain purpose
Who pays:
- Income tax
- Note: payroll contribution and income tax are the same thing
- Some can be covered by general tax
Criteria:
- Related to employment status
- You contribute overtime through income tax
- You lose your job but contributed for a long time = you get the money (or 65 and up)
- There is a ceiling = there is a max amount of money you can get
Issues with program:
- Despite being entitled to the benefit because you contributed does not always mean you’ll receive the money
- You pay someone else’s employment insurance
- If you die before receiving it it just disappears
- Government misuse
**Examples: **
- Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan
Important distinctions:
- Social insurance = can’t opt out -> you are protecting people through mandatory coverage
- Private insurance = can opt out
- Note: if you could opt out it would be perceived as selfish, it is a moral hazard -> someone ends up homeless because you decided not to pay
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
How do universal transfers and services operate, what is the criteria, are there issues and name an example
Operation:
- Universal benefits financed by general revenues for citizens and permanent residents
- Coverage varies just as procedure does
- All people have access to the same services
Who pays:
-General tax
Criteria:
- We decide who is considered based on the law (asylum, tourists etc)
Issues with programs:
- Access is not the same, people in rural areas have different access (helicopters to the hospitals, racial prejudice, discrimination)
- It is universal for certain groups (citizens etc)
**Examples: **
Example: Medicare and Old Age Security
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
Who founded the three types of welfare regimes?
- In his book The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Esping-Andersen draws a line between three types of welfare state regimes.
- Note: alternate typologies are available in literature.
- His approach is well knoen because it is elegant and simple.
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What are the main relationships Esping-Andersen focuses on?
- Each of these regimes are about a particular relationship between states, markets, and families (mix of power resource and historical institutionalism)
- States: governments, the state decides what are private and public markets
- Markets: who provides the benefits
- Also focuses on pensions and unemployment benefits (about income not health insurance)
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What are the three main welfare state regimes?
1) Liberal Regime: Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States
2) Conservative (Bismarckian) regime: Austria, France, Germany
3) Social democratic regime: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What characterizes Liberal regimes?
- Residual role of the state
- Market does most of the regulating until the market fails
- Low benefits to encourage return to work
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What characterizes conservative welfare regimes?
- Continental Europe
- Reliance on social insurance: less focus on assistance
- Increase payroll taxes
- Conservative because traditional gender roles are affirmed (hierarchical and proportional to income)
- Some are more generous over others: different sectors, stratified, traditional family roles
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What characterizes social democratic welfare regimes?
- State is the largest in terms of welfare
- Challenge traditional roles –> encourage women to work
- Feminist movements have played a large role
- Egalitarian (central)
- Universal benefits
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What are potential criticisms of Esping-Andersen’s notion of welfare states?
- Feminist scholars have long criticized Esping-Andersen’s work for his limited attention to asymmetrical gender relations.
- Does not consider non-political actors
Capitalism and Welfare Regimes
What are critiques of welfare regimes?
- These things should be done by families
- Stephen Harper: instead of subsidizing child care, send money to families directly, let them choose whether they want to go to daycare or not
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What factors influence social policy orientation?
- Electoral and fiscal situations
- Revenues, voters, preferences etc
- Political party= brokerage party (adapt to various political climates)
- Blame avoidance
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What are the policy orientations when it comes to social policy?
- They are a mix of paradigms and political ideologies
- Within the same country people don;t agree on what type of welfare state to be…
- Typically: Left leaning = ♥️ and right leaning= 💔 however it is all relative
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What are the three orientations of social policy?
1) Economic liberalism
2) Social protection
3) Cultural recognition
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What is the economic liberal policy orientation?
- Emphasizes individualism, the central role of self-regulated markets, and residual, limited social programming
- Traces back to Adam Smith/ predates modern welfare state
- Neo-liberals have backlash against modern neoliberalism, they are against the expansion of the welfare state)
- Note, not opposed to welfare state as a whole rather encourages reduced market regulations and back to work incentives
- Argue for lower taxes (fiscal conservatism)
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What is the social protection policy orientation?
- Emphasizes redistribution, the positive role of labor unions, and large, public social programs
- These types of social politicist fight for social inequality
- Argue for large social programs
- Example: NDP, Quebec Solidaire
- Justin Trudeau: encourages economic liberalism and social protection on the back burner
- 1995 most neoliberal budget ever seen in Canada
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What is the cultural recognition policy orientation?
- Emphasizes diversity, the legacies of colonialism, the need to fight discrimination, and the rights of ethno-cultural minorities.
- Mobilization of indigenous people
- Reconciliation (equal access to services)
- More than money, it is justice (emotional)
- Immigration, racism, 2SLGBTQ+
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What is globalization?
- Authors define it in terms of economic terms, foreign investment, free trade etc
- This is a shortcoming however, as it does not consider global service chains (nannies etc), information distribution and knowledge
- Ultimately, narrow view is detrimental to extensive view however, globalization can create incentive
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What are the negative impacts of globalization on social policy?
- In Chapter 1 of their book, Rice and Prince (2013) stresses the negative impact of globalization on social programming;
- It is related to the polarization of labour markets and the growing clout and mobility of transnational corporations
- Fiscal competition can also decrease social programs running
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What are the positive impacts of globalization on social policy?
- Economic globalization can legitimize new forms of social programming in the name of social investment, which is tied to global economic competitiveness;
- Globalization is also about immigration, policy diffusion, and environmental issues that are not purely economic in nature.
- Countries become more competitive globally which can encourage forward thinking social policy
- Some social policies are compatible with the global arena such as increasing education to achieve more educated workforce
- Ethnocontract diversity
- Draw lessons from other countries such as climate change and hospital waste
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What is an example of a positive and negative of globalization on social policy?
- Free trade expands and contracts constantly, not a linear process globalization causes both
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
Why is pluralization a key factor in social policy?
- Because pluralization leads to fragmentation of society
- Fragmentation refers to people no longer staying at the same job, stay in school longer to keep with economy
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What are the ways that pluralization takes form in society?
- A less predictable life course (education, work, and retirement)
- A greater level of diversity in family patterns
- Increase in divorce rates
- Nuclear family disappeared leading to the decline of traditional gender roles
- Diversity of sexual pattern in the social sphere - Growing cultural, ethnic, racial and linguistic diversity
- Canada is built on immigration
- Initially a very white country
- 1971 Multiculturalism Policy policy designed to encourage white immigrants versus policies now which target everybody - Deconstruction of taken-for-granted ideas about life and society
- Canada is less religious than it was before
- Abortion, death penalty, assisted suicide
- Mental health challenges are better excepted - Multiplication of interest groups and constituencies
- Indigenous, LGBTQ +, disabled, black
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
How was social policy perceived in the colonial era?
- Domination of individualistic, liberal creed
- Role of the state limited to social assistance to the poor
- Key role of families, churches, and charities
- For a long time public social policy targeted poor people and had a small scope
- Extended family was to provide welfare from young to old age
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
How did social spending alter following 1867 (confederation)?
- Provinces started playing a key role
- Tension between limited fiscal capacity of the provinces and their constitutional responsibility
- Decentralized but challenged by fiscal power/capacity of federal and provincial governments (federal government has more fiscal capabilities)
- Tensions between federal and provincial are exacerbated
- Social assistance = municipal and provincial initially however the federal government has intervened (however need principal permission because it expands beyond the scope of jurisdictions)
- Federalism used as a reason to or not to act
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
How does the federal government frame it as not their problem?
- Provinces should reform not us
- Creates confusion for voters as they do not know who to hold accountable
- Creates challenges in terms of governance as deals need to made.
The Politics of Social Policy in Canada
What characterized social policy in the early 20th century?
- Provincial social policy reforms between 1914 and the
- 1930s: workers’ compensations, mothers’ pensions, and minimum wage laws;
- 1927 Old Age Pensions Act: provincial resistance but hard to refuse federal cash;
- The impact of the Great Depression: centralizing tendencies, as the provinces needed federal fiscal support to deal with high poverty and unemployment;
- 1935 Employment and Social Insurance Act; stricken down by Privy Council
Retrenchment
How did the post-war II era contribute to the welfare state?
- Post war wealth justified large welfare program
- It led to increased employment insurance as of the 1970s
- Keynaism (increased role of government) was the norm
Retrenchment
What is stagnation?
- It refers to increased unemployment and subsequently increased cost of living
Retrenchment
How do governments address stagnation?
- They increase spending and control
- It is a form of neoliberal economists, a revamped version of economic liberalism
Retrenchment
Which world leader is known for reducing the welfare state?
- Margaret Thatcher was a huge proponent to the reduction of the welfare state
- Reagan: he attempted to however he was less successful than Thatcher because of congress
Retrenchment
What distinction does Pierson make?
- Pierson (1996): “There is a profound difference between extending benefits to large numbers of people and taking benefits away.” (145)
- Here he is making a distinction between politics of expansion and politics of retrenchment
Retrenchment
What are the politics of the welfare state?
- Support reduction in public spending and yet they were incapable in some policy areas
- Attributable to the alterations to the politics of the welfare state
- Large public social programs are now a central part of the political landscape
- As the welfare state develops, it becomes more difficult to dismantle it
Retrenchment
Why do governments participate in retrenchment despite its political importance?
- “Retrenchment is generally an exercise in blame avoidance rather than credit claiming, primarily because the costs of retrenchment are concentrated (…), while the benefits are not.” (145)
- Retrenchment involves cut backs which eventually turns into further expansion
- Despite being blamed the increase in social welfare subsequently following is regarded positively
Retrenchment
What are examples of retrenchment?
- Reduction of employment insurance
- Reduction of pension
Retrenchment
What is credit claiming?
- You say I am responsible for good news
- Develop strategies so when good things happen you can claim credit
Retrenchment
What is blame avoidance?
- Try to avoid being perceived as responsible for things that are happening
- Blame those who use the benefits, other levels of government, previous administrations
Retrenchment
What is institutionalism?
- A theory supported by Pierson
- It suggests that politics are shaped by politics that already exists
It involves policy feedback, programs become self reinforcing overtime
Explains why some countries expanded faster than others
Retrenchment
What is policy feedback?
- It is when a program generates its own politics
- When a policy becomes less popular shaping politics overtime
- Example: childcare in Quebec
Retrenchment
How does positive policy feedback impact politics?
- You can’t just dismantle the system because the government knows its popularity which leads to a resilient policy ultimately shaping politics.
Retrenchment
What are the three types of retrenchment?
1) Pragmatic
2) Systemic
3) Paradigmatic
Retrenchment
What is pragmatic retrenchment?
- Program-centered
- It focuses on cutting certain programs and measures
- It is a short term solution
- Example of universal Family Allowances replaced by income-tested Child Tax Credit (1993)
Retrenchment
What is systemic retrenchment?
- Long-term impact on the institutional and fiscal environment
- Involves reducing fiscal capacity of the state (reducing taxes and transfer)
- Makes pragmatic retrenchment possible/ more likely
- Cuts in federal transfers for health care, social assistance, social services, and post-secondary education (1995)
Retrenchment
What is paradigmatic retrenchment?
- Weakening or eliminating support for key welfare state principles
- Neo-liberal principles
- Government is too expensive
- Decrease social spending
- Abandoning full employment as the main goal of public policy (beyond Keynes).
Retrenchment
When did Canada first witness retrenchment?
- 1995 under Brian Mulroney unemployment insurance became employment insurance
Retrenchment
What does the expression “Nixon goes to China means”?
- It means to do something not expected of you ideologically
- You can afford to do something because to be doing it for the right reasons
Retrenchment
How did Chrétien engage in retrenchment?
- Managed to balance the budget and have a surplus leading to increased welfare
- Chrétien took credit however, it is also attributable to the US economy flourishing and so was the global economy
Retrenchment
What are examples of modern keynesian?
- 2008 economic crash
- Pandemic
- Each of these instances were about spending, spending, spending
Retrenchment
What are the three approaches to retrenchment?
1) Power resource
2) Retrenchment
3) Feminist
Retrenchment
What is the power resource approach?
- Focuses on labor unions and parties
- Leads to social democratic regimes
- Politics of expansion can be explained here
- Peirson acknowledges the role it plays in the expansion of the welfare state
- When talking about retrenchment it is less important
- Labour movements instrumental to building social powers in Nordic countries
- Due to decline in labor power beneficiaries have difficulty defending social powers (Brian Mulroney)
- NDP is a labour party
Retrenchment
What is the retrenchment approach?
- Focuses on concrete economic and fiscal pressures as well as the impact of existing policy legacies
Retrenchment
What is the feminist approach?
- Focuses on discourse and the structuring role of gender but also class and racial inequalities.
- It emphasizes the role of institutions
- Role gender sheds light on politics of retrenchment
- In focusing on gender etc you can trace the effectiveness and availability of welfare programs
Retrenchment
Why did Bashevkin introduce the feminist approach?
- To critique Pierson’s theory which overlooked gendered etc aspects
- She argues for a revised retrenchment approach sensitive to social inequality, which is depicted as superior to the power resources approach.
- “The central claim in this article is that neither Pierson’s key ‘new politics’ nor the arguments about the ‘newer’ politics of social risk are adequate to understand recent developments in social policy.” (p. 3)
Studying Retrenchment
Why is choosing appropriate cases and methods important?
- People who study Canada can borrow from other countries however, these methods do not necessarily apply correctly to the Canadian instances
- Various political systems, welfare states etc make adapting methods difficult, easier to come up with your own method
- Ultimately, Canada is not that cool when you compare it to the appropriate countries (aka not the United States)
Studying Retrenchment
What factors were analyzed in the Bashevkin article?
- The article looks at the “new politics of federal social policy expansion” during the Harper (2006-2015) and Justin Trudeau (2015-) years, with a focus on three policy areas: family policy, specifically child benefits (UCCB; CCB) and childcare transfers; public pensions (CPP); and Employment Insurance (EI)
- Analysis of five factors: fiscal conditions, increased recognition of new social risks, partisan competition, electoral leverage for parties of the left, and political institutions.
Retrenchment
Is retrenchment a unilateral experience?
- No, you can have retrenchment and expansion within the same policy
- Canada is a good example
Retrenchment
What role do economic cycles play?
- Economic cycles are important when it comes to retrenchment versus expansion
- As the population gets older more money is spent on social programs (demographic aging)
Retrenchment
What roles does permanent hostility play?
- Retrenchment becomes hard because people become hostile when their social policies are cut so they spend more.
Retrenchment
What role does business power play?
- Large corporations have replaced labour forces
- Businesses prefer retrenchment as it is indicative of lower taxes
- Note, that small businesses also prefer retrenchment as it lowers taxes (they are vulnerable)
- Pierson looks overlooks growth of businesses despite focusing on definition of labour power
Retrenchment
How did Jean Chretien participate in retrenchment?
- In order for his liberals to regain power (strong conservative support) they stole votes from the NDP because there was no alternative (TINA)
- 1995 resulted in big budget cuts despite being expansionist two years earlier
- His liberals retrenched to than expand once budget surplus was evident
Retrenchment
How did Stephen Harper participate in retrenchment?
- Dismantle childcare to implement universal children
- 2008 financial crisis, minority government forces expansion of social programs
Retrenchment
How did Justin Trudeau partake in retrenchment?
- ismantled universal childcare
- Gave more money to lower income families
2015 committed to dismantling old age security and suggested working with provinces; however, the minority government results in NDP influencing liberals to take more money towards pension. - Keep your coverage with company and those who do not will cover you.
- Liberals do what NDP does but with a little less “extremism”
- He initially stated that within the first two years he would not balance the budget because of moving more left towards NDP.
