The fast changing economic climate is creating substantial pressure for welfare state restructuring worldwide. Yet the discussion regarding challenges faced and the responses required has been confined to the 'standard welfare states' in the West. This book examines whether these challenges also apply to the countries in the East, whether these countries have generated different responses to their Western counterparts, and whether they have undergone a process of regime transformation while responding to these pressures. Comparative in approach, this book offers lively discussion on the new social challenges faced in East Asia following the unprecedented scale of the recent global financial crisis. It reaches beyond policy descriptions to offer more systematic analyses of welfare restructuring in the region in relation to the fast changing global economic order. By examining the dynamics of welfare state restructuring both in terms of continuity and change, it explores intensified impacts of global restructuring of welfare and the nature of welfare state adaptation in the region.

Aspalter asserts that the belief that the development of high standard welfare states is primarily based on the ideology that pro-welfare, mostly leftwing, parties dominate welfare state literature and common thought in the Western world. Instead, in this examination of the welfare states of East Asia, Aspalter and his contributors show that they grew as naturally as they did in most Western countries, but that the reasons for this are other than pro-welfare ideologies. The five welfare states—Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore—are residual welfare states with low levels of welfare benefits and provision when compared to extended welfare states in Western Europe. While East Asian welfare states have experienced a hefty increase in welfare provision that has been regulated or provided by the state since the early 1970s, all five were set up and expanded by conservative governments with clear anti-welfare ideologies. The case studies provided by Aspalter and his contributors suggest that welfare state development in East Asia is caused to a large extent by social protests in general, and, for welfare in particular, by competition in democratic elections, and by the changing role of women. Social and demographic factors, such as the rise of the age structure of the population, do not cause welfare state expansion in the first place. They cause street protests, and street protests convince all kinds of governments—if they rule out the use of force—to implement social welfare. Moreover, politicians, who are afraid to lose elections, also take up welfare issues, which they would not do without electoral competition between candidates and parties. As Aspalter makes clear, governments do not have to wait until major protests occur or until they have lost an election in order to promote social welfare. The anticipation of such an event is sufficient. This book provides new insights on the development of welfare systems that will be of particular interest to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with social welfare, East Asian studies, and comparative politics.

Since the economic crisis of 1997, there have been significant social policy reforms in East Asia. Using the concept of the developmental welfare state, this book seeks to answer whether the welfare reforms in East Asia have extended social rights while maintaining its developmental credentials. Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia explains the way in which the shift in economic strategy has influenced social policy reform in East Asia. It also analyzes the political dynamics of social policy in which economic imperatives for social reform were transformed into social policy reform.

Developing countries may not have full-fledged welfare states like those we find in Europe, but certainly they have welfare state systems. For comparative social policy research the term "welfare state systems" has many advantages, as there are numerous different types/models of welfare state systems around the world. This path-breaking book, edited by Christian Aspalter, brings together leading experts to discuss social policy in 25 countries/regions around the world. From the most advanced welfare state systems in Scandinavia and Western Central Europe to the developing powers of Brazil, China, India, Russia, Mexico and Indonesia, each country-specific chapter provides a historical overview, discusses major characteristics of the welfare state system, analyzes country-specific problems, as well as critical current and future trends for further discussions, while also providing one additional major focal point/issue for greater in-depth analysis. This book breaks new ground in ideal-typical welfare regime theory, identifying now in total 10 worlds of welfare capitalism. It provides broad perspectives on critical challenges which welfare state systems in the developing and developed world alike must address now and in the future. It will be of great interest to all scholars and students of social policy, social development, development and health economists, public policy, health policy, sociology, social work and social policy makers and administrators. This book is a reference book for researchers and social policy administrators; it can also serve as a textbook for courses on comparative social policy, international social policy and international social development.

Published in association with the SPA, Social Policy Review 27 draws together international scholarship at the forefront of addressing concerns that emphasise both the breadth of social policy analysis, and the expanse of issues with which it is engaged. Contributions to this edition focus on the effects of financialisation on services and care provision, policies to address deficiencies in housing and labour markets, and ways in which the study of social policy may need to develop to respond to its changing material concerns. A themed section explores the place of comparative welfare modelling in the context of change over the last quarter of a century to consider where scholarship has been and where it might be going.

This book examines the quality of democracies in Asia and determines why current democracies—especially during the so-called “new normal” era following the 2008 financial crisis—have become less stable and less resilient to increasing authoritarianism. Based on the assumption that the concept of democracy consists of three elements—procedure (participation, competition, and distribution of power); effectiveness (representation, accountability, and responsiveness); and performance (social welfare, inequality, and trust)—the contributors to this book determine which elements are responsible for diverging trajectories within the Asian democratic recession. Examining South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Myanmar, and China, the authors employ different research methods—quantitative, comparative, or individual case studies—to explore the conditions under which democratic rules and norms erode over time, and which type of governance is preferred by citizens in this region as an ideal type. The book puts forward the argument that a procedure-oriented concept of democracy is not sufficient for understanding the source of democratic recession and develops a new concept of “new democracy” based on procedure, effectiveness, and performance. It also demonstrates to what extent the experience changes and how the countries respond to these changes. A novel contribution on the state of democracy in Asia written by experts from the region, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of political science, especially comparative politics and international relations, regional study of East and Southeast Asia, sociology, public policy, economics, and social science methods. Also, this book will appeal to think tanks and policy-oriented researchers.

Chapter Introduction -- chapter Social Politics, the State, Policy, Comparison: Gordon White's Contribution to China Studies -- chapter Gordon White and Development Studies: An Appreciation -- chapter Reform and the Role of the State in China -- chapter Managing Central-Local Relations During Socialist Marketisation: A Changing Role for the Chinese Communist Party -- chapter Treasuring the Word: Mao, Depoliticisation and the Material Present -- chapter State Enterprise Reform and Gender: One Step Backwards for Women? -- chapter Corporatist Capitalism: The Politics of Accumulation in South India -- chapter Bias and Capture: Corruption, Poverty and the Limitations of Civil Society in India -- chapter Between Cant and Corporatism: Creating an Enabling Political Environment for the Poor -- chapter State Entrepreneurship and Community Welfare Services in Urban China -- chapter Creating Wealth and Welfare: Entrepreneurship and the Developmental State in Rural China -- chapter Can Welfare Systems be Evaluated Outside Their Cultural and Historical Context? A Case Study of Children's Homes in Contemporary Japan -- chapter The East Asian Welfare States in Transition: Challenges and Opportunities -- chapter Is Globalisation All It is Cracked Up to Be? -- chapter Globalisation, Privatisation and China's Industrial Labour Systems -- chapter Bibliography of Gordon White's Works -- chapter Notes on Contributors.

This title was first published in 2002: Since the bloodless transition from authoritarian state to fully-fledged democracy, Taiwan has undergone a period of dramatic social and political change. In a political culture increasingly dominated by platforms built on social policy issues, this book provides an intriguing case study of the application of welfare state theories to the real-life social development of Taiwan. Combining a state-of-the-art discussion of the major theoretical schools of thought with in-depth analysis of the electoral promises and programmes in recent Taiwanese elections, the book looks at the direct causal relationship between political competition in democratic elections and welfare state construction. It will prove essential reading for all those interested in the area of comparative social policy, welfare theory, Asian studies and politics.

Dramatic socio-economic transformations over the last two decades have brought social policy and social welfare issues to prominence in many East Asian societies. Since the 1990s and in response to national as well as global pressure, there have been substantial developments and reforms in social policy in the region but the development paths have been uneven. Until recently, comparative analysis of East Asian social policy tends to have focused on the established welfare state of Japan and the emerging welfare regimes of four Tiger Economies. Much of the recent debate indeed preceded Chinas re-emergence onto the world economy. In this context, this Handbook brings China more fully into the contemporary social policy debates in East Asia. Organised around five themes from welfare state developments, to theories and methodologies, to current social policy issues, the Handbook presents original research from leading specialists in the fields, and provides a fresh and updated perspective to the study of social policy. Providing a comparative international approach, this Handbook will appeal to academics, researchers and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels working in the fields of social policy, as well as policy makers and practitioners who are interested in social policy lessons from other societies.

The author aims to develop conceptual refining and theoretical reframing of the productivist welfare capitalism thesis in order to address a set of questions concerning whether and how productivist welfarism has experienced both continuity and change in East Asia.