Suchergebnisse

This book tells the story of a dog that did not bark. Since the 1980s, a number of European scholars have advocated a system of income support that would eliminate the stigma attached to most forms of poverty assistance and would be simple, easy, and cheap to implement. Their idea, which has various forms, is to provide all citizens a guaranteed level of support that would have no strings attached. Organized as the Basic Income European Network (BIEN), these scholars have met regularly to discuss the subject of basic income and have endeavored to make their research useful to policymaking by promoting their group's ideas in their home countries. The problem is that after more than a decade of activity, the group cannot claim any major success. To the contrary, many countries have striven to make unemployment and social assistance more conditional by attaching work requirements or lowering thresholds of eligibility.

This article seeks to explain why Denmark and the Netherlands made dramatic progress reforming their welfare systems in the 1990s and why Germany had a relatively slow start. Some possible explanations found to be incomplete are institutional differences in welfare programs, the uniqueness of circumstances (for example, German unification), and the balance of political power in governing institutions. An important part of the puzzle is an increasing perception of the need to reform that was more widespread in Denmark and the Netherlands. The social construction of an imperative to reform in these countries generated a political consensus that was elusive in Germany but that may be developing under Gerhard Schroder's government.

Examines shift from public programs to measures that encourage individuals to place part of their income in special savings accounts; 1990s; Netherlands. Summaries in French and Spanish.

English
One of the most dramatic changes in the character of welfare states is the shift from public programmes that provide benefits for specific categories of need or entitlement, to programmes that encourage individuals to place part of their income in special savings accounts. This article argues that in countries where the welfare state has historically been defined in collectivist terms, the impact of the new savings schemes creates the potential for moral hazard. Focusing on recent reforms in The Netherlands, the article demonstrates how the new schemes provide greater advantage to high-income earners than to low-income earners and encourage egoistic behaviour among those who make use of the schemes. Take-up rates for the Dutch programmes have exceeded the government's expectations and demonstrate how such liberalising reforms have altered the character of a welfare state that once was believed to be predicated on collectivist principles.