International Sociology

The article tries to break down the general view of a crisis of social security by using a model in which the pressure of transforming the matured social security systems is the dependent variable and in which the independent variables involve both a number of exogenous factors placing environmental strain on these systems and a series of endogenous factors which, in the process of the maturing of social security systems, have turned up as non-intended consequences. In Germany, such a constellation has recently prompted four basic models for reforming social security: Privatisation, Machine Tax, Guaranteed Income, Solidary Action. It is argued that all of these, even though their proponents claim that they provide general models of reform, cover only some of the problem-generating factors.

The conditions under which men and women can claim benefits from the British State income maintenance systems have always been different. This paper shows that one of the main reasons for this is that men's and women's work is assumed to be, and indeed it is thought, ought to be, different. Men's work is, or should, be located in the labour market and is paid: they are breadwinners. In contrast women are primarily dependants whose unpaid work within the family as wives, mothers and daughters only rarely, and then reluctantly, gives rise to a claim to a state benefit. As a result the development of women's claims to maintenance from the state have always been constrained by the desire not to erode women's incentives to give priority to their caring responsibilities or work within the family. Women's paid work in the labour market is accorded less importance than men's work and their claims to maintenance from the state both determine, and are determined by, their relationship to their families as well as to the formal labour market.

In the late 1970s 'the Japanese-type welfare society' was proposed by the ruling party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party. This paper examines the background and content of this proposal. Without being enthusiastically committed to the 'welfare state', Japan, under continued rule by the LDP since 1955, has developed social security institutions in an ad hoc way keeping pace with the growth of the economy. However, facing the prospect of an unprecedented rapid aging of the population, Japan has to find a way to balance the cost of social security with an increase in the needs for it. The LDP's answer to that was 'the Japanese-type welfare society' However, it has been found that there is no easy answer to the problem. It has been noted in recent years that there is less talk of the 'Japanese type' and more introduction of concrete measures.

The arena of social policy could be a constant battlefield were it not confined within political institutions. Conflicts are extended into the organisation of social programmes and exert pressure on policy objectives and the contents of the programmes. Social programmes can accommodate these pressures in different ways. During this process programmes become transformed, some to such an extent that their social policy value diminishes and they serve other needs than those which they were designed to meet. This is the muffling effect of social policy. Ideally a social programme can be constructed with a low conflict potential. In this paper some basic characteristics of a low conflict system of social security are identified. Three different systems of social secunty are compared with regard to these characteristics and it is asked how conflict-ridden the different systems have been since they were first introduced. The model seems to have some predictive power. The methodological problems of such an approach are discussed.

To date only a few sociological studies have been devoted to the study of social security, in spite of the fact that this major social institution increasingly finds itself at the centre of controversy in the political and economic arenas. However, in recent years there have been several international conferences at which the question of the potential contribution of a sociological approach to social security has been discussed. In this article the latest developments in this sociological perspective on social seeunty will be presented, as will the origins of this approach to social security. Attention will also be paid to various fields bordering on social security to which sociology has contributed through research, i.e. health, aging, the family, poverty. They will serve to illustrate the extent of potential sociological research in this area and its importance for social security. The evaluation of social welfare programmes is another field in which sociology may contribute to the effect of social policies on the reduction of social inequality. Finally, an analysis of the relationship between the institution of social security and society is sketched out with a view to a greater understanding of the role of this social institution at a time when the concept of Welfare State is being challenged.

This article proposes the possibility of recombining the analysis of culture and social structure. In the first part it analyses the reasons for the dissociation between these two types of analysis since the sixties, in close relation with the growing criticisms of the structural-functional school. Its basic assumption is that any new attempt must be based on new ways to combine the analysis of the crystallization of different aspects of social structure in processes of social interaction in which individuals act as autonomous agents and where power and control are also connected with different aspects of 'culture'. It illustrates the possibilities of such an approach through two case studies: first, the comparative political dynamics of two centralised agrarian Empires - the Byzantine and the Chinese; second, within the realm of the sociology of religion, different meanings of other-worldliness and impacts of such sectanan orientations on civilisational dynamics.

In the last decade one may observe an important reorientation of theoretical thinking in sociology. It is marked by the emphasis on social processes, human agency and the dimension of time. These aspects of social reality become central foci of 'new historism' or 'historical sociology'. With the ascendance of this new trend the relationship of sociology and history enters a third phase: after initial hostility and mutual stereotyping through attempts at external integration, it reaches a phase of immanent integration. From ahistorism typical of early nineteenth century European sociology, as well as early American sociology, our discipline moves gradually toward the recognition of the historical coeflicient of social phenomena, and accordingly the necessity of historical perspective in social studies. Historical orientation is recon structed as a set of six ontological and six methodological assumptions, and it is suggested as a fruitful approach not only to traditional macro-structural problems, but also to the domain of micro-structures and micro-processes.