There have been major shifts in the framework of social policy and welfare across Europe. Adopting a multi-level, comparative and interdisciplinary approach, this book develops a critical analysis of policy change and welfare reform in Europe. The book applies a dynamic and change oriented perspective to shed light on policy changes that are often poorly understood in the welfare literature, and contributes to a further development of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks for understanding social change. Using citizenship as a focus, several dimensions of change are analysed simultaneously: changes in the discipline of social policy itself; the changing character of social problems; changes in social policy and citizenship; and the emergence of new forms of social integration. The book also speculates on how different dimensions of change are interlinked.

A remarkable change has occurred in how we finance the public enterprise, yet this change has gone largely unnoticed by the general public. Policy makers in the federal, state and local levels of government have had to respond to this change. The causes of the change, future policy directions, and the eventual impact on society of this change is the subject of this book. Six of the nation's most influential economists, political scientists and sociologists have been asked to comment and their views can be found here.

Learn what innovative changes lie in the future of government information The Changing Face of Government Information comprehensively examines the way government documents’ librarians acquire, provide access, and provide reference services in the new electronic environment. Noted experts discuss the impact electronic materials have had on the Government Printing Office (GPO), the reference services within the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), and the new opportunities in the transition from paper-based information policy to an electronic e-government. This source reveals the latest changes in the field of government documents librarianship and the knowledge and expertise needed to teach users how to access what they need from this enormous wealth of government information. Major changes have taken place in the way government information is created, disseminated, accessed, and preserved. The Changing Face of Government Information explains in detail the tremendous change taking place in libraries and government documents librarianship. Topics include the increasing accessibility to the federally funded technical report literature, information on the Patriot Act’s effect on the status of libraries in the aftermath of 9/11, the uses of Documents Data Miner©, and information about catalogs, indexes, and full text databases. This book also provides a selective bibliography of print and electronic sources about Native Americans and the Federal Government, as well as specific sources for information about the environment, such as EPA air data, DOE energy information, information on flora and fauna, hazardous waste, land use, and water. Each chapter is extensively referenced and several chapters use appendixes, tables, and charts to ensure understanding of data. This useful book gives readers the opportunity to learn: how the University of Oregon successfully integrated its business reference service and map collection into its government documents collection the results of a survey of FDLP institutions identifying the factors contributing to the reorganization of services details of the pilot project undertaken by the University of Arizona Library along with the United States Government Printing Office’s Library Programs Service to create a model for a virtual depository library which critical features are missing in today’s e-government reference service models details of the GPO’s plans to provide perpetual access to both electronic and tangible information resources—and the strategies to authenticate government publications on the Internet The Changing Face of Government Information is stimulating, horizon-expanding reading for librarians, professors, students, and researchers.

The world’s richer democracies all provide such public benefits as pensions and health care, but why are some far more generous than others? And why, in the face of globalization and fiscal pressures, has the welfare state not been replaced by another model? Reconsidering the myriad issues raised by such pressing questions, Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza contend here that public opinion has been an important, yet neglected, factor in shaping welfare states in recent decades. Analyzing data on sixteen countries, Brooks and Manza find that the preferences of citizens profoundly influence the welfare policies of their governments and the behavior of politicians in office. Shaped by slow-moving forces such as social institutions and collective memories, these preferences have counteracted global pressures that many commentators assumed would lead to the welfare state’s demise. Moreover, Brooks and Manza show that cross-national differences in popular support help explain why Scandinavian social democracies offer so much more than liberal democracies such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Significantly expanding our understanding of both public opinion and social policy in the world’s most developed countries, this landmark study will be essential reading for scholars of political economy, public opinion, and democratic theory.

Abstruse legal phrases often inform our understanding of intricate cases. But those situations are also led, not outpaced, by basic equity principles of life itself. What statisticians call the law of large numbers and intelligence analysts in the world of science fiction know as the Bergofsky Principle is our structural faith in empirical knowledge. In this day, this process of experience and learning has moved into an international and interdisciplinary scale. That idea cannot be lost on us. Around the world, business and political leaders work together to realize common goals. But how does the rule of law impact these developments in strategy and technology, sustainable development, and access to justice? Armed with realism, Changing Face of the Law: A Global Perspective actively explores the legal traditions of the United States, India, and other commonwealth nations. A budding lawyer, author Riddhi Dasgupta provides an insider's look at the link between the rule of law and corporate ethics, the law's imagination, and our global dialogue. Lawful governance, or Gandhi's swaraj, is our linchpin. It appreciates the complexities of life and insightfully examines the modern perspectives of law. Giving us examples of this approach in the areas of free thought, federalism and development, and the law's role as a teacher, Dasgupta pinpoints the 'active liberty" of the world's citizens-their own governance-as the key issue. Every generation has its challenges, and ours lie in combating the emergent economic, health, corruption, and terrorism crises through the rule of law. Each sector in our society (from multinational corporations to social groups) is a vital piece of the puzzle. There is no doubt that the success or failure of this collaboration will measure our legacy.

In Welfare Reform, Jeffrey Grogger and Lynn Karoly assemble evidence from numerous studies to assess how welfare reform has affected behavior. To broaden our understanding of this wide-ranging policy reform, the authors evaluate the evidence in relation to an economic model of behavior.