Philosopher views


MATERNALIST SOCIAL POLICY FRAMEWORK



Download 5.81 Mb.
Page384/432
Date28.05.2018
Size5.81 Mb.
#50717
1   ...   380   381   382   383   384   385   386   387   ...   432

MATERNALIST SOCIAL POLICY FRAMEWORK

In American political debates it is common to hear politicians refer to this nation as a “welfare state.” The concept of the welfare state began in countries like Australia, New Zealand and Brazil between 1880 and World War I. Early social spending in these countries continued to spread to other nations as well including Denmark, Britain and Germany where governments enacted laws concerning hour and wage regulations as well as arbitration of labor disputes for workers. These countries also began noncontributory pensions for the elderly, and insurance for workers. During wartime nations like Britain became successful in maintaining and increasing such policies by juxtaposing their model of the “welfare state” against the Nazi model, which they labeled “the warfare state.”


Though many politicians would like to believe that the U.S. exists in the framework of the “welfare state,” that view is inaccurate. While all of the previously mentioned nations provided social benefits directly from the nation’s budget, the United States’ model, which started long after these other nations’ programs, never followed a noncontributory model and in only one instance was anything allotted directly from the federal government to the citizens. The Social Security Act of 1935 included contributory retirement programs as its only national program. Other issues dealt with by the Social Security Act were things such as unemployment insurance, which left states in charge of taxes and allowed them to determine coverage and benefits. The federal government has never created a national health insurance policy and though it offers some subsides for public assistance programs it is left up to the states to administer such policies.
The term “welfare” has always been a negative term in United States political discussions. Americans tend to perceive these programs as handouts to people who are lazy and haven’t earned them. This concept makes receipt of such benefits demeaning and citizens attempt to avoid them. Skocpol examines these issues in order to analyze the way the United States chooses to give out social benefits. In the past individuals in a variety of areas, political science and history being the most prominent have discussed the concept of welfare. Skocpol takes the work from both of these areas in to consideration in understanding the development of social policies in the U.S. and examining how their development was effected by who could vote and have an effect on the legislation.
The welfare state concept has always been approached from a masculine standpoint. The fundamental understanding and belief has been that the public sphere, politics and business, was for males and females were responsible for the private realm, which included the charities and the home. Welfare literature often ignores the gendered dimension when examining American politics.
This mentality causes theorists to miss important issues when attempting to understand the history and development of social policy in the United States. Skocpol alters that reality by examining gendered social policies as well as maternalist policies in her work. She argues that up until this point the role of literature on women and welfare has been to sensitize readers to the subject and it therefore treats the subject through the use of narrative and interpretive essay. Skocpol takes on the challenge of creating a straightforward treatment of gender and social policies while learning from the more tentative arguments that have previously been made on the subject.
Skocpol develops a maternalist theory of the United Stats social policies. This has a number of implications for debate. First, this different perspective is one that allows debaters to emphasize the role of women in the history and development of United Stats social policy without painting the male population in a negative light. Second it provides a well rounded concept of social policy in the United States, by examining pensions and programs for males and the elderly as well as subsidies for women and children. Most importantly however, this perspective allows debaters to move beyond shallow criticisms of a patriarchal structure to a full understanding of what that term truly means and how it may be an inaccurate criticism of United States policies.
The work done by Skocpol in her book, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers, moves away from an understanding of United States history as one where powerful men made all the decisions and women could only make marginal gains under a patriarchal framework. She explains the powerful place middle-class women found themselves in once they began to organize around particular issues affecting their place in society. This book defends an understanding of the power of various women’s organizations that make up the women’s movement in America. However, the subject is not presented as one sided but rather analyzed through an understanding of the interplay between a variety of forces which she claims include women’s organizations as well as, “U.S. political institutions and variously structured social movements and political coalitions” (Protecting Soldiers and Mothers 36).


THE MISSING MIDDLE

The late 1990s were a fairly positive time in American history. Most nights the average American could turn on the news and see President Bill Clinton or Vice President Al Gore promoting their latest policy to put health care in the hands of the people and provide opportunities to the working class. This could be followed by reports of the Clinton administration’s success at keeping the economy up and unemployment rates low. In such a political climate it struck many people as strange that Theda Skocpol would choose that time to speak out about inequality in America. Her book, The Missing Middle, was published in 2000 and all of the issues that she addresses are still important in current political debates. The framework she sets up in this work provides yet another useful mechanisim for analyzing problems with the social and political structure in the United States while finding workable solutions to those issues.


Despite media reports that America was in a prosperous time the majority of the country was feeling overworked and underpaid, having trouble obtaining health care and proper treatment at their jobs and not seeing the great wealth they heard about every night from the news media. A shallow analysis of this problem may yield support for an understanding that American media is inaccurate, a widely accepted understanding in the U.S. However, in this case the media was absolutely right, unemployment was down, the stock market was up and social spending was high as well. In order to explain this paradox Skocpol developed her theory of the “missing middle.”
When talking about the middle she refers both to those individuals who fall into the middle of the socioeconomic spectrum as well as the middle of the generations. Her theory applies to

Working men and women of modest economic means- people who are not children and are not yet retirees. They are adults who do most of the providing and caring for the children, while paying the taxes that sustain retirees now and into the future. (The Missing Middle 8)


The people she is referring to are the one who fall somewhere in between the “poor” that are often the focus of welfare debates and the wealthy professionals who are usually defended in political debates by the conservative politicians. The group Skocpol seeks to address are generally working Americans who spend long hours at a job because they need to feed families and want to create a decent life either as a single parent or in a dual income home.
Those individuals who fall in the middle of the generational and socio-economic spectrum, Skocpol argues, are generally ignored in political debates. She points out that political debates devolve into conflicts between what are seen as the “rich” and “poor” in American society on issues such as welfare. More recently social policy debates have become an issue of the elderly verses the young. Politicians tend to juxtapose the needs of an aging population with the programs designed to help underprivileged children. While all of these groups are relevant to discussions on social policy, taking this approach insures that politicians leave out the largest portion of American society, the working population, many of them parents, who Skocpol argues, “are truly at the epicenter of the changing realities of U.S. society and economic life” (The Missing Middle 8).
The reason many Americans found themselves feeling overworked at the end of the 1990s while the media reported on the positive status of America was because they were, and still are. Skocpol argues that because politicians continue to ignore the middle section of people in America’s diverse spectrum of individuals they continuously miss the needs of this population. Though the Clinton administration can tout low unemployment rates and a high stock market it is irrelevant to a large portion of the population. The low unemployment rate sounds good but ignores the fact that more Americans are working harder for less money than they have before and a majority of those same people could care less about a rising stack market because they don’t own stock or have the time to learn how to invest their money because they are too busy getting out there and trying to earn it.
This work is especially important for Lincoln-Douglas debaters to have as a tool when determining a perspective with which to shape the debate for a couple of reasons. First, this theory differs from most current social and political theories in that it stand right in the middle of the dominant perspectives and still provides tons of clash with all of the things around it. By examining a resolution through the missing middle perspective you seem to be avoiding the extreme positions and providing a discussion that is more palatable yet it will always clash with the dominant positions in these debates.
This may leave some debaters thinking, why would I want to take a middle of the road stance if there will still be a lot of literature that clashes with it? The answer to this is simple, because the theory of the missing middle addresses, mainly, working class parents it provides a realistic mechanism for assessing the resolution which your judges may often relate to. While college student and professors who judge Lincoln Douglas debate may be more amenable to radical discussions on either the right or the left of the resolution these individuals are not always the largest portion of a high school debater’s judging pool. Often working parents make up a large portion of the audience at tournaments and Skocpol’s theory of the missing middle may be the perfect perspective with which to approach a resolution and make arguments that your audience can relate to. Additionally, because Skocpol’s theory tends to address the unspoken majority in American society she may provide a safer perspective when you are having trouble with audience analysis.



Download 5.81 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   380   381   382   383   384   385   386   387   ...   432



The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message
    Main page
best form
philosophical basis