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Starts by discussing the new era of austerity in the contemporary welfare state, the reasons for it, and the political problems that it creates. Describes the project that gave rise to the book as bringing together leading researchers from Europe and North America, who seek to increase knowledge about the politics of the contemporary welfare state. The focus is on four overlapping themes, which are covered in the four main parts of the book: (1) the sources and scope of pressures on national welfare states; (2) the role of economic interests, and of systems for representing those interests, in the politics of reform; (3) the implications of electoral politics and the design of political institutions for welfare state adjustment; and (4) the distinctive policy dynamics of particular areas of social provision. These themes are intimately linked, and the linkages between them are made explicit both within and across the chapters of the book. This introduction outlines the four themes and introduces the contributions of the chapters to follow.

This chapter examines the links between competition law, competitiveness, and trade policy. Section 4.1 assesses the meaning of the claim that harmonization may be justified to promote ‘fair trade’. Section 4.2 examines the case for harmonization purely on the grounds of loss of competitiveness. Sections 4.3 to 4.5 use the economic analysis of regulatory competition to identify the type of situations where harmonization could in theory improve global and national welfare.

An analysis is made of the role of the WTO (World Trade Organization) as a forum for negotiations. Special attention is given to the concept of reciprocity, since this is a central element of multilateral trade negotiations (MTNs). The chapter centres on the problems that confront negotiators seeking to obtain agreements, the techniques that are used, and the reasons MTNs tend to have outcomes that do not maximize national welfare. The sections of the chapter are as follows: Overview of negotiating rounds [held since 1948, when GATT was founded]; Multilateral trade liberalization; Interest groups and lobbying activity; Reciprocity and the mechanics of negotiations; and A typology of key aspects of trade negotiations.

This chapter examines the integration of national social-security schemes that has taken place in the European Union through Community Regulation 1408/71. It seeks to demonstrate that a dimension of European social security has for long been a material fact, patched up by judicial activism and political compromises. The chapter is divided into five main parts. First, it introduces the European dimension of welfare as established through social-security coordination. Second, the chapter describes the europeanization process of migration control and access to national welfare. The third part asks to whom intra-European social security applies. The fourth part of the chapter analyses in greater detail the extent to which welfare has been de-territorialized in the EU. The last part provides some concluding remarks on the evolution of the European dimension of social security, and the relation between law and politics in the course of welfare integration.

This chapter examines the emergence and the constitutional future of the new coordination processes – and in particular the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) – which have been tried out in recent years within the EU in various fields of social and employment policy, amongst others. It describes a shift away on the part both of individual states and of the EU as a whole from the aspiration towards a single ‘Social Europe’ model to counterbalance the single European market, in favour of an approach that embraces but links the diverse national welfare systems within the European Social Model through coordination of policy and mutual learning. As for the most familiar and probably the most persuasive critique, i.e. that the OMC is largely a paper exercise which lacks real impact or effectiveness on social welfare, the discussion points to the methodological difficulties of demonstrating impact in this context.

This chapter discusses how not all black social worker activists decided to work within organizations. The social workers who chose to participate with organizations eventually created an autonomous institution, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW). The chapter presents the historical context of NABSW's emergence, examining their grievances, demands, strategies and tactics, and outcomes of the mobilization. Through an analysis of the content of their movement activities and the culture of the organization, the chapter argues that NABSW's struggle, while starting as a demand for more substantial voice within the profession, ultimately employed an exit strategy, which led to their separation from the National Conference on Social Welfare (NCSW) to pursue their goals independent of the restrictions of the larger professional organization.

This chapter discusses the view that the UK shifted from a ‘Keynesian national welfare state’ to a Schumpeterian competitive state. It shows how the major risks of unemployment, sickness and old age that were collectivised in the post-war period were ‘privatised’. It then considers the ways in which changes to benefit arrangements have forced young people and lone mothers to be increasingly dependent on their parents and absent fathers, respectively. It also considers how the privatisation agenda affected personal social services.

Geoff Jehle examines the primary instruments of national trade policy, often termed commercial policy, including quantitative restrictions (e.g., quotas), tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and export taxes. He focuses on the implications of the various policy instruments for aggregate national social welfare; the distribution of rents among various groups, notably, producers, consumers, and the government; and the relative value of using trade policy instruments versus other means of government intervention to achieve various policy objectives. Jehle demonstrates the distortions that various types of protectionist barriers create in the domestic economy. He highlights the fact that the typical cascading tariff schedule found in many countries implies very high rates of effective protection for producers of finished goods.

This chapter situates religious women such as Dominican Sister Vincent Ferrer as vital players in the history of capitalism in the modern United States. Throughout the New Deal era Ferrer traveled the country to give major addresses about the church’s teaching on economic questions, even as she helped to raise awareness of the same at the Catholic grassroots. Her story speaks to the ways that Dominican women have brought the encyclical tradition to life on the ground, a trend that continues through to the present day, as the chapter explores in two closing contemporary vignettes.

At the same time that Italian Americans began to promote increasing Italian immigration to the country, Americans largely reaffirmed a policy of limited and restricted immigration with the passage of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act. In order to more effectively organize against immigration policies that continued to be based on National Origins System quotas, and to meet the needs of Italian Americans who wanted to expand access to immigration opportunities for Italians, Italian Americans formed the American Committee for Italian Migration (ACIM). ACIM became the leading organization that helped to bring together a number of Italian American individuals and groups who were concerned about immigration reform in the postwar period. This chapter therefore explores the Italian American immigration reform lobby’s origins, scope, and ideological foundations.

This introductory chapter examines the historical documents of two black social movements, National Conference on Social Welfare (NCSW) and National Federation of Settlements (NFS). The differences in the organizational cultures of NFS and NCSW, the strategic decisions made by their leaders, and the network of relationships between black social workers across the two organizations explain the several factors that either promote or restrict the incorporation of movement ideas into organizations. The chapter also presents the book's overarching goals. First, it argues that the inclusion of movements into organizations is already a very movement-like process. Second, it claims that Black Power was the primary motivation and political lens for the creation of new racial organizational practice in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Finally, it asserts that the development of black associational life is an essential outcome of the Black Power movement that has had broad implications in the professions.

This chapter examines how the initial efforts by both international and local Jewish leaders to strengthen and streamline communal institutions and policies in the first decade and a half after the war became instrumental in ensuring the stability of west European Jewry and in shaping its emerging self-consciousness. With the restructuring of several important aspects of community activity in western Europe, it quickly became apparent that there was a need for long-range planning. New techniques in social work and fundraising meant that community leaders needed a clearer sense of the nature and the needs of their constituents. By the late 1950s, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was sponsoring conferences to bring together social workers and leaders of Jewish welfare organizations from western and central Europe to discuss common problems and share solutions. In 1960, it helped to establish a permanent Standing Conference on European Jewish Community Services. The restructuring of health care within the French, Belgian, and Dutch communities also eventually led to the integration of Jewish communal service into the national social-welfare network. With the decline in distinct programmes to aid refugees and immigrants and the movement away from dependency upon international Jewish organizations, Jewish agencies in western Europe were beginning to receive government subsidies.

Chapter Five discusses the 1956 Justice Department crackdown on immigration fraud and its aftermath in Chinese American New York and San Francisco. In New York, the investigations paralyzed the community and strengthened the very KMT leaders who proved unable to stop it. In San Francisco, Chinese American liberal Democrats used their connections to local politicians to fight the investigation and at the same time demonstrate to their peers the value of political participation. In 1958, they played a significant local role in the election that made Edmund G. “Pat” Brown governor and brought a host of other Democrats into state office. Some even began to envision pan-Asian American political solidarity as a route to greater influence in San Francisco.

This chapter examines religious garb (religious clothing) within public classrooms, as it became a controversial issue among the nation’s public and its judicial system in the context of sister-taught schooling litigation. The chapter also explores the difficulties that attorneys like George Reed at the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) faced as they tried to defend the right of sisters to teach publicly in their Catholic habits. While POAU was adamant about preserving the distinctive relationship between the Protestant tradition and the First Amendment, Catholic legal experts—most famously John Courtney Murray—struggled to find a theologically sound basis for asserting a similar relationship on the part of the Catholic Church. The failure of the NCWC to do so on behalf of sisters left its attorneys little choice but to advise those women to remove their habits or retreat from public employment altogether. In its policy of avoiding litigation at all costs, the NCWC found itself guiding Catholic dioceses and religious orders into compliance with a de facto model of church–state separation stronger, and more akin to secularism, even than many American courts demanded.

This chapter provides a brief transnational history of the Settlement House Movement. It develops the argument that the settlements houses contributed to the transnational advancement of the nation in form of the national welfare state by interpreting and tackling the social question as a crisis of a (national) community. Against the background of two major social developments (secularisation and scientisation), it shows how settlement knowledge was translated to different social contexts and proved to be flexibel enough to transcend various social boundaries (class, knowledge etc.) and transform society

A device like the ticker, together with the associated interpretations, reinforced and put into practice the requirements formulated by investment manuals. The investor was represented as a kind of scientist. But how could this scientist integrate into the grand picture of national economies? This required ethical and political re-conceptualizations of finance. This chapter deals with the justification of financial markets as “functional.” The investor-cum-scientists could not be anything but a responsible family member and a good citizen, who contributes to the national welfare by their activities. Accordingly, political economists began legitimizing investment activities as fulfilling economic functions, a discourse which simply contrasted with the eighteenth-century view of investments as bad passions. Political utopias envisaged a better society based on financial investments. Finally, the chapter explores the functionalist justification of stock exchanges, as well as their transformation into national symbols, inextricably connected with state power.

Paul Hanly Furfey chose to pursue Social Work in his doctoral studies as a way to best witness to the Christian tradition. As a graduate student, Furfey served in a parish near the university and worked for John O’Grady at Catholic Charities. At Catholic Charities, Furfey became involved in a broader debate over the extent to which Catholic youth should mix with Protestant or secular communities for recreation. Furfey disagreed with Boy Scout leaders who urged Catholics to mix indiscriminately with other children at their camps. Furfey agreed that should Catholics attend BSA camps but only under Catholic auspices. Furfey also disagreed with his Catholic counterpart, Kilian Hennrich of the Catholic Boys Brigade. Hennrich insisted that Catholic boy scouts remain completely separate from non-Catholic institutions where the children might be pulled away from the Catholic Church by Protestant proselytizers or secular indifference. Furfey argued that a compromise was possible in maintaining a Catholic ethos among Catholic boys within a broader secular camping experience. Furfey’s dissertation, later published as a book, The Gang Age, engaged the latest research in the burgeoning field of boyology. His work at the parish and Catholic Charities provided him direct contact with the field.