This article employs case studies of China and Hong Kong to question the western ethnocentric construction of the welfare state that predominates in comparative social policy research. The authors argue that welfare regimes, and particularly the “welfare state,” have been constructed as capitalist-democratic projects and that this has the damaging effect of excluding from analyses not only several advanced capitalist societies in the Asian-Pacific area but also the world's most populous country. If welfare state regimes can only coexist with western political democracies, then China and Hong Kong are excluded automatically. A similar result occurs if the traditional social administration approach is adopted whereby a “welfare state” is defined in terms only of direct state provision. The authors argue that such assumptions are untenable if state welfare is to be analyzed as a universal phenomenon. Instead of being trapped within an ethnocentric welfare statism, what social policy requires is a global political economy perspective that facilitates comparisons of the meaning of welfare and the state's role in producing it north, south, east and west.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
MidgleyJ.Industrialisation and welfare: The case of four little tigers. Soc. Policy Admin. 20(3): 225–238, 1986.
2.
O'ConnorJ.The Fiscal Crisis of the State. St. James Press, New York, 1973.
3.
GoughI.The Political Economy of the Welfare State. Macmillan, London, 1979.
4.
OffeC.Contradictions of the Welfare State. Hutchinson, London, 1984.
5.
Esping-AndersenG.The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1990.
6.
DominelliL.Women Across Continents. Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 1991.
7.
JonesC.The Pacific challenge. In New Perspectives on the Welfare State in Europe, edited by JonesC., pp. 189–220. Routledge, London, 1993.
8.
JonesH.Some factors in third world social policy. Soc. Policy Admin. 17(2): 106–117, 1983.
9.
PusicE.The development of welfare state in Yugoslavia. In Modern Welfare States, edited by FriedmannR., Wheatsheaf, Sussex, 1987.
10.
DixonJ.MacarovD. (eds.). Social Welfare in Socialist Countries. Routledge, London, 1992.
11.
DeaconB.The New Eastern Europe: Social Policy Past, Present and Future. Sage, London, 1992.
12.
FergeZ.KolbergJ. E.Social Policy in a Changing Europe. European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, Vienna, 1992.
13.
TitmussR. M.The social division of welfare. In Essays on the Welfare State, Ed. 2, pp. 34–55. Unwin Books, London, 1963.
14.
CochraneA.ClarkeJ. (eds.). Comparing Welfare States. Sage, London, 1993.
15.
FloraP.HeidenheimerA. J.The Development of Welfare States in Europe and America. Transaction Books, New Brunswick, 1982.
16.
MarshallT. H.Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1950.
17.
GintisH.BowlesS.The welfare state and long-term economic growth: Marxism, neoclassical, and Keynesian approaches. Am. Econ. Rev.72(2): 341–345, 1982.
GinsburgN.Divisions of Welfare. Sage, London, 1992.
20.
TherbornG.RoebroekJ.The irreversible welfare state: Its recent maturation, its encounters with the economic crisis, and its future prospects. Int. J. Health Serv. 16(3): 319–338, 1986.
21.
DibgyA.British Welfare Policy—Workhouse to Workfare. Faber & Faber, London, 1989.
22.
de SwannA.In Care of the State. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1988.
23.
TitmussR. M.Social Policy: An Introduction. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1974.
24.
MartinG. T.Social Policy in the Welfare State. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1990.
25.
WalkerA.Labour's social plans: The limits of welfare statism. Crit. Soc. Policy3(3): 45–63, 1983.
26.
PembertonA.Marxism and social policy: A critique of the contradictions of welfare. J. Soc. Policy12(3): 289–308, 1983.
27.
TherbornG.Why Some People Are More Unemployed Than Others. Verso, London, 1986.
28.
FergeS.Social policy and the economy. In The Goals of Social Policy, edited by BulmerM.Unwin Hyman, London, 1989.
29.
GouldA.Conflict and Control in Welfare Policy: The Swedish Experience. Longman, London, 1988.
30.
GeorgeP.Towards a two dimensional analysis of welfare. Soc. Policy Admin. 19(1), 1985.
31.
RingenS.The Possibility of Politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987.
32.
WalkerA.Social policy, social administration and the social construction of welfare. Sociology15(2): 225–250, 1981.
33.
WalkerA.Social Planning. Blackwell, Oxford, 1984.
34.
LanganM.OstnerI.Gender and welfare. In Towards a European Welfare State?, edited by RoomG., pp. 127–150. School for Advanced Urban Studies, Bristol, 1991.
35.
SainsburyD. (ed.). Gendering Welfare States. Sage, London, 1994.
36.
LewisJ.Gender and the development of welfare regimes. Eur. J. Soc. Policy2(3): 159–174, 1992.
37.
FergeZ.A Society in the Making. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1979.
38.
The Sheffield Group. The Social Economy and the Democratic State. Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1989.
39.
DoyalL.GoughI.A Theory of Human Need. Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1991.
40.
State Statistics Bureau of China. Statistical Yearbook of China 1990 (in Chinese). China Statistics Publisher, Beijing, 1991.
41.
State Statistics Bureau of China. China's Social Statistics 1990 (in Chinese). China Statistics Publisher, Beijing, 1991.
42.
State Statistics Bureau of China. A Statistical Survey of China (in Chinese). China Statistics Publisher, Beijing, 1991.
43.
HuangX.YangX.From iron ricebowls to labour markets: Reforming the social security system. In Reform in China, edited by ReynoldsB., Sharpe, New York, 1987.
44.
State Statistical Bureau of China. 1994 Statistical Yearbook of China (in Chinese). China Statistical Publishing House, Bejing, 1994.
45.
ChowN. W. S.The Administration and Financing of Social Security in China. Centre of Asian Studies Occasional Papers and Monographs, No. 74. University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1989.
46.
LeungJ. C. B.Social Welfare with Chinese Characteristics. Paper presented at Symposium on China and Hong Kong at a Crossroads, Prospects for the 21st Century, China Studies Programme, Hong Kong Baptist College, Hong Kong, 1990.
47.
HussainA.Reform of the Chinese Social Security System. STICERD, London, 1993.
48.
WilenskyH. L.The Welfare State and Equality: Structural and Ideological Roots of Public Expenditures. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1975.
49.
Hong Kong Government. The Further Development of Representative Government (White Paper). Government Printer, Hong Kong, 1984.
50.
FreidmanM.Free to Choose. Pelican, London, 1981.
51.
DeyoF. C.The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism. Cornell University, Ithaca, 1987.
52.
Hong Kong Government. Estimate of Gross Domestic Product, 1966–1991. Government Printer, Hong Kong, 1992.
53.
LauS. K.Decolonization without Independence and the Poverty of Political Leaders in Hong Kong. Occasional Paper No. 1. Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, Hong Kong, 1990.
54.
International Monetary Fund. Government Finance Statistics Yearbook. IMF Publication Services, Washington, D.C., 1990.
55.
Hong Kong Government. A Review of 1991. Government Printer, Hong Kong, 1992.
56.
WongL.Housing and the residential environment. In The Other Hong Kong Report, edited by TsimT. L.LukB. H. K., pp. 229–244. The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 1989.
57.
YuW. K.The Response of the Hong Kong Government to the Decommodifying Effects of Public Housing Services. Ph.D. thesis. University of Sheffield, 1994.
58.
NgA.Medical and health. In The Other Hong Kong Report, edited by TsimT. L.LukB. H. K., pp. 189–214. The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 1989.
59.
CastellisM.GohL.WokR.The Shek Kip Mei Syndrome. Pion, Hong Kong and Singapore, 1990.
60.
KeungK.Government intervention and housing policy in Hong Kong—a structural analysis. Third World Planning Rev. 7(1): 22–44, 1985.
61.
JonesC.Promoting Prosperity: The Hong Kong Way of Social Policy. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1990.
62.
HodgeP.Social policy: An historical perspective as seen in colonial policy. J. Orient. Stud.11(2): 207–219, 1973.
63.
WalkerA.Social Policy Versus Economic Policy: The Future of Social Planning. Department of Social Work, University of Hong Kong, 1988.
64.
HuiY. F., Member of Executive and Legislative Councils. Bulletin No. 39, April 1992.
65.
U.N. Development Program. Human Development Report 1991. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991.
66.
JonesH.Social Policy in Third World Development. Macmillan, London, 1990.
67.
HardimanM.MidgleyJ.The Social Dimensions of Development. John Wiley, Chichester, 1982.
68.
WongC. K.Fallacious arguments against the development of the welfare state: The case of Hong Kong. Soc. Dev. Iss.13(3): 111–125, 1991.
69.
Singapore Housing and Development Board. Facts on Public Housing in Singapore. Singapore, 1992.
