Concepts of Social Justice in the Welfare State. Great Britain and Germany since 1945
Concepts of social justice are at the very heart of the welfare state. From the perspective of the history of institutions, the article reconstructs the principles of justice which underlie the architecture of the social security systems in Great Britain and Germany and analyses how they have changed since 1945. It turns out that in general both welfare states are based on mixtures of different concepts of justice. Parallels can be found above all in the health care systems, which in both countries are based on a combination of two principles – equality of access on the one side and treatment according to one’s needs on the other side. There are more significant differences, in contrast, in regard to insuring against unemployment and to pension systems, whereby the British welfare state entails a link between the norms of equality and of neediness, whereas in Germany the principle of the equivalence between contributions and benefits is deeply rooted. All path-dependencies notwithstanding, a convergence in the institutional arrangements of both welfare states can be traced over the last decades. In Britain as well as in Germany means-tested benefits and thus the principle of neediness became increasingly important, most notably in the field of unemployment benefits. At the same time, both welfare states experienced the rise of new concepts of justice starting from non-class groups like families, women or generations.
The politics of the National Health Service
Preface to the First Edition. Preface to the Second Edition. Preface to the Third Edition. 1. The Politics of Creation 2. The Politics of Consolidation 3. The Politics of Technocratic Change 4. The Politics of Disillusionment 5. The Politics of Value for Money 6. The Politics of the Big Bang 7. Ambiguous Past, Uncertain Future. Index
Socioeconomic and Security Implications of Chinese Migration in the Russian Far East
Several dimensions of migration from China into bordering areas of the Russian Far East (primarily Primorskiy Kray) are subjected to critical assessment: scale of migration economic impacts (for migrants and host regions) attitudes of the host-region population and regional security implications. The analysis suggests that the Russian Far East generally has limited economic attraction for Chinese migrants despite the importance of migration for cross-border relations and trade. The study is based on data from Russian statistical border and migration services; extensive interviews and on-site observations; review of regional newspapers; and a large (N= 1010) opinion survey of the local population. (authors)