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AbstractThis article defines the social welfare needs of residents living in a severely polluted community by examining a set of communities around the An‐shun plant in southern Taiwan that were polluted by dioxin. The study examines the inhabitants' economic status, the communities' manpower utilization, and the prevention of social contingencies and the provision of aftercare. A survey conducted between March–April 2008 revealed the need to reduce poverty in these highly polluted communities, to identify and maximize each community's human resources, to address illness, aging, pollution, and lack of professional skills, and to better inform residents about pollution so that they can understand how to protect themselves. The article concludes with suggested programs to meet the social welfare needs of residents in a highly polluted community. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractWhile existing research provides evidence that globalisation sparks citizen demand for the welfare state in wealthy Western democracies, less is known about how globalisation affects public demand for welfare elsewhere. This study explores the link between globalisation and welfare preferences in postcommunist countries by examining workers at multinational corporations (MNCs). These workers have previously been found to have lower levels of job security, even in Western Europe. Additionally, in the postcommunist context, MNC employment also frequently offers better opportunities than other available jobs. This combination of risk and benefit creates higher demand for social insurance (such as unemployment insurance) because MNC workers have both higher job insecurity and higher costs of job loss (if the benefits of MNC employment make it difficult to find an equally good job). Original survey data from Ukraine shows that MNC workers experience greater insecurity and are paid more than other workers. They also express preferences for more expansive welfare programmes, prioritising those related to labour market insurance. This pattern of MNC workers' experience and preferences is confirmed in cross‐national survey data from 30 peripheral economies, demonstrating that the compensation hypothesis has wider application than previously shown.

The Danish welfare system is famous for being a universal system covering all residents with generous benefits financed through general taxes. This is at least true for benefits such as social assistance, health care and the state retirement pension which are discussed here. This article analyses the implications of EU free movement law on residence-based welfare rights in Denmark. It argues that EU law has not led to major legal and policy changes. Yet Denmark has been quick off the mark in picking up on EU restrictions and in erecting safeguards for residence-based schemes as demonstrated by the discussion of the state-retirement pension and social assistance in this article. On the other hand, it has been slow in implementing EU law on extending health cover to scheduled treatments received in other Member States. While the Danish position has, for a long time, been that EU law does not affect the Danish welfare model, public discourse has recently changed with allegations of EU law leading to social dumping and benefit tourism. This article concludes that a search for a legal balance between free movement and national welfare is still in the making.

AbstractCo-creation – where citizens and public organizations work together to deal with societal issues – is increasingly considered as a fertile solution for various public service delivery problems. During co-creation, citizens are not mere consumers, but are actively engaged in building resilient societies. In this study, we analyze if and how state and governance traditions influence learning and policy change within a context of co-creation. We combine insights from the co-creation and learning literature. The empirical strategy is a comparative case study of co-creation examples within the welfare domain in childcare (Estonia), education (Germany) and community work (the Netherlands). We show that state and governance traditions may form an explanation for whether co-creation, learning and policy change occurs. Our paper suggests that this seems to be related to whether there is a tradition of working together with citizens and a focus on rule following or not.

In recent years, there has been growing recognition among researchers and policymakers that the quality of care provided by family planning (FP) programs in developing countries is an important determinant of whether couples adopt contraception and continue as contraceptive users, or whether these programs are underutilized. A major initiative to identify and implement improvements in the quality of services within the Indian program calls for a systematic analysis, organization, and presentation of the available data to the policymakers and program managers concerned. Additional data is also required on issues such as user's perception of quality of care, the relative importance of various components of quality of care, and quality of care from the provider's perspective. In response to these gaps in information, the Population Council commissioned a series of studies on the quality of services provided by the Indian government FP program and organized a workshop. This report synthesizes the findings of the 28 research papers presented at "The Quality of Services in the Indian Family Welfare Programme" workshop held in Bangalore from May 24–26, 1995.

Transnational ageing presents fundamental challenges to nationally bounded welfare states, which historically have tended to be organised according to a logic of solidarity among nationals and permanent residents of a given state territory. Nonetheless, the Dutch and French governments have taken steps to break this link between solidarity and territorially bounded consumption of welfare, by providing lifelong income security for older migrants who return to countries of origin on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. This article asks what motivated policymakers to initially develop these novel policy tools for transnational ageing which contradict the territorial logic of the welfare state. Based on interviews with key stakeholders and available official documents, we find that in both France and the Netherlands, policymakers' initial motivations can be characterised as rather benign, if not beneficent: to facilitate return for those who are willing but unable to afford it. However, two types of obstacle have impeded the delivery of such policies. Non-discrimination clauses and free movement rights in EU law may make it difficult to implement policies for specific categories of older migrants. Electoral realpolitik may also lead policymakers to shelve policies which benefit older migrants, in a European context where public opinion on immigration is less and less favourable. Nonetheless, opposition may be neutralised by the budgetary advantages of these schemes, since older returnees do not consume public services such as healthcare.

Increasing mobility to and from European Union (EU) countries has started to challenge the principles of territoriality and national citizenship through which European democracies traditionally conditioned access to social benefits. Existing typologies of immigrant social protection regimes do not seem to adequately capture (nor explain) the diverse repertoire of policy configurations through which European welfare regimes adapt to migration-driven societal dynamics. This introductory chapter provides a critical reflection on the link between migration and access to welfare in the EU. In doing so, it aims to propose a comprehensive analytical framework that allows for a systematic comparison of the inclusiveness of social protection systems towards mobile individuals. We argue that states' responsiveness towards the social protection needs of their immigrant and emigrant populations has to be examined through a combination of factors, including the characteristics of these populations, the migration history of these countries, as well as the main features of their welfare state. ; Peer reviewed

This article aims to share the experience of Movimentos (Movements), a collective of young activists from Brazilian favelas and peripheral neighborhoods whose goal is to discuss alternatives to the current drug policy from the peripheral youth's standpoint. The population's role in the formulation, application, and enforcement of public safety and drug policies is rudimentary, and the opportunities available to youngsters who live in Brazilian favelas and the outskirts are even smaller. The purpose of Movimentos is to have youngsters from the outskirts take center stage in the debate over public safety and drug policies, because they are the war on drugs greatest victims. The collective follows a hybrid organizational model that combines collective, horizontal governance with the institutional support of an academic research center. Not only does it seek to broaden youngsters' agency around public safety and drug policies, but it also devises and experiments with methodologies to enable their active participation.

Welfare, power, and agency -- Points of navigation -- Mundane articles -- Official receptions -- Finding words -- History and fiction -- The rhetorical spectrum -- Anchoring rhetoric -- The rhetoric of character -- The rhetoric of dignity -- Rhetorics of life-cycle and gender -- The pauper self -- Process and agency reconsidered

Ole Peter Grell has challenged us to examine how, in an age dominated by faith, religion shaped public and private approaches to poor relief. His thesis is twofold. Ideologically, Protestantism changed the purpose of charity — from a benefit to the souls of donors in the hereafter to the relief of the indigent in the present. In terms of practice, without the Reformation the speed and extent to which poor relief was centralized in the seventeenth century would have been unimaginable. The role of civic humanism is relegated to a second place: humanists proposed reform as an option, for good Protestants it was an obligation .