Download Free Welfare And Work In The Open Economy From Vulnerability To Competitiveness Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Welfare And Work In The Open Economy From Vulnerability To Competitiveness and write the review.

In this ground-breaking, two-volume study of the adjustment of advanced welfare states to international economic pressures, leading scholars detail the wide variety of responses in twelve countries. Volume I presents comparative analyses of differences in countries' vulnerabilities and capabilities, the effectiveness of their policy responses, and the role of values and discourse in the politics of adjustment. Volume II presents in-depth analyses of the experiences of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom as well as special studies on the participation of women in the labour market, early retirement, the liberalization of public services, and international tax competition.
In this ground-breaking, two-volume study of the adjustment of advanced welfare states to international economic pressures, leading scholars detail the wide variety of responses in twelve countries. Rejecting any notion of convergence to some kind of neo-liberal orthodoxy, they find that most countries have remained true to the basic features their postwar model as they have liberalized. Moreover, within differenct welfare-state constellations, while some countries are still struggling to adjust, others have reached a new sustainable equilibrium. Volume I presents comparative analyses of differences in countries' vulnerabilities and capabilities, the effectiveness of their policy responses, and the role of values and discourse in the politics of adjustment. Volume II presents in-depth analyses of the experiences of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom as well as special studies on the participation of women in the labor market, early retirement, the liberalization of public services, and international tax competition.
'Global Europe, Social Europe' makes an essential contribution to the debate now opening up over the future of Europe in the wake of the demise of the Constitution.
Policy Paradigms, Transnationalism, and Domestic Politics offers a variety of perspectives on the development of policy paradigms — the ideas that structure thinking about what can and should be done in a policy domain. In this collection, international experts examine how both transnational actors and domestic politics affect the structuring of these paradigms. As well as theoretical chapters, this volume includes six case studies showing ideas at work in a diverse range of policy domains from the recognition of same-sex unions to risk regulation of genetically modified organisms. These qualitative analyses show how transnational activities shape policy paradigms by building consensus on ideas about feasible and desirable public policies across authoritative decision-makers. Expertly researched and assembled, Policy Paradigms, Transnationalism, and Domestic Politics provides insight into the conditions under which different transnational actors can bring about changes in the core ideas that affect public policy development.
Social protection systems and labour markets have undergone major changes in the past two decades. Welfare states are being reformed, scaled back and modernised; labour markets, at the same time, are more precarious, more feminised, more unequal, and throughout the OECD area, older. The interaction between labour markets and social protection has become increasingly crucial to the social and economic policy mix concerning unemployment, the transformation of work, the new poverty, and even demographics. Against this background, an interdisciplinary team of leading labour market and social protection experts from various OECD countries examine the multifaceted aspects of the changing relationship between social protection systems and labour markets. They identify and analyse key emerging issues, such as the link between employment and social protection financing, the adaptation of social protection systems to women's career patterns, and the development of new forms of social protection that aim at promoting employment. With practical policy guides and recommendations using case studies and comparative chapters, this will be engaging reading for policy-makers, social actors and academics alike.
This book assesses the changing nature of state intervention in the economies of the affluent democracies. Against a widespread understanding that contemporary developments, such as globalization and new technologies, are pressing for a rollback of state regulation in the economy, the book shows that these same forces are also creating new demands and opportunities for state intervention. Thus, state activism has shifted, rather than simply eroded. State authorities have shifted from a market-steering orientation to a market-supporting one. Chief among the new state missions are: repairing the main varieties of capitalism (liberal, corporatist, and statist); making labor markets and systems of social protection more employment-friendly; recasting regulatory frameworks to permit countries to cross major economic and technological divides; and expanding market competition at home and abroad. Because the changes from market steering to market support are so controversial and far-reaching, state officials often find themselves making choices that produce clear winners and losers. Such choices require a capacity to act unilaterally and decisively, even in the face of substantial societal opposition. As a result, state activism, autonomy, and occasionally imposition remain essential for meeting the challenges of today's globalizing economy.
This title was first published in 2002. This multi-faceted account of the transformation of social democracy in Europe provides a unique critical discussion of the normative claims and the key policy initiatives that characterize Third Way politics. Designed to cover a broad range of aspects, this text provides fresh understanding of the transformation of social democratic politics in a globalizing world. Including accounts of the changes in the socio-political environment in which the New Social Democracy operates, the socio-cultural roots of Third Way politics and the underlying political and ideological shift of the contemporary established left, this text offers comparative insights into national case studies and an interpretative framework for the transformation that this political force has undergone in recent years. The reader will benefit from this book’s expert and easily accessible multi-faceted approach to one of the key political issues in contemporary Western societies.
This groundbreaking book powerfully humanizes the little-known urban workers who have been left behind in China’s single-minded drive to modernize. Dorothy Solinger traces the origins of their plight to the mid-1990s, when the Chinese government found that state-owned factories were failing in large numbers in the face of market reforms just as the country was about to enter the World Trade Organization. Under these circumstances, leaders urged firms to lay off tens of millions of previously lifetime-employed, welfare-secure, under-educated, middle-aged employees. As these dislocated people were left without any source of livelihood, the regime settled on a tiny welfare effort, the Minimum Livelihood Guarantee (dibao), to provide some support and, most important from the viewpoint of the leadership, to keep them quiet so that enterprise reform could proceed peacefully. Solinger explores the induced urban poverty that resulted and relates the painful struggle for survival of these discarded laborers. She also details the history and workings of the dibao and its missteps, as well as changes in policy over time. Drawing on dozens of interviews, this book brings to life the urban workers who have been relegated to obsolescence, isolation, and invisibility by China’s quest for modernity.
The end of the twentieth century saw an unprecedented coincidence of electoral success for social democratic parties in western Europe leading to intensive discussion on the future of this new European left. The debates often centred on the notion of a 'Third way' and generated major expectations for policy change among social democratic politicians and voters. The authors collected here examine the recent social and employment policies of these progressive parties, looking for change in the guiding principles of policy and on actual policy decisions. They show how the maxims of demand management and egalitarianism have been replaced by social investment and equality of opportunity and demonstrate the full extent of convergence on policies such as employment maximization, the containment of social expenditure and a shift towards a social investment welfare state.