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Adelphi University |
Purpose
The purpose of Social Policy as if People Matter was to convene an interdisciplinary, international group of scholars and students to consider the current conditions and future directions of the welfare state in the industrialized nations of the world.
Social Policy as if People Matter addressed questions including:
- Globalization: How Does It Alter the Power of Nation States?
- Demography: Is It Really Destiny?
- Natural and Fiscal Resources: How Do They Limit Social Welfare?
- Social Exclusion: How Powerful an Indicator of Vulnerability?
- The Social Democratic Model: How Desirable and How Durable?
- Restructuring or Retrenchment? How Much, How Serious?
Diminishing Welfare: A Cross-National Study of Social Provision |
Genesis of the Conference
Social Policy as if People Matter was a follow-up to a cross-national study edited by conference co-chair, Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, and Marguerite G. Rosenthal: Diminishing Welfare: A Cross-National Study of Social Provision (Auburn House, 2002). Diminishing Welfare examined social policy, employment, poverty, and inequality in nine industrialized nations. The study was an attempt to determine the extent of retrenchment in social policy in these countries in the last two decades of the twentieth century. The authors of the material included in Diminishing Welfare had conferred with the two editors, but have never met as a group.
The editors of Diminishing Welfare shared the view that the opportunity to work at decent wages is an important benefit or provision of the welfare state. They also agreed that the use of state power to extend economic rights and at the same time maintain or increase civil and political rights was one of the outstanding accomplishments of the twentieth century. Yet, despite accomplishing this extension of human rights, the welfare state was already in jeopardy by the end of the century. Among other things, Diminishing Welfare examined a hypothesis of political scientist Paul Pierson: that welfare states are hard to dismantle or to retrench significantly because they develop vested interests that persist, even when some of the forces that originally supported them have lost power.
Goldberg envisioned a dialogue in which the authors could take a critical look at the conclusions drawn at the time of their writing and offer updates to their respective chapters.
Goals
Authors representing all nine countries in the study prepared an overview of current conditions in their countries and presented them at the conference.
The goals of the conference were expanded to include:
- a look at vulnerable population groups in the context of social exclusion
- identification and critical examination of major challenges to social policy in the early years of the 21st century
- the desirability and feasibility of the most advanced version of the welfare state, the Social Democratic model.
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