Welfare Hot Buttons: Women, Work, and Social Policy Reform (Heritage) - Hardcover

Sylvia Bashevkin

9780802037169: Welfare Hot Buttons: Women, Work, and Social Policy Reform (Heritage)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080203716X ISBN 13: 9780802037169

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2002

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Welfare Hot Buttons provides one of the first comprehensive assessments of contemporary social policy change in three Western countries: Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. Sylvia Bashevkin probes the fate of single mothers on social assistance during the period when three "third way" political executives were in office--Bill Clinton (U.S.), Jean Chretian (Canada), and Tony Blair (Great Britain). She argues that, despite seemingly progressive campaign rhetoric, the social assistance policy realities under each of these three leaders were in crucial respects more punitive and restrictive than those of their neo-conservative predecessors in the 1980s.

Bashevkin addresses even more contentious issues in her study, including the question of whether Anglo-American welfare states are being eclipsed by what she views as newly emergent duty states. In her comparative approach and in her substantive analysis, Bashevkin makes an original and critical contribution to the existing body of literature on social policy.

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From the Back Cover

"This is an intellectually complex book, well-rounded with empirical data, that demonstrates that first-rate scholarship is fully compatible with strongly held values." -Edward Broadbent, visiting fellow, Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs, Carleton University, and former New Democratic Party leader

"This book is written with grace and eloquence. It is rare for a book on comparative public policy to be so readable. The author has done an impressive job synthesizing an enormous amount of information - covering ten years in three different countries - into a single, coherent, logical, and indeed entertaining story ... Bashevkin's comparative approach will bring international attention to the significant insights offered by Canada's social policy experience." -Louise Carbert, Department of Political Science, Dalhousie University

"This systematic analysis of recent changes in social policy is very timely. The book provides a solid feminist analysis of the reasons for and the importance of changes in social policy in three "Third Way" systems, those of Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. It will - and should - provoke debate among all those interested in how social policy is being changed." -Jane Jenson, Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Governance, Univesite de Montreal, and Director of the Family Network, Canadian Policy Research Networks, Inc.