Rethinking Selectivism and Selectivity by Means Test

This article casts doubt on conventional thinking about selectivism and its narrow focus on the selective process. It is argued that selectivity is fairly neutral; even universal access to welfare is not free from the attachment of social stigma to welfare beneficiaries. The increase in benefits standards, another common strategy advocated by egalitarians, may not produce the desirable de-stigmatized effect for beneficiaries. Our status ranking conception of social relations, reflecting the operation of the success ideology, holds the key to the transfer of social stigma in the social exchange of welfare benefits. In this regard, we need .to study the relation between the selective process and its ideological and institutional context, as well as the case for the conditional use of selectivity by means test

Comparing Social Quality and Social Harmony from a Governance Perspective

This article compares the concept of social quality with the concept of social harmony from a governance perspective. It confines the comparative analysis on the concept of social quality to the one initiated by scholars associated with the European Foundation of Social Quality and the concept of social harmony on the official discourse by the present political leaders on mainland China. The article has two major parts; the first part looks at the conceptualization and underlying meanings of both concepts against their different contextual, institutional backgrounds and societal developmental stages. The second part explores how Europe and China can learn from each other on the basis of four common themes developmental, theoretical coherence, social responsibility, and measurement

The Relationship Between Social Policy and Economic Policy : Constructing the Public Burden of Welfare in China and the West

The purpose of this paper is to explore the °∞public burden°± characterization of welfare in two very different economic and cultural settings. Long familiar in the West, its causes, nonetheless, have not been examined. Moreover, as we demonstrate, an identical orientation to welfare is also found in China. To understand this apparently universal construction of a negative relationship between social policy and economic policy, we employ a novel tripartite framework. This analysis starts with economic ideology but concludes that two additional explanatory factors are necessary: institutional or regime differences and, in the case of China, the level of economic developmen

Ideology, welfare mix and the production of welfare : a comparative study of child daycare policies in Britain and Hong Kong.

This is a study of the inter-relationship between welfare ideology, welfare mix and the production of welfare. It has been hypothesized that the welfare ideology of a state is likely to affect its choice of welfare mix and the kind of social relations produced in the wider society. In this study, normative theories of the welfare state were reformulated by an analytical framework into theoretical models of the welfare state as pre-test patterns for comparison with practical policies under study. Child daycare provisions in Britain and Hong Kong were chosen as the data to test the hypothesis. A multiple-case-embedded design was used in organizing this comparative study. It was found that practising ideologies are more predictive than idealized ideologies of state social policy. It was also found that state social policy in the realm of child daycare was related to its ideology : state ideology affects the choice of a mix of welfare sectors and the form welfare is organised in the production of social relations in the two societies studied. Nevertheless, the inter-relationship between state ideology, welfare mix and welfare production is constrained by three intervening variables. They are bureau-professional autonomy, interplay between opposing ideologies and flexibility of ideology in the interpretation of state welfare because of a changing environment. When the findings were examined from another perspective, welfare sector and welfare production were seen to carry ideological meanings. This implies that a transaction of welfare goods and services is not only a transaction of material or tangible social services, but it is also an ideological transaction of different social principles which underlie the welfare sectors. This has led to the development of a theory of the ideological production of welfare as an explanation of the relationship between ideology and welfare sectors in the division of care and welfare responsibilities in a society. Based on this theory, the limitations of instrumental theories about the welfare mix were discussed. In conclusion, in the light of wider social and economic changes within capitalism, an integrative strategy concerning the welfare mix in particular and welfare in general has been proposed which duly recognizes the importance of ideology in maintaining social relations in a society as well as the social context which these social relations underlie

An exploration into the Neighborhood Level Community Development Projects

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