This Discussion Paper is based on a theoretical exploration of state reconstruction and the prospects for peacebuilding in post-conflict West African countries based on critical reflections on the political thought of Claude Ake, one of Nigeria's foremost political thinkers. Its point of departure is the refutation of the view that the state project in Africa is 'hopeless' or at a dead-end. It therefore revisits the debate on the viability of the state project in the continent, particularly as it relates to those West African states emerging from or affected by violent conflict. While acknowledging the shortcomings of the state-formation project in some post-conflict West African countries, the author argues that the state remains a key institutional and social actor that needs to be understood more in terms of its historical moorings, political economy and marginal position in the international order. Drawing on Ake's postulations about the limited autonomy of the state in Africa and its links to political violence and conflict, the author critiques both the hegemonic discourses on the nature of the state in Africa and those relating to post-conflict peacebuilding in the continent. The analysis of the latter focuses on the epistemological groundings of mainstream peacebuilding discourses, and posits that there is no guarantee that such imported models ensure sustainable peace in West Africa. Thus, the paper makes a compelling case for reinventing the state in West Africa based on autochthonous democratic transformation in favour of ordinary people. In this regard, it argues for an endogenous transformation of the state in Africa in ways that can strongly root it in the people as a fundamental step towards sustainable and locally owned participatory peacebuilding. It thereby opens up a new perspective on state reconstruction as a step towards ending violent conflict in the sub-region.

This Discussion Paper provides insights into the challenges posed by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in West Africa, paying particular attention to the ECOWAS convention on small arms and light weapons as a collective sub-regional response to a potent threat to peace, security and development. It connects global and regional discourses on illicit arms control and provides a balanced, empirical examination of the performance of the convention. It is a useful contribution to debates on arms-proliferation control in Africa and provides well-informed recommendations of interest to scholars, peace activists, policy practitioners and strategists working on peace and security in Africa.

The fifth edition of this successful textbook discusses the different parts of the welfare system and, in particular, cash benefits, the health service and education. The text argues that the welfare state does not exist just to help the underprivileged, but also for means of efficiency, in areas where the private markets would be inefficient or would not exist at all.
Suitable for both economics students and students on related disciplines, this book is accessible and contains a non-technical appendix in every chapter, diagrams, additional readings, worked examples and end of chapter discussions.
Online Resource Centre
For students:
- Web links
- Further reading
- Links to related Oxford Scholarship Online titles
For lecturers:
- PowerPoint slides - these have been expanded for the fifth edition

An accessible and entertaining narrative history of the establishment, development and unravelling of the British Welfare State - now fully revised to cover Blair's first term. Lively writing in the style of Peter Hennessy. 'Giant Want. Giant Disease. Giant Ignorance. Giant Squalor. And the insidious Giant Idleness, "which destroys wealth and corrupts men". These were evils to be vanquished by the postwar reconstruction of Britain. Timmins' book recaptures brilliantly the high hopes of the period in which the Welfare State began to be created, and conveys the cranky zeal of its inventor, William Beveridge. The onslaught on the five Giants was the work of five gargantuan programmes that made up the core of Beveridge's Welfare State. These were social security, health, education, housing and a policy of full employment. It is notoriously difficult to write about such subjects and keep the reader reading, but Timmins performs wonders of narrative clarity, anecdote and human detail in a book that finds its chosen level somewhere between Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' and '1066 and All That'...There is something very moving about his rhetoric of transformation and 'The Five Giants' will stir up strong emotions. It is impossible not to respond in personal terms to a book that is a part of so many of our histories, woven into the day-to-day texture of our lives.' Fiona MacCarthy, Observer Beveridge was originally only supposed to sort out the web of insurance services stifling Britain. 'The Five Giants' recounts how his original vision and campaign blossomed enormously to inspire a country at war with the hope that the peace might bring comfort and security for all. The tale hums with the energies and passions of activists, dreamers and ordinary Britons, and seethes with personal vendettas, forced compromises, arguments about money, awkward contradictions, noisy rows and fervent perseverance. Nicholas Timmins, who has seen how the Welfare State works every day for the last two decades, assesses the key personalities, the key problems, the key victories and key defeats in his anecdotal, witty and illuminating study of the Welfare State from the 1940s to the present day.

1914. A Work of the Greatest Utility to the Brethren of the Society to Mankind in General and to the Ladies in Particular. Contents: Freemasonry's history world-wide; Edict of Rome against the Freemasons; Members expelled from the Society for Crimes; Masonic Secrecy; Masonic Oaths; Symbolism; Jewelry; Prayers Hieroglyphics; Charity; Spirituality.

From the international bestselling author of The Post-American World 'An intelligent, learned and judicious guide for a world already in the making' The New York Times Since the end of the Cold War, the world has been shaken to its core three times. 11 September 2001, the financial collapse of 2008 and - most of all - Covid-19. Each was an asymmetric threat, set in motion by something seemingly small, and different from anything the world had experienced before. Lenin is supposed to have said, 'There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen.' This is one of those times when history has sped up. In this urgent and timely book, Fareed Zakaria, one of the 'top ten global thinkers of the last decade' (Foreign Policy), foresees the nature of a post-pandemic world: the political, social, technological and economic consequences that may take years to unfold. In ten surprising, hopeful 'lessons', he writes about the acceleration of natural and biological risks, the obsolescence of the old political categories of right and left, the rise of 'digital life', the future of globalization and an emerging world order split between the United States and China. He invites us to think about how we are truly social animals with community embedded in our nature, and, above all, the degree to which nothing is written - the future is truly in our own hands. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World speaks to past, present and future, and will become an enduring reflection on life in the early twenty-first century.

This book provides a fresh and even-handed account of the newly modernized AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) - the 40-million member insurance giant and political lobby that continues to set the national agenda for Medicare and Social Security. Frederick R. Lynch addresses AARP's courtship of 78 million aging baby boomers and the possibility of harnessing what may be the largest ever senior voting bloc to defend threatened cutbacks to Social Security, Medicare, and under-funded pension systems. Based on years of research, interviews with key strategists, and analyses of hundreds documents, "One Nation under AARP" profiles a largely white generation, raised in the relatively tranquil 1950s and growing old in a twenty-first century nation buffeted by rapid economic, cultural, and demographic change. Lynch argues that an ideologically divided boomer generation must decide whether to resist entitlement reductions through its own political mobilization or, by default, to empower AARP as it tries to shed its 'greedy geezer' stereotype with an increasingly post-boomer agenda for multigenerational equity.

International Social Security agreements are bilateral agreements primarily intended to eliminate dual Social Security taxation based on the same work and provide benefit protection for workers who divide their careers between the United States and a foreign country. Most jobs in the United States are covered by Social Security. The Social Security Act extends Social Security coverage to all U.S. citizens and resident aliens who are employed abroad by U.S. companies as well as those who are self-employed in a foreign country. This book provides an overview of the purpose and operation of international Social Security agreements and discusses the effects of agreements on selected provisions of the Social Security Act while addressing some concerns raised by policymakers about the agreements.

In Understanding the Social Economy, Jack Quarter, Laurie Mook, and Ann Armstrong integrate a wide array of organizations founded upon a social mission - social enterprises, nonprofits, co-operatives, credit unions, and community development associations - under the rubric of the 'social economy.' This framework facilitates a comprehensive study of Canada's social sector, an area often neglected in the business curricula despite the important role that these organizations play in Canada's economy.

Invaluable for business programs that address issues such as community economic development, co-operatives, and nonprofit studies and management, Understanding the Social Economy presents a unique set of case studies as well as chapters on organizational design and governance, social finance and social accounting, and accountability. The examples provide much needed context for students and allow for an original and in-depth examination of the relationships between Canada's social infrastructure and the public and private sectors. With this work, Quarter, Mook, and Armstrong illuminate a neglected facet of business studies to further our understanding of the Canadian economy.

1914. A Work of the Greatest Utility to the Brethren of the Society to Mankind in General and to the Ladies in Particular. Contents: Freemasonry's history world-wide; Edict of Rome against the Freemasons; Members expelled from the Society for Crimes; Masonic Secrecy; Masonic Oaths; Symbolism; Jewelry; Prayers Hieroglyphics; Charity; Spirituality.

Medicare Advantage (MA) is an alternative way for Medicare beneficiaries to receive covered benefits. Under MA, private health plans are paid a per-person amount to provide all Medicare-covered benefits (except hospice) to beneficiaries who enrol in their plan. As of January 2009, all Medicare beneficiaries had access to an MA plan and 23% of beneficiaries enrolled in one. In general, Medicare Advantage plans offer additional benefits or require smaller co-payments or deductibles than original Medicare. Sometimes beneficiaries pay for these additional benefits through a higher monthly premium, but sometimes they are financed through plan savings. This book highlights the many advantages of the alternative Medicare program. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

Westchester County, New York, is thought of as suburban and affluent, but welfare reform hit hard here, too. The radical 1996 legislation created a temporary assistance program for poor families with harsher provisions than the program it replaced. It mandates "workfare," meaning that recipients must work as a condition of benefit receipt. But the work parents obtain in the so-called flexible labor market--jobs like home health care aide--are inflexible for them. One sick child can mean the loss of a job.
In contrast to accounts of inner-city poor families, these suburban parents' stories reveal a broad array of precipitating circumstances leading to their downward economic slide and to welfare. They also provide insight into the bureaucratic machinations, rigid rules and mandates, disciplining techniques, and catch-22s that create an insecure environment for many families today. Many of these stories show that the need for welfare over time extends well beyond the federal government's five-year lifetime limit on welfare. Policies emphasizing work first also restrict access to education and further hinder parents' ability to gain a toehold in the economy.
In this tale of people and policies, the author shows how the interests of governments are often at variance with those of vulnerable families, and how some government actions place more pressure on lives replete with stress.

This book consists of papers that present the findings of research done by the SMERU Research Institute in Jakarta, Indonesia. Most describe the effects on the poor of the Indonesian economic crisis of 1997-98 and the response of the Indonesian government in the form of a Social Safety Net consisting of poverty mitigation programs. With the gradual recovery of the economy after 2000, the Indonesian government began reducing subsidies for fuel products and has channelled budgetary savings into a new series of targeted social protection and poverty alleviation undertakings that include unconditional cash transfers. The effectiveness of Indonesia's poverty alleviation programs has, however, been reduced by the difficulty of targeting beneficiaries accurately because of a lack of reliable, up-to-date poverty figures. In many instances unsuitable targeting methodology has been compounded by bad governance at the local level, while the introduction of regional autonomy, accompanied by the decentralization of authority to the district level, has formed a further complicating factor.

Congress continues to register concern about the rapid rise in Medicare spending and the ability of existing funding mechanisms to support the program over the long-term. A combination of factors has contributed to the rapid increase in Medicare costs. These include increases in overall medical costs, advances in health care delivery and medical technology, the ageing of the population, and longer life spans. The issues confronting the program are not new; nor are the possible solutions likely to get any easier. For a number of years, various options have been suggested; however, legislative changes have focused on short-term issues. There is no consensus on the long-term approach that should be taken. This book provides an overview of Medicare. It begins with a brief program history, and then outlines the key features of Parts A and B, also known as "Original Medicare". That is followed by overviews of Part C and Part D, a discussion of program financing, and a brief discussion of future program directions. It will be updated to reflect any legislative changes.

Extensive welfare, law, and policy reforms characterized the making and unmaking of Keynesian states in the 20th century. This collection highlights the gendered nature of these regulatory shifts and, specifically, the roles played by women - as reformers, welfare workers, and welfare recipients - in the historical development of welfare states. The contributors are leading feminist socio-legal scholars from a range of disciplines in the US, Canada, and Israel. Collectively, their analyses of women, law, and poverty speak to long-standing and ongoing feminist concerns: the importance of historically informed research, the relevance of women's agency and resistance to the experience of inequality and injustice, the specificity of the experience of poor women and poor mothers, the implications of changes to social policy, and the possibilities for social change. Such analyses are particularly timely as the devastation of neo-liberalism becomes increasingly obvious. The current world crisis of capitalism is a defining moment for liberal states - a global catastrophe that concomitantly creates a window of opportunity for critical scholars and activists to reframe debates about social welfare, work, and equality, and to reinsert the discourse of social justice into the public consciousness and political agenda of liberal democracies. (Series: Onati International Series in Law and Society)

An exploration of the ways in which ancient theories of empire can inform our understanding of present-day international relations, Enduring Empire engages in a serious discussion of empire as it relates to American foreign policy and global politics.

The imperial power dynamics of ancient Athens and Rome provided fertile ground for the deliberations of many classical thinkers who wrote on the nature of empire: contemplating political sovereignty, autonomy, and citizenship as well as war, peace, and civilization in a world where political boundaries were strained and contested. The contributors to this collection prompt similar questions with their essays and promote a serious contemporary consideration of empire in light of the predominance of the United States and of the doctrine of liberal democracy.

Featuring essays from some of the leading thinkers in the fields of political science, philosophy, history, and classics, Enduring Empire illustrates how lessons gleaned from the Athenian and Roman empires can help us to understand the imperial trajectory of global politics today.

Likening fiscal federalism to a game between the Union and the States, and among the States themselves, Indian Fiscal Federalism lays bare the complex rules of play. It examines the pivotal role of Finance Commissions and assesses momentous events since 2014, such as the replacement of the Planning Commission by NITI Aayog, the emergence of the GST Council, and the controversies surrounding the Fifteenth Finance Commission. The book offers a historical perspective on fiscal federalism, in particular the interplay and overlap of institutional mechanisms. In doing so, it examines persistent as well as immediate concerns, and offers a way forward. A contemporary, timely, and comprehensive analysis of fiscal federalism in India, this is a must-read for all those interested in the subject.

And Masonic Jurisdiction Thereunto Belonging, At Its Celebration Of The Bi-Centenary Of The Birth Of Right Worshipful Past Grand Master Brother Benjamin Franklin, Held In The Masonic Temple, In The City Of Philadelphia On Wednesday, March The Seventh A. D. 1906-A. L. 5906. Together With An Account Of The Memorial Service At His Tomb, On Thursday, April The Nineteenth A. D. 1906-A. L. 5906.

Public street surveillance - a domain of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) - has grown enormously and become common place in our society as an all-purpose security tool. Previous authors have raised concerns over social, civil and privacy issues; however, there has been limited research to quantify such concerns. Nevertheless these concerns not only define the social risk perception of CCTV, but may also cause its social relocation and alter social support of CCTV. This book is essential reading for those interested in CCTV from a social, privacy or security aspect. There has never been such a publication that provided a definitive measure of the social issues of CCTV. The book is based on a study that applied a psychometric risk theory to a new public street CCTV surveillance system, measuring the social risk perception over a period of time. In addition, factors that may define and drive such social issues, social concerns with CCTV control and CCTV gender issues are discussed in-depth. The book demonstrates that CCTV may not have yet found its true social risk measure and that current social support may not necessarily be defined or robust.

Public Housing That Worked New York in the Twentieth Century Nicholas Dagen Bloom "Highly recommended."--"Choice" "While high-rise public housing in the United States is widely regarded as a disaster, the experiment in New York City has thrived for more than seventy years. Nicholas Bloom's well-written, well-researched, and well-illustrated work provides the most sophisticated answers yet to this American paradox."--Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University "Nicholas Dagen Bloom's bold thesis is powerfully argued and effectively overturns much received wisdom about the history of public housing in the United States. This well researched and clearly written book will undoubtedly trigger a fierce debate both among historians and those interested in current housing policy."--Robert Bruegmann, author of "Sprawl: A Compact History" "In "Public Housing That Worked," Nicholas Dagen Bloom offers the best examination to date of the origins, choices, mistakes, and management of the New York City Housing Authority from its beginnings in the 1930s up through the present. He stresses effective management as the principal reason behind why the city's public stock of housing has survived in decent condition while scores of projects across the country have been demolished. The book should be essential reading for planners and policy analysts seeking a detailed look inside how and why New York's public housing became a notable if controversial exception."--John Goering, Baruch College and CUNY Graduate Center and former HUD project manager When it comes to large-scale public housing in the United States, the consensus for the past decades has been to let the wrecking balls fly. The demolition of infamous projects, such as Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis and the towers of Cabrini-Green in Chicago, represents to most Americans the fate of all public housing. Yet one notable exception to this national tragedy remains. The New York City Housing Authority, America's largest public housing manager, still maintains over 400,000 tenants in its vast and well-run high-rise projects. While by no means utopian, New York City's public housing remains an acceptable and affordable option. Nicholas Dagen Bloom is Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies at the New York Institute of Technology and author of "Merchant of Illusion: James Rouse, America's Salesman of the Businessman's Utopia." 2008 - 368 pages - 6 x 9 - 33 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-2067-4 - Paper - $26.50s - 17.50 ISBN 978-0-8122-0132-1 - Ebook - $26.50s - 17.50 World Rights - American History, Public Policy Short copy: "Public Housing That Worked" offers a comprehensive history of America's largest and most successful housing authority. The New York City Housing Authority pioneered, and still maintains, rigorous systems of public housing management that allowed it to avoid the downward spiral experienced by most American public housing authorities."

Laura Levine Frader's synthesis of labor history and gender history brings to the fore failures in realizing the French social model of equality for all citizens. Challenging previous scholarship, she argues that the male breadwinner ideal was stronger in France in the interwar years than scholars have typically recognized, and that it had negative consequences for women's claims to the full benefits of citizenship. She describes how ideas about masculinity, femininity, family, and work affected post-World War I reconstruction, policies designed to address France's postwar population deficit, and efforts to redefine citizenship in the 1920s and 1930s. She demonstrates that gender divisions and the male breadwinner ideal were reaffirmed through the policies and practices of labor, management, and government. The social model that France implemented in the 1920s and 1930s incorporated fundamental social inequalities.Frader's analysis moves between the everyday lives of ordinary working women and men and the actions of national policymakers, political parties, and political movements, including feminists, pro-natalists, and trade unionists. In the years following World War I, the many women and an increasing number of immigrant men in the labor force competed for employment and pay. Family policy was used not only to encourage reproduction but also to regulate wages and the size of the workforce. Policies to promote married women's and immigrants' departure from the labor force were more common when jobs were scarce, as they were during the Depression. Frader contends that gender and ethnicity exerted a powerful and unacknowledged influence on French social policy during the Depression era and for decades afterward.

Social Security, in the United States, currently refers to the Federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. The original Social Security Act[1] and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare or social insurance programs. The larger and better known initiatives of the program are: Federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance; Unemployment Insurance; Temporary Assistance to Needy Families; Health Insurance for Aged and Disabled (Medicare); Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs (Medicaid); State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP); Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Social Security in the United States is a social insurance program funded through dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). The term, in everyday speech, is used only to refer to the benefits for retirement, disability, survivorship, and death, which are the four main benefits provided by traditional private-sector pension plans. By dollars paid, the U.S. Social Security program is the largest government program in the world. Largely because of solvency questions ranging from immediate crisis to large projected future shortfalls, reform of the Social Security system has been a major political issue for more than three decades. This book presents the latest issues and developments related to this program.

This book is a valuable resource for all of those seeking to understand the reality faced by millions of Americans whose plight rarely finds an informed and articulate voice such as that possessed by Ms. Mitchell. Though this penetrating journal is written over thirty years ago, her intimate experience with and intricate insights into the reality faced by an expanding American underclass are as relevant today as they were then. She sheds an informing and penetrating light on race relations, poverty, mothering, gender relations and many other pertinent issues. Foreword Magazine Book of The Year Bronze Winner: Family and Relationships, 2008. Indies Next Generation Book of The Year Award: Family / Parenting, 2008.

In the decade since President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 into law--amidst promises that it would "end welfare as we know it"--have the reforms ending entitlements and moving toward time limits and work requirements lifted Texas families once living on welfare out of poverty, or merely stricken their names from the administrative rolls?

Under welfare reform, Texas has continued with low monthly payments and demanding eligibility criteria. Many families who could receive welfare in other states do not qualify in Texas, and virtually any part-time job makes a family ineligible. In Texas, most families who leave welfare remain in or near poverty, and many are likely to return to the welfare rolls in the future.

This compelling work, which follows 179 families after leaving welfare, is set against a backdrop of multiple types of data and econometric modeling. The authors' multi-method approach draws on administrative data from nine programs serving low-income families and a statewide survey of families who have left welfare. Survey data on health problems, transportation needs, and child-care issues shed light on the patterns of employment and welfare use seen in the administrative data. In their lives after welfare, the families chronicled here experience poverty even when employed; a multiplicity of barriers to employment that work to exacerbate one another; and a failing safety net of basic human services as they attempt to sustain low-wage employment.