Restructuring Welfare Governance

Quasi-markets and managerial steering techniques have spread in the provision of welfare state services and are now a salient feature. This innovative book explores the introduction and impact of marketization and managerialism in social policy by adopting a dual perspective - one on regulation and governance, the other on human resources - covering five fields of social service delivery. Welfare governance (for example, welfare mix, regulation, employment conditions and customer involvement) has changed significantly in the past decade. In particular, the new governance models not only clash with traditional ideas of bureaucratic regulation but also with the norms and standards of professional service delivery. The fact that the labor force in welfare organizations is made up of 'professionals' implies that the introduction of new modes of welfare governance often results in organizational conflicts. The editors and contributors collectively assesses these processes not only by comparing different policy fields and countries, but also by taking a close look inside organizations, examining the coping strategies of professionals, and how they adapt to new models of governing welfare organizations.An ideal compliment to undergraduate and postgraduate study, Restructuring Welfare Governance is essential reading for scholars in the fields of social policy, public administration and comparative welfare state analysis.

Welfare governance has changed expressively in the past decade. The administration and implementation of welfare involve a wide diversity of state organisations, private commercial organisations and non-profit organisations. However, the roles and positions of these states, private and non-profit organisations in administering and implementing social policies vary significantly between countries. This inconsistency is commonly accredited to the differences in welfare systems. However, in the era of welfare reform, everything is in instability. This includes the role and position of state, private and non-profit actors in social policies. The concept of governance, which is widely gaining popularity in social policies, refers to these changing relations between government and society. Governance is about sustaining co-ordination and coherence among a wide variety of actors with different purposes and objectives such as political actors and institutions, corporate interests, civil society, and transnational organisations. So there are many reasons to assume that welfare reform has affected the involvement of state, private and non-profit actors in administering and implementing social policy. The book, Restructuring Welfare Governance, tries to figure out the mechanisms by which good governance and economic order influence economic outcome. As the system of social welfare governance faces continued, radical change, this important book argues that this change is so extensive that we should consider it a fundamental transformation or revolution. This monograph shows how a new public governance perspective has replaced the dominance of public management, reflecting the increasingly plural and fragmented nature of public policy implementation. Drawing on studies across a range of policy areas, this comprehensive book unravels the complex ways in which changes in social policy and governance interact in the delivery of social welfare, making it essential reading for welfare researchers, students, and policy makers. With the development of formally free labour markets, market forces became the chief mode of capitalist economic coordination. The concept of governance is very useful in analysing welfare regimes as it enables us to classify regimes in terms of their typical combinations of modes of coordination. In particular, the new governance models not only clash with traditional ideas of bureaucratic regulation but also with the norms and standards of professional service delivery.

Providing a new comparative analysis of the changes which have radically questioned the 'old' organizational arrangements of the delivery of welfare services since the early 1980s, this book argues that new managerial accountability regimes severely undermine the democratic foundations of the welfare state in Europe.

Focusing on the new institutional governance affecting health care and state education in the new millennium, Mattei offers a compelling analyses of the pressures 'from within' public organizations providing welfare services. In a broad comparative perspective, the book analyses current welfare reforms in Britain, Germany, France and Italy. Mattei draws on recent work in public administration theory, and empirical new findings from public hospitals and state secondary schools, to develop an important argument about the variations of accountability relationships and the effects on the decision-making process. The book offers illuminating insights into the effectiveness of the new public governance of welfare organizations, pointing in particular to the implications for democratic accountability. In addressing the following question - how the relationship between political and managerial accountability is changing in welfare services - the book will be of interest to students and academics concerned with the development of the welfare state, as well as in the fields of comparative politics, social policy and public administration. Policy-makers and professionals engaged directly in managing welfare organizations will also find this book an innovative contribution to further their understanding of the role of managerialism in the modern transformations of the welfare state.

"Virpi Timonen investigates both the changes that have taken place in central social policies in the areas of pensions, unemployment policies, social and health servcies, and the political and structural reasons for the pattern of policy change that emerged. A critical evaluation of the roles of globalization, political mechanisms and power relationships in shaping these social policies in Finland and Sweden is also featured.".

In May 2015, general elections in the United Kingdom shocked the world as a new Conservative Government was voted into power, ending five years of Coalition governance. Both a response to the actions of the Coalition Government and a reflection on the implications of actions taken during the first hundred days of the new Conservative Government, this book could not be more timely in its assessment of the current and future states of UK social policies. The first book to consider Coalition social policy in its entirety, it not only reviews and evaluates the extent of change under the Coalition--looking at the impact of factors like austerity measures on social policies and politics more broadly--but also draws out what the Coalition years will mean for the incoming government, outlining both the challenges and opportunities of its legacy.

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Sociology - Political Sociology, Majorities, Minorities, grade: A, University of Dalarna (Political Sociology), course: Restructuring the Welfare State, language: English, abstract: As health care is among the most personal issues, this is one reason why it is also among the most politically discussed as cost containment has become a priority of health care policy. Health care has consumed a large and growing portion of social spending in all advanced industrialised societies, particularly in the last decade. This cost explosion coincided with the global economic slowdown and worries about the fiscal viability of the welfare state. Reasons for escalating health care costs are, although to varying degrees, common to Western countries. The health care sector provides fertile ground for technological innovations that may prolong life but at considerable expense. Moreover, once these discoveries are made, it is extremely difficult for insurers or governments to limit their provision, as patients demand access to these treatments. Furthermore, the aging population of Western countries has direct consequences for health care because older persons are more likely to be in need of cost intensive treatment and/or care due to acute illness or chronic conditions. At the same time, birth rates are no longer balanced with increasing longevity, so that there will be fewer working age persons in the future to bear the financial requirements for elderly care. Governments and employers claimed that health care costs posed immediate and longterm problems and began to search for ways to address them. The ‘new politics of the welfare state’ – Pierson’s (1996) famous concept, which deals with welfare state reform in the face of changing demographic and tougher economic conditions – has also modified the position of diverse welfare state stakeholders. The actions and preferences of payers and the state are determined by the prevailing health care system as well as by the political system and whether it provides them an opportunity to influence health policies.