<p>This dissertation takes a step towards providing a better understanding of post-socialist welfare state development from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. The overall analytical goal of this thesis has been to critically assess the development of social policies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania using them as illustrative examples of post-socialist welfare state development in the light of the theories, approaches and typologies that have been developed to study affluent capitalist democracies. The four studies included in this dissertation aspire to a common aim in a number of specific ways.</p><p>The first study tries to place the ideal-typical welfare state models of the Baltic States within the well-known welfare state typologies. At the same time, it provides a rich overview of the main social security institutions in the three countries by comparing them with each other and with the previous structures of the Soviet period. It examines the social insurance institutions of the Baltic States (old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, short-term benefits, sickness, maternity and parental insurance and family benefits) with respect to conditions of eligibility, replacement rates, financing and contributions. The findings of this study indicate that the Latvian social security system can generally be labelled as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models. The Estonian social security system can generally also be characterised as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models, even if there are some weak elements of the targeted model in it. It appears that the institutional changes developing in the social security system of Lithuania have led to a combination of the basic security and targeted models of the welfare state. Nevertheless, as the example of the three Baltic States shows, there is diversity in how these countries solve problems within the field of social policy. In studying the social security schemes in detail, some common features were found that could be attributed to all three countries. Therefore, the critical analysis of the main social security institutions of the Baltic States in this study gave strong supporting evidence in favour of identifying the post-socialist regime type that is already gaining acceptance within comparative welfare state research.</p><p>Study Two compares the system of social maintenance and insurance in the Soviet Union, which was in force in the three Baltic countries before their independence, with the currently existing social security systems. The aim of the essay is to highlight the forces that have influenced the transformation of the social policy from its former highly universal, albeit authoritarian, form, to the less universal, social insurance-based systems of present-day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This study demonstrates that the welfare–economy nexus is not the only important factor in the development of social programs. The results of this analysis revealed that people's attitudes towards distributive justice and the developmental level of civil society also play an important part in shaping social policies. The shift to individualism in people’s mentality and the decline of the labour movement, or, to be more precise, the decline in trade union membership and influence, does nothing to promote the development of social rights in the Baltic countries and hinders the expansion of social policies. The legacy of the past has been another important factor in shaping social programs. It can be concluded that social policy should be studied as if embedded not only in the welfare-economy nexus, but also in the societal, historical and cultural nexus of a given society. </p><p>Study Three discusses the views of the state elites on family policy within a wider theoretical setting covering family policy and social policy in a broader sense and attempts to expand this analytical framework to include other post-socialist countries. The aim of this essay is to explore the various views of the state elites in the Baltics concerning family policy and, in particular, family benefits as one of the possible explanations for the observed policy differences. The qualitative analyses indicate that the Baltic States differ significantly with regard to the motives behind their family policies. Lithuanian decision-makers seek to reduce poverty among families with children and enhance the parents’ responsibility for bringing up their children. Latvian policy-makers act so as to increase the birth rate and create equal opportunities for children from all families. Estonian policy-makers seek to create equal opportunities for all children and the desire to enhance gender equality is more visible in the case of Estonia in comparison with the other two countries. It is strongly arguable that there is a link between the underlying motives and the kinds of family benefits in a given country. This study, thus, indicates how intimately the attitudes of the state bureaucrats, policy-makers, political elite and researchers shape social policy. It confirms that family policy is a product of the prevailing ideology within a country, while the potential influence of globalisation and Europeanisation is detectable too.</p><p> The final essay takes into account the opinions of welfare users and examines the performances of the institutionalised family benefits by relying on the recipients’ opinions regarding these benefits. The opinions of the populations as a whole regarding government efforts to help families are compared with those of the welfare users. Various family benefits are evaluated according to the recipients' satisfaction with those benefits as well as the contemporaneous levels of subjective satisfaction with the welfare programs related to the absolute level of expenditure on each program. The findings of this paper indicate that, in Latvia, people experience a lower level of success regarding state-run family insurance institutions, as compared to those in Lithuania and Estonia. This is deemed to be because the cash benefits for families and children in Latvia are, on average, seen as marginally influencing the overall financial situation of the families concerned. In Lithuania and Estonia, the overwhelming majority think that the family benefit systems improve the financial situation of families. It appears that recipients evaluated universal family benefits as less positive than targeted benefits. Some universal benefits negatively influenced the level of general satisfaction with the family benefits system provided in the countries being researched. This study puts forward a discussion about whether universalism is always more legitimate than targeting. In transitional economies, in which resources are highly constrained, some forms of universal benefits could turn out to be very expensive in relative terms, without being seen as useful or legitimate forms of help to families.</p><p> In sum, by closely examining the different aspects of social policy, this dissertation goes beyond the over-generalisation of Eastern European welfare state development and, instead, takes a more detailed look at what is really going on in these countries through the examples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In addition, another important contribution made by this study is that it revives ‘western’ theoretical knowledge through ‘eastern’ empirical evidence and provides the opportunity to expand the theoretical framework for post-socialist societies.</p>

No abstract available.

In 2001 the South African government established the Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF) as a national youth development initiative to promote employment opportunities for young people and enhance entrepreneurship amongst them for sustainable livelihoods. The UYF focused on three areas: contact, information and counselling; skills development and transfer, and youth entrepreneurship. This study aimed to explore the relationship between job creation and the UYF's skills development and transfer programme. It investigated the impact of the UYF training programmes in helping youth establish business enterprises and the creation of jobs. Using a nonexperimental approach, qualitative and quantitative data was collected from purposively selected UYF personnel and a sample of UYF beneficiaries. The data was thematically and statistically analysed to determine the programme's role on new firm formation, job creation, and the quality of life of beneficiaries and their families. The study found a positive impact of UYF's entrepreneurship education and training programme on new firm formation (self-employment), disposable income and the quality of life of the beneficiaries and their families. At the same time, there was a negative impact towards reducing unemployment and creating jobs. Also, the entrepreneurship education programme did not attract adequate participation by beneficiaries and its curriculum content did not cover critical entrepreneurship skills. The findings show that more interventions are required to enable to the Umsobomvu Youth Fund to deliver on its skills development and job creation mandate better. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Durban, 2011.

This dissertation discusses corruption within the Nigeria Police Force as a moral decay facing the institution. It provides an overview of the historical background and establishment of the Nigeria Police Force as an institution charged with the responsibility of protecting life and property, and maintaining peace and order in the country. The dissertation identifies various forms of police misconduct, such as bribery and extortion, mass arrests and detention, illegal bail charges and corruption within the leadership of the police. This deviant behavior has undermined the integrity of the force, with the result that public perception of the police force is negative and national security and development is undermined. Despite numerous anti-corruption strategies that have been devised to curb police misconduct, it remains difficult to reduce corruption within the force. This dissertation argues that implementing documented strategies in the workplace requires a deeper moral consciousness of their civic duties on the part of the police. This would promote the common good and increase the effectiveness of community policing. To support this view, the dissertation critically analyses the inadequacies in the anti-corruption strategies from an ethical perspective, and reveals the contending ethical implications facing the strategies. In search for solution to curb police corruption, the dissertation proposes incorporating in policing certain virtues embedded in the Afrocentric ethic of Omoluabi, such as good character, respect, diligence and communalism. This approach could provide insights to complement the existing anti-corruption mechanisms that aim to reduce police misconduct. In conclusion, the dissertation argues that embracing values in traditional African culture could contribute to the ongoing search for ways to combat police corruption. Therefore, there is a need to look into admirable values gleaned from an African indigenous understanding of morality, in order to address the ethical issues facing the police force in Nigeria. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2014.

The past decade has been witness to a growing concern with the political, moral and social capacity of young people to demonstrate ‘active citizenship’. Alongside the introduction of citizenship education in schools there has been evidence of increased political and public anxiety about how young people integrate within their local communities. All of this has taken place in the context of broader social policy debates about how individuals demonstrate social responsibility in late modern, advanced liberal democracies. This study investigated how young people define and experience active citizenship in their everyday, real world settings. It comprised workshops and focus groups with 93 young people aged 14-16 living in the East Midlands. Using an adaptive theory design, the investigation utilised definitions generated by young people to build an applied theory of active citizenship. Young people in this study defined active citizenship in terms of membership and status, social responsibility and to a lesser extent, political literacy. Through a process of deliberation, they determined six concepts to be most important in thinking about active citizenship. These were ‘rights’; ‘responsibilities’; ‘care for others’; ‘control’; ‘making decisions’, and ‘respect’. These concepts were explored in relation to the everyday experiences of young people. Young people experience active citizenship differently within and between each context of their lives (proximate, community and institutional levels) showing high degrees of related skills and awareness. Whilst communities and institutions offer some opportunities for young people to test and develop citizenship identities, they also present significant barriers.

Denmark, being a much smaller country than Britain, has, in absolute terms, a smaller housing problem. Nevertheless, there are surely lessons to be learned from the highly successful system which the Danish people and Government have worked out for themselves. A housing society, or some equivalent organization, provided for each separate region or sub-region in Great Britain might offer a solution to the difficult [sic.] that design for our working-class housing is under the controls of councils of very varying degrees of technical knowledge, which then have to be prodded and supervised to some extent by various Government departments. The housing society seems an admirable compromise, provided that it can be kept on the completely non-profit making basis that is successfully secured in Denmark. Ian Bowen, Housing Policy in Denmark, The Architects' Journal, August 4, 1949, p.133 A generation of competent technicians and fearless, idealistic politicians [in Britain] have been able to make a contribution which will persist as a good example of the capabilities of the present and as an incomparable field of study for others who are working in planning. Aage Jedich, Report from Holme-Tranbjerg Council Committee's visit to England, 12.07.19631 A comparison of the housing provided by two cities within separate nation states may encourage a mutually admiring gaze from each position. Comparisons have provided a tool in learning about new housing practices, understanding one's own position from a different vantage point and throwing light on areas that may have remained unquestioned until a visit abroad revealed different approaches to a similar problem. As the quotes above suggest, professional groups involved in the provision of housing and urban planning in post-war Denmark and Britain held each other's national strategies in high regard as they contemplated their local problems of creating spaces for effective urban communities. It will become clear for the cities studied in this thesis that local councillors, public officials and social housing providers at times sought to explore the wider areas of learning that practices abroad could offer. Yet the main approach adopted in this thesis is the comparative historical approach: the thesis studies the origins and history of social housing systems in Arhus, Denmark, and Newcastle, Britain. The comparison creates contrasts and similarities between the two cities through an urban social history approach. The key theme explored in the work is the notions of local democratic culture arising within the social housing systems of the two cities covering most of the twentieth century, but with an emphasis on the period 1945-1979. The introduction will discuss themes running through the work and will consider how the structure of the thesis allows for the comparison to illuminate aspects of the local political culture of the two cities that was directly affected by and affected in turn the local provision of social housing. Like most Western European cities in the twentieth century Arhus and Newcastle faced the problems of providing adequate housing for large groups of working people as the cities grew or older housing types became outdated. The study examines the options and strategies that were explored and adopted by the housing authorities in the two cities to recover from slumps in housing provision. It is clear that each city approached housing provision through different groups of facilitators: in Arhus, as in Denmark in general, the housing association was the primary generator of social housing, while Newcastle followed the British pattern — providing social housing through the municipality. Thus the agency of provision was different in the two cases from the outset. How the mediating influence of housing associations between the Arhusian Council and residents in social housing contrasted with the direct provision of council housing in Newcastle is a key issue for the the...

Sozialpolitik ist eine nationalstaatliche Angelegenheit. Das senkt die Chancen auf eine harmonisierte oder gar einheitliche europäische Sozialpolitik. Aus diesem Grund hat sich EU-Kommission darauf verlegt, soziale und soziostrukturelle Zielzustände zu definieren und zu erreichen (Ergebniskonvergenz), die Wahl der sozialpolitischen Wege dorthin aber den Mitgliedstaaten zu überlassen. Unter Rückgriff auf interessentheoretische Überlegungen lässt sich jedoch zeigen, dass unabhängig von den Bemühungen der Kommission innerhalb der EU auch die sozialpolitischen Strukturen, Institutionen und Verfahren inklusive der ihnen zugrundeliegenden Leitideen konvergieren (Verfahrenskonvergenz). Für eine Sozialunion ist dies eine wesentliche Voraussetzung. Dass trotz der verfahrenskonvergenten Entwicklung die Realisierungschancen für eine solche Sozialunion oder zumindest die Wahrscheinlichkeit supranational harmonisierter nationaler Sozialpolitiken in absehbarer Zeit nicht steigen werden, liegt einerseits an den Divergenzen der wirtschaftlichen Leistungsfähigkeit der EU-Mitgliedstaaten. Andererseits bleibt auch zu prüfen, inwieweit die sozialpolitischen Vorstellungen der EU mit den sich annähernden sozialpolitischen Verfahren in den EU-Mitgliedsstaaten in Übereinstimmung zu bringen sind. / Social policy is a nation-state matter. This reduces the prospects of a harmonized or even unified European social policy. For this reason, the EU Commission has resorted to defining the social target states to achieve (outcome convergence). The choice of the political way there is left to the Member countries. Relying on theoretical considerations concerning organized interests and power resources it can be shown, however, that irrespective of the efforts of the Commission the social political structures, institutions and procedures, including the underlying guidelines converge within the EU (process convergence). This is an essential precondition for a social union. Nevertheless, the opportunities to this social union or to supranationally harmonized national social policies will not increase in foreseeable future. This is partly due to the divergence of economic performance of EU Member States. On the other hand, it is to consider how the EU commission’s social-political ideas and the converging social policy processes in the EU Member states are to be reconciled.

Head Start began in 1965 as a part of the War on Poverty led by President Lyndon B. Johnson. After more than 50 years, it has remained as one of the most popular government social programs with support from across the political spectrum. However, there have been mixed results regarding the effectiveness of Head Start in participants' educational gains. Despite the mixed research, Head Start has continued to receive support by the public and both political parties throughout the decades. While there are disagreements on reforms to be made to Head Start, there has been increasing agreement around making providers more accountable for program quality through an evidence-based approach. The 2007 reauthorization of Head Start captures the spirit of Head Start as a “national laboratory” of what creates the best outcomes for children.

This comparative study attempts to explain the perceived unsatisfactory level of integration of non-Western immigrants in Denmark by examining a possible schism between attitudes towards integration of elite policymakers and ethnic Danes and non-Western immigrants. So far no in-depth studies of attitudes towards immigrant related issues have investigated the attitudes of policymakers. This thesis addresses this gap with a study of attitudes, which applies a theoretical framework combining rational choice theory with dimensions of social capital. The study focuses on the non-economic costs, especially social transaction costs that immigrants and Danes encounter in the process of integrating immigrants. An on-line questionnaire was distributed to Danes and non-Western immigrants collecting attitudinal quantitative data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with policymakers: politicians and bureaucrats at local and national level and representatives of ethnic councils. The study suggests that ethnic Danes and non-Western immigrants have rather similar attitudes towards structural integration, but they differ significantly in their attitudes towards cultural integration. While education, trust and having an out-group friend are significant determinants of the attitudes of Danes and their acceptance of social transaction costs, education and trust in out-group have limited impact on attitudes of non-Western immigrants. It is suggested that ethnic and religious factors are important predictors of attitudes of non-Western immigrants. Policymakers and ethnic Danes seem to have a similar pattern of social contact with immigrants. There are, however, indications that differences of attitudes between Danes and immigrants may be provoked by policymakers’ way of discussing integration. This is more salient among Parliamentarians and bureaucrats. This study shows that social interaction between immigrants and ethnic Danes is important in order to incorporate immigrants on equal terms with Danes, but the policymakers’ discussion of integration may alienate Danes and immigrants and influence negatively their readiness to integrate.

East Asian welfare states have experienced major reforms in the last two decades, raising the question as to whether these welfare reforms signify a fundamental departure from the East Asian welfare model, or merely an adaptation of the model to socioeconomic changes. Overshadowed by the state-driven policy-making model with a strong functionalist bias focusing on socio-economic drivers, the existing East Asian welfare state literature has overlooked the fundamental political change brought by the dual transition (i.e., democratisation and economic liberalisation), which have led to the emergence of pluralistic societies. In order to fill this gap in the literature, this thesis investigates the political underpinnings of welfare reforms in Korea with special attention to societal actors, (notably trade unions, employers’ associations, and political parties) whose role feature prominently in the comparative welfare state literature, are still largely neglected in East Asian welfare state research. Bringing these actors into the analysis, the thesis examines how the rise of societal actors has changed Korean welfare politics by constraining policy autonomy of the state in the domains of employment protection, unemployment protection, and work/family reconciliation policies. To this end, the thesis engages in analysing policy documents and in-depth elite interviews with senior government officials as well as high-profile representatives of employers associations, trade unions and parties. The thesis argues that the politics of the Korean welfare state has undergone a three step transformation process in the post-transition period. The developmental alliance could no longer function as the sole driving force of welfare state development during the first civilian government (1993-1998), when organised labour exercised its newly acquired status of a veto player. Furthermore, the old driving force of social policy-making, the developmental alliance, was replaced by the new alliance between the centre-left party and organised labour during the first left government (1998-2003) Lastly, parties moved to centre stage of social policy-making during the second left government (2003-2008) and the current conservative government (2008-presnet). Drawing on competing theories of the welfare state –in particular, the Power Resource approach, the employer-centred varieties of capitalism perspective, and the state-centred theorem, and the parties-matter thesis – the thesis contributes to developing a comprehensive political account on welfare state transformation in East Asia and to the better embedding of the East Asian welfare state literature into the comparative welfare state literature.