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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Disorganized welfare mixes
— voluntary agencies and new governance regimes in Western Europe | | Author(s) | Ingo Bode |
| Journal title | Journal of European Social Policy, vol 16, no 4, November 2006 |
| Pages | pp 346-359 |
| Source | http://esp.sagepub.com |
| Keywords | Voluntary agencies ; Services ; Social policy ; Comparison ; United Kingdom ; France ; Germany ; Western Europe. |
| Annotation | There has been increasing interest in changes in the governance of welfare and related governance regimes, with the latter being conceptualised as systems of multi-faceted inter-agency relations and associated modes of coordination. Referring to evidence from France, Britain and Germany, the article explores these changes with an eye on the role of voluntary organizations within these regimes. It challenges widespread typologies of welfare mixes, as well as general assumptions about international variation. It argues that throughout Western Europe, similar governance regimes emerged in the postwar settlement, materializing in an 'organized welfare mix'. It then illustrates how these regimes currently undergo a process of permanent disorganisation and reorganisation, again irrespective of international differences. Long-established patterns of a system-wide coordination via negotiated public-private partnerships turn into volatile configurations, with a growing, albeit varying, influence of the market rationale. Moreover, there is an increasing distance between voluntary provider organizations and both the welfare state and civil society, with this entailing precarious but also more dynamic interrelations. Finally, civic action becomes more fluid, sporadic, dispersed but also more creative in many places. Hence, there is the paradox of the new welfare mixes exhibiting innovative dynamics and systematic organisational failure at the same time, with (more) output heterogeneity as an inevitable consequence. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-070123204 A |
| Classmark | PK: I: TM2: 48: 8: 765: 767: 76 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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