Chicago/SSA/Centennial
Welfare States in Transition: Social Policy Transformation in Organizational Practice
Evelyn Brodkin, Associate Professor
Date: May 15th & 16th, 2009
Location: School of Social Service Administration
969 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Recent decades have witnessed a transformation in social policies and practices in the U.S. and internationally. Some of the most dramatic changes are occurring in policies that are reshaping the relationship between welfare and work. This symposium will examine this transformation, not only as enacted in law, but as enacted in practice. It will feature a series of papers and discussion that offer organizations-eye views of ways in which the changing relationship between welfare and work is being translated into practice in different states, cities, and in other countries.
The papers and discussion will consider shifts in both policy and practice, advancing new ways of thinking about the role of organizations in social policy transformation. As welfare and work policies have changed, so have the administrative arrangements under which they are implemented, arrangements increasingly constructed around new public management strategies of devolution, contracting, and performance measurement. How are these changes in policy and practice redefining the relationship between disadvantaged citizens, the state, and the market?
This symposium brings together researchers examining welfare-to-work as a global policy trend and new public management as a global administrative trend. It provides a forum for a discussion of the effects of these trends and their implications for future efforts to address poverty, inequality, and marginalization.