Social policy and its associated institutions are central political arenas for societal compromise and conflict. The capacity to attract strong support from a wide constituency of citizens is, therefore, a defining feature of welfare policy legitimacy. While there is much research measuring attitudes towards state-organized welfare, the overall aim of this thesis is to incorporate attitudes towards the market into this research field. This aim is carried out through four empirical studies that add a market component to the analysis of different topics covered in current welfare state research. The articles in this thesis either compare attitudes across countries or deploy Swedish public opinion as a test case. Newly designed or previously underutilized survey measures are used that explicitly cover attitudes towards the market. Latent class analysis, structural equation modeling, and multilevel analysis are used to study how attitudes vary both within and across countries.   Citizens’ perceptions and evaluations of the market are found to be shaped by their everyday life experiences within the market structure. Moreover, citizens’ trust in the performance of market institutions is found to be important in structuring their welfare policy preferences. In addition, attitudes towards the market appear to be influenced by the institutional context: citizens living in countries with more ambitious welfare states are less inclined to support market distribution of social services, and class differences in political welfare attitudes tend to be larger in countries with more encompassing welfare states. Collected findings thus suggest that citizens living in countries with more generous welfare states are more inclined to think that the legitimate scope of the market nexus should be negotiated and calibrated via social policy.   By incorporating attitudes towards the market in relation to welfare state support, this thesis contributes to increasing our understanding of the political and moral mindset of citizens in advanced political economies. Public attitudes towards the welfare state are to a significant degree formed by perceptions and evaluations of the market and its actors. In order to further our knowledge about preferences regarding the role of the state in modern society, and to stay in tune with ongoing policy developments, future socio-political research is well advised to bring the main alternative to the state – the market and its actors – into the analytical framework.

In 1991, a political event took place in British Columbia that had a major impact on the provision of social services. The province, which for 16 years had been governed by a right-of-centre, pro-business political party was, for the first time since 1975, governed by the left-of-centre NDP party. This conversion of government brought with it a series of major shifts in the provision of social services throughout the province. The organizational change that was initiated continued for the entire 10-year mandate of the provincial NDP. This study explores the period of change and related issues using a hybrid model of methods derived from case study. Methods include participant observer research, a review of relevant literature and documents, and most significantly, key informant interviews with many of the leaders in provincial social services between 1991 and 2001. Findings reflect the relationship between leadership and change and in particular the importance of the former to the latter. Findings also explore the role of values in social services change agendas, the importance of stakeholder involvement in organizational change and the importance of communications and media in the context of change.

This thesis reassess the so-called 'Historical School of Economics' of Gustav Schmoller and his colleagues Lujo Brentano, Adolf Held and Georg Friedrich Knapp, analysing the close relationship between the development of historical economics and the rise of social reform in Germany. It reveals that there is little evidence for a cohesive 'Historical School' and suggests that it was not primarily an outgrowth of romantic and historicist currents of thought as is commonly believed. Schmoller and his colleagues were a pragmatic, empirically-inclined group of statistically-trained economists who drew inspiration from the advances made in the natural sciences. Having directly observed the effects of rapid urbanisation, industrialisation, and the rise of labour movements and socialism in Prussia and abroad, they became dissatisfied with classical economic doctrines and laissez-faire, subjecting these to empirical tests and criticism. Drawing inspiration from British reforms and developments throughout Europe, they devised alternative hypotheses and made innovative policy recommendations. They were also important professionalisers of economics, modifying the curriculum, organising professional bodies, and creating new monographs and journals, the latter substantially aided by the interest and generosity of a leading publisher. Using empirical studies, statistics and history as analytical and critical tools, they sought practical solutions to economic and social problems by disseminating information to both the public and government officials through publications, conferences and petitions. They became leading advocates of trade union rights, factory inspection, worker protection laws, education reforms, worker insurance, agricultural reforms, and the democratisation of industrial relations. Their influence on economic and social policy, while indirect, was considerable, especially through government officials. However, the close association of historical economics with reform and social policy also made them a conspicuous target of criticism within academia and politics. Despite this, by the early 1890s the research methods and social legislation they propounded were gaining wider currency not only in Germany but also in Austria.

This thesis analyses the development of the Korean welfare system since the 1960s within the institutional dynamics of Korean politics. Its aim is to contribute to the understanding of Korean politics through the analysis of the Korean welfare state. The thesis argues that the making of social policy has been determined primarily by the politics of legitimation, in particular before democratisation. This thesis identifies the confined institutional circle responsible for crucial social policy decisions. In this institutional terrain, the President and his ministers and policy experts have played the dominant roles. The democratisation since 1987 brought about institutional changes and enabled institutions such as the National Assembly to exercise effective power in social policy-making. The political rationale of social policy is deeply embedded in the structure of social policy institutions, especially the way in which the state intervenes in the financing of welfare programmes. In the mix of welfare financing, the regulator type of state intervention emerges as the dominant feature in Korea. This thesis assesses the outcomes of social policy from two perspectives: the perspectives of redistribution and of social rights. Social policy intervention has so far had little redistributive effect mainly due to the immaturity of the welfare system. In terms of social rights, the universality of rights to health care was achieved in a relatively short period of time. Rights to protection against industrial accidents have made good progress in terms of compensation and protection for the last three decades, despite the limited coverage. However, the quality of social rights that have so far been implemented is low. In two important respects, the approach of the thesis is characterised by methodological broadness. In the policy analysis, the thesis moves beyond an institutional approach to including also the substantive outcomes of institutional changes. In the analysis of outcomes, the thesis covers both the perspective of redistribution and the perspective of social rights.

This study sets out to explore employer response to the EU social dimension, in answer to the question, "How are employers in the UK and Germany responding to the EU social dimension, and why?" Using case study evidence from nine large British and German engineering companies, as well as material from employers' associations at all levels, it is argued that there is little employer support for extending the social dimension. Focusing on micro-economic aspects of the debate, it is also argued that a common feature in both British and German employer opposition is a concern for the impact of EU industrial relations regulation on firm-level flexibility. This stands in direct contradiction of the EU Commission's own contentions about the flexibility-enhancing effects of its social policy measures, and appears paradoxical in light of earlier research findings of a German flexibility advantage over UK rivals on account of the country's well-structured regulatory framework for industrial relations. Evidence from participant companies, however, suggests that, in the global environment of the late 1990s, much of Germany's former flexibility advantage has been eroded, and the regulation-induced limitations on both the pace and scale of change are increasingly onerous to German companies. German managers perceive a need for targeted deregulatory reform of their industrial relations system; by strengthening (and often extending) existing industrial relations regulation, EU social policy measures meet with firm disapproval. In the UK, by contrast, the changed context has contributed to a significant increase in firm-level flexibility. British companies now operate to levels of flexibility often in advance of their German counterparts, at far lower 'cost' in terms of the time taken, and the extent to which change measures are compromised, to reach agreement. For British managers, EU social policy measures are perceived as a threat to these beneficial arrangements, and vigorously opposed. The thesis concludes by suggesting that such fixed opposition, in the face of Commission determination to extend the EU social dimension, points to an escalation of the controversy surrounding the social dimension.

The presence of hospital foundations inside a public healthcare system raises the question of whether they are charitable organisations doing charitable acts and how they differ from state institutions. A charitable act is based on the notion of gift. A gift relationship, compared to a commercial relationship, is founded on sharing and mutual responsibility rather than common interests. Among friends and relatives, giving reveals strong and lively relationships. In modern society, giving also takes place between strangers. It reveals strong community ties. The charitable sector, including hospital foundations, is the most common form of giving among strangers. Those who participate in this sector show a high level of involvement in many sectors of society and have strong community ties. State action takes place irrespective of the quality of community ties, although it ultimately depends on it. Charitable action complements state action. However, state action remains essential since charity is alien to the concepts of justice and equity.

This thesis highlights the significance of social reproduction of labour in analysing poverty through historical materialist perspective and explores two related sets of arguments. First, poverty is the &#039 / absolute general law&#039 / of the process of pauperization of labour under global accumulation movements of capital. Second, the question of poverty is subjected to the class struggle between historical tendency of labour, which is to collectivize its own reproduction conditions, and that of capital, which is to make it commodity produced and consumed in the parameters of market production. The concept of class struggle thus carries an analytical priority to explore the dynamic nature and the structure of poverty. The findings, based on the critical ethnographic research carried out in the squatter settlement district named &Ccedil / &ouml / pl&uuml / k in Ankara, indicate that the main tendency of the degradation process of labour is to constitute the conditions of common class experience in the labour market, even though it advocates the fractionation in the sphere of production. Moreover, in terms of the perpetual struggle for collectivising their social reproduction, squatter settlements, gecekondus, also seem to be a sphere of common class experience rather than a heterogeneous sociality. The overall findings, therefore, indicate that the current dynamics of poverty rise as a situation in which the whole working-class is in a defensive position to capital.

No abstract available.

Social exclusion of vulnerable children and families is a serious concern for policy-makers and practitioners alike. This doctoral thesis explores the social construction of exclusion in the UK. The thesis explores both historical and current processes of interactions between the socially excluded populations and policy agents. The empirical findings suggest that the neglect of the children's rights value perspective in social policy, and the resultant practice thereof, may be counter-productive to combating social exclusion. "... institutions perpetuate exclusion unofficially. Public Sector workers who reflect the prejudices of their society may institutionalise some kinds of discrimination" The Department for International Development (DfID), UK "it just kills you in the end.. especially because you don't know if you are doing more good than harm.. the worst decision for me is when I see the child should be removed from home but I know if I do that, he will never get the kind of therapeutic attention that he needs.. instead he will probably be in multiple placements and at the end of the day, it boils down to the choice whether you let him be abused by hi natural family or let the Government do it.. the abuse does not stop with intervention.. it's just the System that does it then.." "Practice is about watching your back not about what can I do for this child" Excerpts from interviews with child protection social workers, UK "Decisions were made for us, we were tossed here and there like a worthless piece of scum" Excerpts from interviews with care-leavers, UK Mayeda Jamal is a Doctoral student at the Center for Media and Economic Psychology at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), Sweden, and a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Organizational Social Psychology at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK. Mayeda has a Masters degree in Human Resource Management and a B.A. in Economics.

Communitarianism is an internationally contentious anti-liberal theory which is becoming increasingly popular in political philosophy. It commonly is employed to motivate and legitimate �identity politics� - a politics which is used to defend the rights of disadvantaged aboriginal minorities to maintain their traditional ways. Recently �identity politics� has been exploited in mainstream poltical/educational academic literature in New Zealand, especially in literature that deals with Maori issues. This is significant because in the recent history of New Zealand, liberal political theory has been dominant. Notions of rights and of fairness are fundamental to communitarianism and to liberalism, but communitarians and liberals hold very different ideas about what these notions involve. My PhD thesis compares their ideas and relates them to New Zealand. It views certain social and political issues in New Zealand, by way of liberal and then communitarian theories. It examines how liberalism and communitarianism have been, and can be, used to support and to legitimate particular policies and practices in terms of �fairness� and �justice�. My work considers the explanatory and the practical application of communitarianism and liberalism with respect to their conceptions of human nature, political ideals, rights and rationality. It defends liberalism against the communities the protections they �need� in order to flourish. With respect to New Zealand it recognises that Maori have been treated unjustly by the crown, but argues that much of the injustice happened, not because of liberalism, but because liberal values were not upheld. The thesis concludes that liberalism is better equipped than communitarianism to describe Maori and Pakeha relations, and to formulate a framework for positive and constructive trans-cultural policies that will respect both Maori and Pakeha cultures.