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- Title
Assessing Need in the United States, Germany, and Sweden: The Organization of Welfare Casework and the Potential for Responsiveness in the “Three Worlds”.
- Authors
JEWELL, CHRISTOPHER J.
- Abstract
An ongoing challenge for the administrative state is balancing the programmatic values of responsiveness and accountability. Few studies have examined these policy issues cross-nationally for social assistance, a needs-based form of income support where these tensions are especially significant. Based on street-level case studies, this article demonstrates persistent diversity among welfare states in how these programmatic tradeoffs are made, contrasting a U.S. approach that emphasizes programmatic control via a bureaucratic, flat-grant system, with German and Swedish programs in which individualized assessments of need are a core organizational task. In each European case, legal frameworks, expertise, and work arrangements have evolved in nationally specific ways to contend with the challenges frontline discretion poses to program integrity.
- Subjects
UNITED States; GERMANY; SWEDEN; WELFARE economics; PUBLIC welfare; ECONOMIC policy
- Publication
Law & Policy, 2007, Vol 29, Issue 3, p380
- ISSN
0265-8240
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1467-9930.2007.00260.x