The state of welfare : comparative studies of the welfare state at the end of the long boom, 1965-1980
- Authors: Eklund, Erik , Oppenheimer, Melanie , Scott, Joanne
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Book
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- Description: The period after 1945 saw a rapid growth in social welfare, with the state taking on increasing responsibility for pensions, health care, unemployment relief and income support. In Western democracies economic growth underpinned state investment and was reinforced by demands from the new social movements of the 1960s. Just as the clamour for reformism reached a crescendo in the late 1960s, the global economy began to falter, culminating in the oil crisis of 1973-1974. This volume explores the factors that shaped the trajectories of welfare state change over this crucial period. A close analysis of countries such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom reveals signs of a broader shift towards the decline of government spending and the first tentative moves towards a nascent neoliberalism. Other countries, such as Sweden and West Germany, remained comparatively untouched by the economic crisis and even sought to reinforce their welfare state in response to it. Ireland and Northern Ireland also showed little evidence of these changes, isolated as they were by complex political and religious factors. This book brings together a range of case studies at both country and provincial level in order to build up a more complex and nuanced picture of the welfare state in the 1960s and 1970s.
A 'program of such potential' : The Australian Assistance Plan
- Authors: Scott, Joanne , Oppenheimer, Melanie , Eklund, Erik
- Date: 2018
- Type: Book chapter , Text
- Relation: The state of welfare : comparative studies of the welfare state at the end of the long boom, 1965-1980 Chapter 5 p. 85-104
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- Description: The Australian Assistance Plan (AAP) was an innovative programme of social welfare reform. Foreshadowed in the late 1960s, launched in 1973, and abolished in 1977, it was the subject of substantial commentary during and immediately after its brief existence. Attracting more brickbats than bouquets, the AAP was variously described as ‘a feasible and indeed exciting approach’, ‘the most random of random experiments’, ‘welfare on the cheap’, ‘a confusing program’ and ‘good news’.2 In contrast to other major initiatives of the Whitlam Labor government, it has attracted almost no scholarly analysis since the 1970s.
The welfare state at the end of the Long Boom, 1965-1980 : Themes and issues
- Authors: Eklund, Erik , Oppenheimer, Melanie , Scott, Joanne
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The state of welfare : comparative studies of the welfare state at the end of the long boom, 1965-1980 Chapter 1 p. 1-15
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- Description: Forged during the Second World War and the post-war era, the modern Western welfare state was created as a bulwark against the penury associated with the twin repercussions of the First World War and later the Great Depression of the 1930s and the insecurities brought about by the second global war. The state accepted an enlarged commitment to the social and economic well-being of its citizens, propelled by a concern to ensure social stability as much as a commitment to the welfare of individuals. Most Western economies developed a mix of public and private provision of welfare, building on existing initiatives and reaching a new level of scale and maturity in the period 1945 to 1975. In Britain, William Beveridge laid down what his biographer, Jose Harris, has described ‘as a key foundation document for social welfare provision in any modern “mixed economy”, not just in the United Kingdom but also for much of the developed world’ through his 1942 Social Insurance and Allied Services report, otherwise known as the Beveridge Plan.
“Developing a community soul” : A comparative assessment of the Australian assistance plan in three regions, 1973-1977
- Authors: Eklund, Erik , Oppenheimer, Melanie , Scott, Joanne
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Journal of Politics and History Vol. 62, no. 3 (2016), p. 419-434
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- Description: The Australian Assistance Plan (AAP) was an innovative yet largely forgotten social welfare program from the 1970s. A key platform of the Whitlam Labor government, which established a series of Regional Councils for Social Development across Australia, the AAP reframed citizens’ participation in their communities, stimulated voluntary organisations and volunteering and attempted to transform engagement among all levels of governments and the voluntary sector. Through an analysis of three Regional Council case studies in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, this article focuses on the themes of regionalism and regional distinctiveness in order to assess how questions of regional difference can impact on the development of policy practices. © 2016 The Authors.