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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 08:29:29 GMT
From: peter stoyko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: uk-policy Welfare State Reform: Soul-Craft and Small Differences
Greetings ...
I am a worker bee within a Statistics Canada research group (Project on
Governance Implications of Labour Market Polarization; Harvey Lazar,
Director) attempting to wrestle with the Third Way issue. Some early
reflections will appear in a forthcoming issue of International Social
Security Review (p.s.: the ISSAssociation has also embarked upon a 2 year
Third Way-type exploration)
I offer a few modest observations about the uk-policy debate and
its spin-offs within the UK print media. Two tensions interest me the
most, but first let me put forth a few empirical suppositions.
1. Suppositions
Virtually all advanced capitalist economies have experienced a growth in
income and labour market polarization (by various measures) since the
late-1970s to early-1980s (earlier in the US, later in Norway). Few
governments have been able to off-set this trend. Monocausal explanations
are inadequate, for the trend seems to result from the complex
interplay of policy, market, and social changes. In Britain,
Thatcher's economic restructuring and (in the late 1980s) social security
and tax reforms are partly to blame, but the trend began before these
changes kicked in. Technological development has made some skill-sets
obsolete and others highly prized, but this only accounts for a small
portion of the trend. Much of growth in polarization is caused by growing
diversity of family structures and habitation arrangements. Among other
things, professional two-earner households are more plentiful and are
pulling further ahead of their less affluent single-earner, no-earner, and
single-head counterparts.
2. Policy Reform As Soul-Craft versus Deep-Diversity
Julian Le Grand describes (in uk-policy and The New Statesman, March 6)
the CORA model (Community, Opportunity, Responsibility, and
Accountability), corralling the themes that most resemble the somewhat
formless Blarite vision. It is a very convincing narritive, a type of
Third Way model that a member of my group (Prof. Leslie Pal) has described
(not unsympathetically) as "policy-making as soul-craft" (in distinction
to "state-craft"). That is, amid the growing heterogenaity of society
(re: lifestyles, consumer tastes, ethno-cultural attributes, career paths)
there is a belief in the efficacy of rejuvenating an all-prevailing ethic
based on community-orientation and individual responsibility. The
principle mechanism of CORA is empowered local communities and families,
coupled with national accountability of some sort.
There is a tension between a society-building project of this kind
and populations characterized by "deep diversity", but, in my opinion, it
is not by any means an insurmountable one. However, how does
empowered-but-accountable localism and a focus on the traditional family
fit in here?
The North American experience suggests that decentralization to local
forms of governance can (like it or not) inject strong doses of
socio-economic conformity, do so unevenly, and often with motives that are
neither progressive nor abide by the expectation of central planners.
Indeed, the motivations of volunteers, non-profit organisations,
cooperatively-owned orgs, and local governments (all cited as key vehicles
of Third Way proposals) to take-up welfare state responsibilities are
varied and not well understood. Exacting national standards and
safeguards from the centre requires administrative innovations not yet
developed.
Changes in family structure and habitation arrangements would seem to be
both deeply rooted structural changes, and the part-cause of
polarization. More policy deliberation, it would seem, could be spent on
ways to promote cohabitation arrangements of various kinds to enhance
self-reliance and self-determination.
3. Small Differences That Matter versus Sea Changes
I agree with David Marquand's (uk-policy) and Andrew Adonis'(Observer,
March 8) suggestion that fashionable terminology must be tied to
substantive policy innovations (not simply middle-of-the-road
compromises), otherwise legitimacy problems result. I also recognize
that a broader vision should inform substantive policy choices. I am less
convinced that this means that the Third Way must constitute a sea
change. Policy-making is, for the most part, incremental. Policy
constraints must be taken seriously. There are now more of them.
Governments must be selective about what large-scale socio-economic
developments they choose to reverse or modify, when possible at all. New
technologies are never an administrative panacea. Thus, pragmatism
focused on results, the type Le Grand underscores, is required.
Canada has less inequality and more vertical mobility than the US (and the
UK, for that matter) because of, what many describe as, "small differences
that matter". This is partly a reference to political culture, but mostly
to specific policies. The possibility of a Third Way may be found in
such small differences. Absolutely new policy instruments are rare, but
when combined in novel ways and managed properly - what policy wonks call
new "instrument regimes" - they form the basis for substantial change. The
individual policies may seem mundane. When combined they may not form a
distinctive model of the economy, nor paradigmatic shift in state-society
relations. But as a new policy framework, it offers meaningful change at
"street level" on a scale that is often grossly underestimated. The
challenge is developing a vocabulary that makes technocratic changes
visible, accessable and debatable among a wider public. Summary terms
do not go very far in this direction, but some term (maybe "third way" or
a descriptive acronym, but save us from "new," "neo" or "post") is
required to provide shape to any complex collection of policy changes in
order to sustain significant attention in an information glutted society.
Thank you for your attention.
Cheers, Peter Stoyko
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Peter Stoyko
Carleton University Tel: (613) 520-2600 ext. 2773
Department of Political Science Fax: (613) 503-4064
B640 Loeb Building V-mail: (613) 731-1964
1125 Colonel By Drive E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ottawa, Canada, K1S 5B6
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