Welfare, Rights and the State

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INTS 4321

Welfare, Rights and the State

David Levine

How do we understand welfare and what should be the role of the state in providing or securing welfare? How do we understand deprivation and poverty? To what extent should poverty be understood as deprivation of right, and to what extent can we understand need as a matter of right? What is the role of public institutions in alleviating poverty? The purpose of this course is to provide students with the opportunity for an intensive study of contemporary literature and debate centering on these questions. While emphasis is placed on rights-based theories, other ways of thinking about the nature of human welfare and the role of the state in securing welfare are also considered. This is a course in the theory of the welfare state. Readings and lectures focus on normative rather than historical or empirical issues. Each class session will be divided between lecture and discussion.

Topics

Introduction

Needs

Braybrooke, D. (1987) Meeting Needs (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 5-79.

*Doyal, L. and I. Gough (1991) A Theory of Human Need (New York: The Guilford Press), pp. 9-75

Weale, A. (1983) Political Theory and Social Policy (New York: St. Martin’s), pp. 22-58.

Rights

Gewirth, A. (1981) “The Basis and Content of Human Rights,” Nomos XXIII: Human Rights, edited by J. Pennock and J. Chapman (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press)

Jacobs, L. (1993) Rights and Deprivation (Oxford University Press) pp. 141-89

Marshall, T.H. (1981) “The Right to Welfare,” in The Right to Welfare and Other Essays (New York: The Free Press).

*Plant, R., H. Lesser and P. Taylor-Gooby (1980) Political Philosophy and Social Welfare: Essays on the Normative Basis of Welfare Provision (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), pp. 20-75

Reich, C. (1965) “Individual Rights and Social Welfare: The Emerging Legal Issues,” Yale Law Journal 74 (June), pp. 1245-57.

Citizenship and Social Rights

Esping-Anderson, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity Press), pp. 35-53

*Marshall, T.H. (1992) “Citizenship and Social Class,” reprinted in T.H. Marshall and T. Bottomore, Citizenship and Social Class (London: Pluto Press).

Mishra, R. (1981) Society and Social Policy ((Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press), pp. 26-38.

Turner, B. (1986) Citizenship and Capitalism: The Debate over Reformism (London: Allen and Unwin), pp. 13-27, 106-133.

Yeatman, A. (2004) “Right, the State and the Conception of the Person,” Citizenship Studies, 8,4: 403-17.

Capabilities

*Nussbaum, M. (1995), “Human Capabilities, Female Human Beings,” in M. Nussbaum and J. Glover (eds.) Women, Culture and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

Sen, A. (1992) Inequality Reexamined (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 12-30.

Liberalism and Justice

Sandel, M. (ed.) Liberalism and its Critics (New York: New York University press): Rawls, *Dworkin and *Nozick readings.

Markets and Choice

Caporaso, J. and D. Levine (1993) Theories of Political Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 79-99

*Hayek, F. (1945) “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” The American Economic Review, September, pp. 519-30.

Plant, R. (2004) “Neo-liberalism and the Theory of the State,” in Restating the State, edited by A. Gamble and M. Blackwell (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing), pp. 24-37.

*Schelling, T. (1984) “Economic Reasoning and the Ethics of Policy,” in T. Schelling Choice and Consequence (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).

Communities and Groups

Sandel, M. (ed.) Liberalism and its Critics: *Sandel and *Walzer readings.

Recognition

Fraser, N. and A. Honneth, (2003) Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (London: Verso), chapters 1,2.

*Indicates primary reading.