This book explores the shift towards individual responsibility that is increasingly evident in welfare systems across the world. The book will be of interest to students and scholars across sociology, social policy, and political science, with a particular focus on migration, minorities, political discourse, securitisation, social justice and human rights. "This book offers a compelling read, analysing how workfare is legitimated in the Central European context, through the innovative metaphor of “political farming.” The analytical framework brings together several distinct streams of theorizing (critical discourse studies, critical security studies, governmentality, boundary-making, and the dynamics of ethnic relations) seamlessly and effectively. Through a very nuanced discursive analysis, Kissová shows how the poor, the offenders, and the “unadaptable” – categories policymakers use to talk about material need recipients – are linked pathologically with criminality, abuse of the system and other negative perceptions. This is a must-read text for anyone interested in how political actors justify questionable legislation that cements inequality in today’s neoliberal milieu.” — B. Nadya Jaworsky, Associate Professor, Sociology, Masaryk University, Czech Republic "Lenka Kissová’s book is clearly written and carefully researched. Her interdisciplinary insight and discursive analysis of parliamentary debates on Slovak “workfare” policies illustrates the deliberate, precise and politicized colocation of Roma marginalization and economic disadvantage, in a manner that starkly illustrates systemic racism dressed up as morally necessary regulatory reform. Moreover, her research has broader comparative and methodological relevance given how she layers in and utilizes governmentality, securitization and legitimation theory, unmasking how neoliberal economic assumptions and dog whistle politics, woven into the speech of politicians, works to demonize recipients as real or potential cheats and criminals, enact further social exclusion and heighten inequality and fear while not-so-subtly promoting existing prejudices. Her overarching metaphor—that of parliamentarians engaging in “political farming” where their ideas seed and take root in fertile soil of the national landscape resulting in regulatory “products”—effectively demonstrates how social reality generally and state regulation specifically can be constructed divorced from actual evidence, a process beyond her specific case and critically relevant to our times." — Barbara J. Falk, Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Canadian Forces College/Royal Military College of Canada, Fellow, Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, University of Toronto, Canada

By framing the dilemma in American politics in terms of helping the poor or reducing dependency, this book examines the question of what government assistance can do. It explains why some people believe that focusing on dependency moves us away from the real problem of welfare reform.

Presents articles from 23 community practitioners and researchers who challenge the "reform" that has turned public aid from a right to a privilege.

Master's Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Sociology - Work, Education, Organisation, London School of Economics (International Inequalities Institute), course: Inequalities and Social Science, language: English, abstract: On 22 August 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), the most significant reform of the US welfare state in half a century. Since then, the press has generally claimed welfare reform to be a success despite complicated trends illustrating that for many in need of social assistance, life has gotten harder, especially for ethnic/racial minorities. As minority populations on the welfare rolls increase and become more diverse, and redistribution becomes increasingly essential to low-income individuals, it is important to analyze the ideologies and values of the US welfare state in comparison with their context. To do this, I analyze the social construction of welfare recipients in US news discourse from 1996 until 2012 using an integrated content and discourse analysis testing for presence of and patterns within stigamtizing, otherizing, and/or racialized associations with welfare recipients. Generally, my findings illustrate that stigmatization, otherization, and racialization remained prevalent within welfare discourse over the period of analysis; although functioning separately, they reinforced each other to ultimately portray welfare recipients, especially Blacks and Hispanics, as unlikely to warrant public support.

It's hard to imagine discussing welfare policy without discussing race, yet all too often this uncomfortable factor is avoided or simply ignored. Sometimes the relationship between welfare and race is treated as so self-evident as to need no further attention; equally often, race in the context of welfare is glossed over, lest it raise hard questions about racism in American society as a whole. Either way, ducking the issue misrepresents the facts and misleads the public and policy-makers alike. Many scholars have addressed specific aspects of this subject, but until now there has been no single integrated overview. Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform is designed to fill this need and provide a forum for a range of voices and perspectives that reaffirm the key role race has played--and continues to play--in our approach to poverty. The essays collected here offer a systematic, step-by-step approach to the issue. Part 1 traces the evolution of welfare from the 1930s to the sweeping Clinton-era reforms, providing a historical context within which to consider today's attitudes and strategies. Part 2 looks at media representation and public perception, observing, for instance, that although blacks accounted for only about one-third of America's poor from 1967 to 1992, they featured in nearly two-thirds of news stories on poverty, a bias inevitably reflected in public attitudes. Part 3 discusses public discourse, asking questions like "Whose voices get heard and why?" and "What does 'race' mean to different constituencies?" For although "old-fashioned" racism has been replaced by euphemism, many of the same underlying prejudices still drive welfare debates--and indeed are all the more pernicious for being unspoken. Part 4 examines policy choices and implementation, showing how even the best-intentioned reform often simply displaces institutional inequities to the individual level--bias exercised case by case but no less discriminatory in effect. Part 5 explores the effects of welfare reform and the implications of transferring policy-making to the states, where local politics and increasing use of referendum balloting introduce new, often unpredictable concerns. Finally, Frances Fox Piven's concluding commentary, "Why Welfare Is Racist," offers a provocative response to the views expressed in the pages that have gone before--intended not as a "last word" but rather as the opening argument in an ongoing, necessary, and newly envisioned national debate. Sanford Schram is Visiting Professor of Social Work and Social Research, Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Joe Soss teaches in the Department of Government at the Graduate school of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, D.C. Richard Fording is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky.

Since 2010 the UK has enacted radical welfare reforms that have led to greater poverty, homelessness, indebtedness, and foodbank use. It has diverged from other European countries experiencing similar economic and social trends, who have not enacted such dramatic cuts and reforms. Until recently, however, the changes proved very popular with the public, who increasingly hated the welfare system and viewed its users as lazy, undeserving, and likely to be cheating. In this book, Tom O'Grady focuses on policies that provide relief from unemployment, poverty, and disability to uncover why Britain's welfare system has been reformed so radically and why, until recently, the public enthusiastically endorsed this programme. Using a comparative and historical perspective, he traces the evolution of British welfare policy, politics, discourse, and public opinion since the 1980s, and argues that from the 1990s a long-term change in discourse from both politicians and the media caused the British public to turn against welfare by 2010. That, combined with the financial crisis, left the system uniquely vulnerable to cuts. This book explores the roots of public opinion on the welfare system, the motives of politicians who have revolutionized it, and the ways in which the system and its users have been spoken about. It is an account of how the public came to consider deserving recipients of help as scroungers; of when and why politicians and the media vilified them; of political parties whose discourse and policies were transformed, almost overnight; and of Britain's journey from providing welfare as generously as the average European country in the 1970s to becoming an outlier today.

Neoliberal policy approaches have swept over the American political economy in recent decades. In Framing Inequality, Matt Guardino focuses on the power of corporate news media in shaping how the public understands the pivotal policy debates of this period. Drawing on a wide range of empirical evidence from the dawn of the Reagan era into the Trump administration, he explains how profit pressures and commercial imperatives in the media have narrowed and trivialized news coverage and influenced public attitudes in the process. Guardino highlights how the political-economic structure of mainstream media operates to magnify some political messages and to mute or shut out others. He contends that news framing of policies that contribute to economic inequality has been unequal, and that this has undermined Americans' opportunities to express their views on an equal basis. Framing Inequality is a unique study that offers critical understanding of not only how neoliberalism succeeded as a political project, but also how Americans might begin to build a more democratic and egalitarian media system.

Most issues in American political life are complex and multifaceted, subject to multiple interpretations and points of view. How issues are framed matters enormously for the way they are understood and debated. For example, is affirmative action a just means toward a diverse society, or is it reverse discrimination? Is the war on terror a defense of freedom and liberty, or is it an attack on privacy and other cherished constitutional rights? Bringing together some of the leading researchers in American politics, Framing American Politics explores the roles that interest groups, political elites, and the media play in framing political issues for the mass public. The contributors address some of the most hotly debated foreign and domestic policies in contemporary American life, focusing on both the origins and process of framing and its effects on citizens. In so doing, these scholars clearly demonstrate how frames can both enhance and hinder political participation and understanding.

Welfare states are a major feature of many societies. This book draws on qualitative interviews with people receiving various working age welfare payments in Ireland to analyse welfare conditionality and explore stigma, social reciprocity and the notions of the deserving and undeserving poor.