Despite concerted research effort over the last thirty years, social capital remains a variably, and at times, ill-defined concept. A lack of a clear causal theory has made social capital difficult to explore in an empirical setting. In addition, limited understanding of the concept’s operation has restricted its ability to provide valuable insight into policy development. The three papers that compose this thesis examine the concept, measurement, and consequences of social capital. The first provides a theoretical discussion of the conceptual origins of the term, its common criticisms, and suggests an alternative approach to its understanding. The second applies this alternative approach to an empirical model of child enrolment in post-secondary education. Finally, the third critically examines a recent federal policy research initiative related to social capital, identifying key policy development advantages to this thesis’s alternative approach. This thesis argues that antecedents to the modern social capital literature along with more recent criticisms suggest a dual approach to understanding social capital. This dual approach involves two distinct frameworks for understanding the concept – one literal and one figurative. These frameworks guide alternative approaches to empirical social capital work, demonstrated through the analysis of social capital’s impact on child post-secondary enrolment. It further identifies how the two frameworks provide more relevant information on the operation of social capital, facilitating prospective policy development. Overall, the thesis concludes that the literal and figurative approaches represent a more useful way of understanding and applying the social capital concept.

Abstract Some gender scholars who have studied Western welfare regimes have argued that dominant cultural assumptions about women (ideational forces) should be examined in order to understand the development of these regimes. On the other hand, gender scholars working on Iran’s social policy argue that religious assumptions and institutions have shaped the position of women in Iran’s welfare regime. However, none of these researchers have thoroughly and explicitly examined the role of ideas in the development of Iran’s social policy. In contrast, this thesis studies the role of ideational forces in the formation of the only Iranian social assistance program designed exclusively for women, Empowering Women Without Guardians (EWWG). It also examines the connection of these forces to non-ideational factors in order to further elucidate their impact on policymaking. As argued, multiple cultural assumptions influence policymaking on women’s issues in Iran. Traditional cultural assumptions reinforce and legitimize the unequal position of women in society, whereas reformist and secularist ideas assume that men and women are equal. As claimed, the interaction of these assumptions with institutional and structural forces empowers some of these ideas over others at different stages of policymaking regarding the formation of EWWG: Iran’s laws (institutional forces) have reinforced previously dominant traditional assumptions about women (ideational forces) in the problem stream; in contrast, reformist interpretations of structural factors challenged previously prevailing traditional ideas and resulted in the adoption of a policy, which is more consistent with reformist and secularist ideas. The relative power of these assumptions helps explain both policy continuity and change in Iran’s context of policymaking on women’s issues.

A critical task of social policy in most Western welfare states during recent decades has consisted of reducing the economic burden on society due to sick leave, by stimulating participation in the labour market. Many jurisdictions have introduced activation policies, based on the premise that work “per se” has a therapeutic effect on sick-listed workers. People are expected to be “active”, rather than “passive”, recipients of financial benefits. However, there is limited knowledge of how activation policies focusing on return to work (RTW) are carried out in local practice. Against this background, the overall aim of this thesis is to study the local practice of activation policies by analysing how they are received, implemented and experienced by welfare state organizations, employers and sick-listed workers. The analysis has been influenced by theories concerning organization fields, individualization, street-level bureaucracy and organizational governance. In this thesis, the overall aim is investigated in four interrelated papers. In Paper I, the aim is to analyse the perspectives of stakeholders (i.e. welfare state actors and employers) on work ability by studying multistakeholder meetings. Paper II sheds light on activation policy, focusing on early RTW in the context of modern working conditions; the aim is to analyse RTW practice in local workplace contexts, in relation to Swedish early-RTW policy. The third paper focuses on employers, with the aim of analysing their role and activities regarding RTW, in local workplace practice. In Paper IV, the aim is to analyse sick-listed workers’ experiences of the sickness insurance system in their contact with the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) and their front-line staff. The empirical material comprises two empirical studies: 1) audio-recorded multi-stakeholder meetings from regular practice (n=9) and 2) semi-structured interviews with sick-listed workers and their supervisors in 18 workplaces (n=36). The analyses of the material have been performed in accordance with the principles of qualitative content analysis. Main findings of the papers reflect strong organizational boundaries in the implementation process of activation policies. Welfare state actors and employers appear to be governed by their own organizational logics and interests, so the actors involved fail to take a holistic view of sick-listed workers and do not share a common social responsibility for individuals’ RTW. This thesis illustrates how current activation policies focusing on RTW are based on a rather idealized image of the standard workplace. There is an explicit or implicit assumption that employers and work organizations are able to welcome sick-listed workers back to work in a healthy way. However, the intensity of modern working life leaves limited room for accommodating people with reduced work ability, who are not considered to have a business value to the workplace. In several cases, findings indicate that the SSIA’s focus on activation and early RTW clashes with the financially oriented perspective of employers. Economic considerations regarding their business take precedence over legal and ethical considerations, and employers have difficulty taking social responsibility for RTW. Sick-listed workers are encouraged to adjust to new workplace settings and environments to meet the demands of the workplace, and, if RTW is not possible, to the demands of the labour market. The findings also show that sick-listed workers experience that contacts with the SSIA are ‘standardized’; i.e., they perceive that the officials are loyal  to demands in their organizations rather than being involved actors who support workers’ individual needs. Sick-listed workers clearly experience that measures in Swedish activation policies have a strong focus on demanding aspects (financial work incentives) and less on enabling aspects (investments in skills). Overall, this thesis illustrates an emerging social climate where sick-listed workers are positioned as active agents who must take responsibility for their sick leave and their RTW process. In a Swedish context, RTW is a matter of activating the sick-listed rather than activating the workplace.

In 1962 Congress enacted legislation which made social services an important instrument of public welfare reform. The law represented the culmination of a half-century effort on the part of public welfare officials to secure recognition for public social services as a distinctive yet integral feature of progressive social welfare policy in the United States. This dissertation traces the evolution of this effort from its origins in the Progressive period to the passage of the Public Welfare Amendments of 1962.The Progressive ideal of social welfare focused on building an institution of public welfare which would satisfy the economic, social, and psychological needs of all citizens. Public welfare officials viewed social services as playing a key role in the realization of this goal. The paper examines how social services became a means of protecting and expanding the functions of public welfare.The history of public social services has been marked by controversy. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the institution of public welfare has been subjected to periodic assaults by the taxpaying public. The stigma associated with welfare has caused many professional social workers to oppose the idea of incorporating social services into public welfare. The response of public welfare officials to these sources of conflict is a major topic which the paper explores.The context for and the ramifications of the dispute between professional social workers and public welfare officials over the propriety of public social services are discussed in the first three chapters of the paper. The last three chapters recount the political strategies used by public welfare officials to gain acceptance of their plan for integrating social services with public welfare policy. / Department of Sociology

This dissertation investigates print media reporting on the Jacob Zuma case to establish levels of bias, if any, in reporting such a high profile political case. The study is premised on the concept of social construction of reality where values and preferences could colour the perception of facts. The use of both ethnographic and quantitative content analysis allowed for the systematic investigation of the content of newspaper articles while the use of discourse analysis highlighted the importance of language use in the social construction of reality. Under apartheid the media was critical of government both ideologically and morally. The print media had a liberal democratic ethos and generally defended the underdog. This has been carried over into the democratic dispensation. The implication of the Deputy President of the country and the brother of the Secretary of the Arms Procurement Committee in corruption hit the nerve of the press, hence the vigilant reporting on the case. The media generally painted a picture of Zuma as a corrupt man not fit to be in public office with his implication in corruption being perceived as a threat to the country's democratic ethos. The view was that this undermined democratic principles of equality, justice and accountability. On the contrary COSATU, SACP and the ANCYL mobilised the public in support of Zuma arguing that the charges were instituted by vindictive opponents who wanted to destroy Zuma's political career. The NPA's conduct during the case including its failure to provide Zuma with a final indictment in over a year arguing that it was not prepared to continue with the case thus seeking a postponement - gave credence to the conspiracy theorists. At the end, the NP A conceded the conspiracy theory on the representation made by Zuma following leaked conversations between National Prosecuting Authority (NP A) boss Leonard McCarthy and former National Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka. This in essence brought a non-conclusive end to the saga as the allegations and the defence therefore could not be tested in a court of law. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

Despite concerted research effort over the last thirty years, social capital remains a variably, and at times, ill-defined concept. A lack of a clear causal theory has made social capital difficult to explore in an empirical setting. In addition, limited understanding of the concept’s operation has restricted its ability to provide valuable insight into policy development. The three papers that compose this thesis examine the concept, measurement, and consequences of social capital. The first provides a theoretical discussion of the conceptual origins of the term, its common criticisms, and suggests an alternative approach to its understanding. The second applies this alternative approach to an empirical model of child enrolment in post-secondary education. Finally, the third critically examines a recent federal policy research initiative related to social capital, identifying key policy development advantages to this thesis’s alternative approach. This thesis argues that antecedents to the modern social capital literature along with more recent criticisms suggest a dual approach to understanding social capital. This dual approach involves two distinct frameworks for understanding the concept – one literal and one figurative. These frameworks guide alternative approaches to empirical social capital work, demonstrated through the analysis of social capital’s impact on child post-secondary enrolment. It further identifies how the two frameworks provide more relevant information on the operation of social capital, facilitating prospective policy development. Overall, the thesis concludes that the literal and figurative approaches represent a more useful way of understanding and applying the social capital concept.

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.

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.