This book seeks to understand the politics of deservingness for future Social Security reforms through an interpretive policy analysis of the 2005 Social Security privatization debates. What does it mean for politics and policymaking that Social Security recipients are widely viewed as deserving of the benefits they receive? In the 2005 privatization debates, Congress framed Social Security in exclusively positive terms, often in opposition to welfare, and imagined their own beloved family members as recipients. Advocates for private accounts sought to navigate the politics of deservingness by dividing the "we" of social insurance to a "me" of private investment and a "them" of individual rate of return in order to justify the introduction of private accounts into Social Security. Fiscal stress on the program will likely bring Social Security to the policy agenda soon. Understanding the politics of deservingness will be central to navigating those debates.

Globalisation, regionalisation, new technology, demography, voters' expectations and re-structuring of societies are expected to influence welfare state development for years to come. This handbook analyses how different welfare state models and regimes will be able to cope with contemporary and future challenges, providing a variety of evidence based tools that make it essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers alike.

The conventional wisdom has it that a balanced budget is the height of economic rationality, that social security should be privatized, and that most adult welfare recipients could and should get jobs. All our social and economic problems, we are told, are due to too much government; if we only left the American free enterprise system alone, the free market would heal all that ails our society and lead to lasting prosperity. Challenging these widespread stereotypes and myths, this book starts with the fundamental theory underlying capitalist ideology, showing that even in theory an unfettered free market cannot deal effectively with the many needs of a modern economy. Our society has many social goals to which the great majority subscribe-goals such as sustained full employment, universal health care, and quality education for all. The free market will not, the author argues, bring us quality education for every American child, affordable universal health care, Social Security for the elderly, assistance for the poor, or protection of the environment. Only an active, participant government can affect positive change in such areas of social concern.

Focusing mainly on case studies from Australia and the United States of America, this book considers how people with dementia represent themselves and are represented in 'theatre of the real' productions and care home interventions, assessing the extent to which the 'right kind' of dementia story is being affirmed or challenged. It argues that this type of story - one of tragedy, loss of personhood, biomedical deficit, and socio-economic 'crisis - produces dementia and the people living with it, as much as biology does. It proposes two novel ideas. One is that the 'gaze' of theatre and performance offers a reframing of some of the behaviours and actions of people with dementia, through which deficit views can be changed to ones of possibility. The other is that, conversely, dementia offers productive perspectives on 'theatre of the real'. Scanning contemporary critical studies about and practices of 'theatre of the real' performances and applied theatre interventions, the book probes what it means when certain 'theatre of the real' practices (specifically verbatim and autobiographical) interact with storytellers considered, culturally, to be 'unreliable narrators'. It also explores whether autobiographical theatre is useful in reinforcing a sense of 'self' for those deemed no longer to have one. With a focus on the relationship between stories and selves, the book investigates how selves might be rethought so that they are not contingent on the production of lucid self-narratives, consistent language, and truthful memories.

Gring-Pemble asserts that the role of language in shaping policy options is rarely studied and poorly understood. She seeks to analyze congressional hearings and debates on welfare to understand the role of language in framing welfare policy and contemporary welfare discussions. She reviews welfare history in the United States and provides a rhetorical analysis of welfare deliberations. In the process she illustrates the significance of language and ideology in shaping American social policy outcomes.

"The mind and heart of America, in this tremendous hour, require an inspiration which cannot come out of the party caucus and the editorial room of the daily newspaper." So writes Russell Kirk in Prospects for Conservatives. Sixty years hence the hour is late, the situation even more dire. Our governing elites, in all areas of social, political, and cultural life, have snapped the central axis of humanity and trampled upon the principles of natural, social, and transcendent order. But such are not ever lost, and it is these that Russell Kirk offers to us in this work--perhaps his best, in terms of style as well as intellectual depth and creativity, as Bradley Birzer notes in his introduction to this new edition.

As Dr. Birzer goes on to indicate, the book's importance lies less in the specific issues it addresses than in its discussion of eternal truths. In Prospects, the author engages problems of the intellect, community, justice, order, loyalty, tradition, and power; and associates each of these either with the seven classical and Christian virtues or with the seven deadly sins. Yes, the hour is late, but transcendent order can never be entirely extinguished, and its re-articulation in Prospects for Conservatives--bringing it into clear view so that it can affect everyday living--is an unexpected grace from the pen of Russell Kirk, given to all whose intellects and imaginations have not yet lost their bearings. In an age when it is all too easily led off course, Dr. Kirk offers American conservatism a sure way forward, and reason for hope in perilous times.

Step by step, this book shatters the myth that important environmental energy debates in the United States have been driven by forces too complex for the average American to comprehend. Although made up of a number of contributions, Robert McMonagle's book makes sense of the underlying political and societal forces driving contemporary environmental energy debates including the critical case of whether to drill for energy sources at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. This book aims to answer two questions by examining four case studies of the policy-making process: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; drilling on public lands in the Western United States and in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico; along with a proposal to develop a commercial wind farm off the Massachusetts coast. First, what political and societal forces have shaped modern, contentious environmental energy debates in the US? Second, what do the findings reveal about the way in which environmental energy policies are made, about our institutions of government, and about the influences of the public versus elites in making policy? Dr. McMonagle finds that partisan voting in Congress is a critical factor in policy shifts, especially when symbols are used to define policy issues. Further, public opinion and the print media remain important factors in defining issues leading to legislative policy victories.

Don't Drink the Water is not a book trying to promote any existing religious, spiritual or national agenda. It does not attempt to blame anyone for the current state of human affairs. It is the story of how the author combined his personal experience with the thoughts of many of our more renown philosophers, states-men, scientists and long term thinkers from around the world to conclude that the goal of a secure and sustainable world for all humans is not an unattainable "Utopia." Don't Drink the Water makes a compelling case - Living in a time when we have secure and stable relations with each other and our environment is simply the logical outcome of the ongoing evolution of human intelligence.

Particularly in the 1990s, social welfare programs have been cut back in a number of countries. Indeed, the phrases "ending welfare as we know it" or "dismantling the welfare state" have been used to describe this trend. In this analysis by well-recognized social welfare scholars, the nature and extent of changes in social welfare programs in key industrial or post-industrial countries is scrutinized. Determining if and how social welfare and employment prospects have been cut back in the United States, Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Japan helps to identify the population groups hardest hit by cutback. In the United States, for example, poor, single-mother families have suffered major reductions in income support, while more powerful groups have avoided major losses. This cross-national study not only sheds light on general trends in social welfare but also provides clues to what constitutes successful reform and what has failed. This major comparative analysis will be of interest to scholars, students, policy makers, and professionals as well as the general public concerned with social welfare issues, full employment, poverty, and economic inequality.

aA lively, smart, combative collection, brimful of ideas and insights, this book takes on athe war on crimea and shows how America might move beyond it.a
--David Garland, author of "The Culture of Control"

aThis brave book challenges us, urgently, to rethink crime and punishment for the 21st century. It is not by accident that the US became the worldas largest incarcerator in just thirty-five years. After the War on Crime exposes how structural inequalities based on race and class and written into our laws, institutions and everyday practices have blackened our jails and prisons and reproduced segregated communities inside and out.a
--Susan Tucker, Director, The After Prison Initiative, Open Society Institute

Since the 1970s, Americans have witnessed a Pyrrhic war on crime, with sobering numbers at once chilling and cautionary. Our imprisoned population has increased five-fold, with a commensurate spike in fiscal costs that many now see as unsupportable into the future. As American society confronts a multitude of new challenges ranging from terrorism to the disappearance of middle-class jobs to global warming, the war on crime may be up for reconsideration for the first time in a generation or more. Relatively low crime rates indicate that the public mood may be swinging towards declaring victory and moving on.

However, to declare that the war is over is dangerous and inaccurate, and After the War on Crime reveals that the impact of this war reaches far beyond statistics; simply moving on is impossible. The war has been most devastating to those affected by increased rates and longer terms of incarceration, but its reach has also reshaped a sweeping range of socialinstitutions, including law enforcement, politics, schooling, healthcare, and social welfare. The war has also profoundly altered conceptions of race and community.

It is time to consider the tasks reconstruction must tackle. To do so requires first a critical assessment of how this war has remade our society, and then creative thinking about how government, foundations, communities, and activists should respond. After the War on Crime accelerates this reassessment with original essays by a diverse, interdisciplinary group of scholars as well as policy professionals and community activists. The volumeas immediate goal is to spark a fresh conversation about the war on crime and its consequences; its long-term aspiration is to develop a clear understanding of how we got here and of where we should go.

"An excellent, well-written study. . . . Unique in its sociological focus and its emphasis on young widows." Choice "[In] this intelligent and emotionally gripping book, [the author] peels away both the cultural-symbolic layer of heroism in war and the psychological layer of individual grief. She presents a sensitive sociological analysis." Contemporary Sociology

Kloos and Zein's excellent bibliography provides a thorough guide to an amazing amount of information. . . . With 4,614 entries, it is more than twice the size of the earlier version. Its scope includes infectious and noninfectious diseases, physical trauma, mental health, health services, maternal and child health, nutrition, and famine, including resettlement and refugees. The works are well selected, including both standard publications and less well known Ethiopian and Italian works. The broad scope makes the work useful for medical workers as well as those engaged in social or cultural research. Choice This bibliography provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive listing of published and unpublished works on health and disease in Ethiopia for the period 1940-1990. It brings together in one volume more than 4,000 citations for writings in all areas of health and disease, many of which have not been previously cited in the English-language literature on the subject. The volume's ten chapters are divided into subsections that classify major disease groups and health problems. The bibliographic entries are organized alphabetically within each chapter. Further subdivisions of the topics, including diseases and specific problems, are provided in the subject index. About half of the references deal with infectious diseases, and approximately 700 with malnutrition, nutritional deficiency diseases, famine, and supplementary feeding. An effort was made to include as many references as possible on mother and child health, health services, and traditional medicine, all extremely important, but relatively neglected subjects. While the great majority of the references cited are on Western-style medicine, many works on traditional medicine, socioeconomic problems, and famine are also included. The complexity and immensity of health problems in developing countries demand that they be understood by health officials and researchers if significant and sustained improvements in the health status of the population is to be achieved. By presenting the great bulk of the biomedical, famine, and health-related socio-economic literature, this bibliography contributes to a better understanding of both broadly based and specific health problems in one of the world's least developed countries. It will be valuable as an interdisciplinary research tool for students, senior researchers, health officials, and relief aid organizations.

The result of an intensive two-year research study, this volume examines the likely course of the AIDS epidemic over the next fifteen years. Extremely well-documented and based largely on sophisticated statistical analysis, the study makes detailed forecasts of who will become sick; explores the social, political, and economic consequences of the spread of the disease; and analyzes the controversial policy choices that must be made if the epidemic is to be contained. The authors argue that current policies have failed in their efforts to combat the spread of AIDS and suggest new public policy measures aimed at dramatically reducing the spread of the virus. AIDS researchers, health care practitioners, and policymakers will find The Catastrophe Ahead both an invaluable source of detailed statistical information about the AIDS epidemic and an urgent call to action.

Based on the study results, the authors conclude that by 2002, a million and a half people may die of AIDS and more than 4 million others may be infected with the disease. They explore various scenarios--worst, best, and middle cases--demonstrating that blacks face by far the greatest risks: under the most likely scenario some 15 percent of all blacks between the ages of 15 and 50 will carry the virus by 2002. The authors propose a universal routine voluntary testing program to avert this catastrophe, enabling people to sexually self-segregate themselves based on whether or not they carry the HIV virus. While the authors concede that this program cannot completely stem the tide of infection, they argue that it offers one of the best defenses available against the epidemic. Well written and illustrated with numerous tables and figures, this volume should be required reading for anyone involved in AIDS counseling and policymaking.

This book brings together essays on modernity, social integration, social differentiation and social exclusion by Lockwood, Mouzelis and other eminent social theorists. At the same time it addresses critical issues facing Western democracies, such as social exclusion, the underclass, unemployment, new inequalities, globalization and the new competitive environment. Its novelty lies in the imaginative way it uses social theory to critique old, and suggest new, policies and political practices.

This book explores the development of state welfare in Taiwan, focusing on the interconnection between capitalist development and state welfare from 1895 to 1990, using an integrated Marxist perspective to which the capitalist world system, state structure, ideology, and social structure are considered simultaneously. It argues that neither citizenship nor welfare needs were the concern of Taiwanese social policies. A decline in legitimacy and risen social movements forced the state to expand welfare, namely the National Health Insurance, in the 1980s.

BEST OF THE 2022 RUSA Book & Media AWARDS One of Biblioracle's 8 favorite nonfiction books of 2021 in the Chicago Tribune The New York Post's BEST BOOKS OF 2021 USA Today's 5 BOOKS NOT TO MISS Alexander nimbly and grippingly translates the byzantine world of American health care into a real-life narrative with people you come to care about. --New York Times Takes readers into the world of the American medical industry in a way no book has done before. --Fortune By following the struggle for survival of one small-town hospital, and the patients who walk, or are carried, through its doors, The Hospital takes readers into the world of the American medical industry in a way no book has done before. Americans are dying sooner, and living in poorer health. Alexander argues that no plan will solve America's health crisis until the deeper causes of that crisis are addressed. Bryan, Ohio's hospital, is losing money, making it vulnerable to big health systems seeking domination and Phil Ennen, CEO, has been fighting to preserve its independence. Meanwhile, Bryan, a town of 8,500 people in Ohio's northwest corner, is still trying to recover from the Great Recession. As local leaders struggle to address the town's problems, and the hospital fights for its life amid a rapidly consolidating medical and hospital industry, a 39-year-old diabetic literally fights for his limbs, and a 55-year-old contractor lies dying in the emergency room. With these and other stories, Alexander strips away the wonkiness of policy to reveal Americans' struggle for health against a powerful system that's stacked against them, but yet so fragile it blows apart when the pandemic hits. Culminating with COVID-19, this book offers a blueprint for how we created the crisis we're in.

This book provides a holistic study of the physical and mental health conditions that predominate among people of color. By presenting a thorough review of Third World cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors centering on health care, Henderson lays a firm foundation for understanding traditional non-Western cultures. Since immigrants, women, and people of color will be 85% of the net growth in the work force by the year 2000, human services professionals who assist people of color in state, county, and municipal agencies, nonprofit organizations, hospitals, and nursing homes will be challenged to provide assistance to an increasing number of culturally diverse clients.

This book combines an overview of validity theory, trends in validation practices and a review of standards and guidelines in several international jurisdictions with research synthesis of the validity evidence in different research areas. An overview of theory is both useful and timely, in view of the increased use of tests and measures for decision-making, ranking and policy purposes in large-scale testing, assessment and social indicators and quality of life research. Research synthesis is needed to help us assemble, critically appraise and integrate the overwhelming volume of research on validity in different contexts. Rather than examining whether any given measure is valid, the focus is on a critical appraisal of the kinds of validity evidence reported in the published research literature. The five sources of validity evidence discussed are: content-related, response processes, internal structure, associations with other variables and consequences. The 15 syntheses included here, represent a broad sampling of psychosocial, health, medical and educational research settings, giving us an extensive evidential basis to build upon earlier studies. The book concludes with a meta-synthesis of the 15 syntheses and a discussion of the current thinking of validation practices by leading experts in the field."

Examining the issues of treatment, organizational planning, and research, this multidimensional study offers a critique of both the theoretical and programmatic aspects of providing mental health services to traditionally underserved populations. Focusing on minority groups, the book uses the case of Hispanics to illustrate the largely unaddressed need for services that are relevant to social groups with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Vega and Murphy maintain that the present service system is socially insensitive, that mental health services in the United States were never designed to serve a multicultural population, and that, in general, those who dominate the current mental health system from administrator-clinicians to bureaucrats and politicians do not know how to direct their services to minority groups. Calling for fundamental reconceptualization and change, the book argues for community-based planning and intervention as an enlightened and necessary alternative, and provides a detailed description of such a program in terms of both philosophy and method. The eight chapters offer a reassessment based on understanding not only the rationale for these necessary services, but also the important philosophical and pragmatic issues that have resulted in the current, inadequate system; they provide the new thinking necessary to reframe the objectives of mental health services for cultural minorities. The early chapters explore some of the critical junctures in the community mental health movement between 1946 and 1981, the development of theory in the movement's early days, and the thrust of community-based intervention--the culture-specific methodology that has not been well-understood or implemented. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the relationship between medicalization and the degradation of culture and on the reconceptualization of knowledge, order, illness, and intervention. The last three chapters analyze an example of community-based intervention in operation, and citizen involvement and the political aspects of community-based policies are reviewed. This timely discussion of the requirements for a socially responsible and community-based services delivery program lays the theoretical foundation for a future public mental health system. As such, it will prove invaluable and important reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the health and human services areas, including social work, clinical psychology, and medical sociology; it also has much to offer professional administrators and planners. Culture and the Restructuring of Community Mental Health has been designed to meet the needs of both academics and practitioners.

Gender equality has been one of the defining projects of European welfare states. It has proven an elusive goal, not just because of political opposition but also due to a lack of clarity in how to best frame equality and take account of family-related considerations. This wide-ranging book assembles the most pertinent literature and evidence to provide a critical understanding of how contemporary state policies engage with gender inequalities. Examining progress in gender equality in EU member states, this thought-provoking book traces developments from the last decade and earlier regarding women's and men's relative positioning in respect of income, employment and time. Located in a critical feminist perspective, the result is a compelling overview of the gender-related achievements in the EU and continuing gaps and inequalities. As well as taking stock of where we are now, the book identifies a research agenda going forward. This seeks to revitalise the feminist social policy project, in light of key welfare state developments and intersectional inequalities in Europe and beyond. This innovative and detailed book constitutes an important contribution to debates about gender equality and policies in Europe and provides a timely reminder of the content of the gender critique of welfare states and why it is still salient.

Ordinary citizens face a frustrating and increasingly complex maze of human service agencies when they seek help for everyday problems, even though one stop information and referral centers have been established to facilitate information seeking in many communities. This book explores the relationship between the information needs of battered women and the information response provided through social networks in six communities of varying size.

The book is based on an award-winning study, in which 543 women described their knowledge of the problem of woman abuse and what kinds of information resources would be helpful to an abused woman. In the second phase of the study, 179 interviews were conducted with service providers identified by these women as likely sources of help. A comparison of the interviews demonstrates that the response of information delivery systems does not adequately meet the needs and expectations of those women who would seek such services. The final chapters of the volume focus on the implications of this study for the design of social service systems.

This study examines and explains the relationship between social health insurance (SHI) participation and out-of-pocket expenditures (OOP) as well as the mediating role the institutional arrangement of SHI plays in this relationship in China. Embracing a new institutionalist approach, it develops two analytical perspectives: determination, which identifies the mechanisms of social health insurance, and strategic interaction, which explores the interaction among social health insurance agencies, healthcare providers, patients, and institutions. It reveals the poor performance of social health insurance in decreasing out-of-pocket health expenditures caused by a trade-off between the reimbursement, behavior management, and purchasing mechanisms of social health insurance programs. Further, it finds that the inequitable allocation of healthcare resources and patients' concerns regarding the benefits offset the strategies used by social health insurance agencies to manage care-seeking behavior. It also discovers that the complex interactions between insurance agencies, doctors, patients and a larger disenabling institutional surrounding restricts the purchasing efficiency of social health insurance. This book is characterized by its unique synthesis of the role of the institutional arrangement of social health insurance in China, the interaction between the stakeholders in health sectors, and of the relationship between healthcare institutions, actors, and policy outcomes. Providing a comprehensive overview, it enables scholars and graduate students to understand the ongoing process of social health insurance reform as well as the dynamics of health cost inflation in China. It also benefits policymakers by recommending a single-payer model based on an evidence-based investigation.