bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Psychological Context of Three Tales by Poe
Authors: Smith Allan
Published: January 2009

‘ The Black Cat ’ is one of Poe's neat little studies of obsession. Joseph Moldenhauer has said that these first-person tales of terror should be regarded less as studies of deranged minds than as controlled exercises in madness. We may take his point that there is little ‘ clinical ’ observation and that the obsession is seen from within, but may add further that the subjects of these tales are the irrational motives themselves, and therefore Poe does not need to create a motive for the motive. That is, ‘ The Black Cat ’ is a study of the ‘ murdering impulse ’ of the sort noted by Benjamin Rush in his Sixteen Lectures (1811) by whose account of a famous poisoner of cats it may have been suggested. It is not particularly a study of the effects of the ‘ murdering impulse ’ but rather of the impulse itself, which Poe simply cloaks in a non-specific narrator ‘ self ’. Poe's habitual use of the monologue or confessional form, and his claustrophobic interiors, are both calculated to produce a sense of internalized action, and the scenery of the tales is usually the chamber of the haunted mind, of which the poem ‘ The Haunted Palace ’ is only the most explicit version. The lack of a touchstone in ‘ real ’ surroundings, of an objective point of view, together with the sense of identification induced by first-person narration, combines to ensure that the internalized action is not seen from a position safely outside the distorted consciousness but, necessarily, from within.
Edmund Wilson and The Modern Monthly, 1934–5: a Phase in Wilson's Radicalism
Authors: Genizi Haim
Published: January 2009

Edmund Wilson (1895–1972) was one of America's most distinguished critics. As an international man of letters, he did not confine himself to literature alone, but also investigated main areas of human thought. He fluently pursued learning in seven languages, making it alive for American intellectual readers. He was indeed a ‘ superlative interpreter ’, as Alfred Kazin pointed out. Due to Wilson's wide horizons and perspectives, his works included such diverse areas as literature, politics, language, history and travel. During the 1930s he was mainly interested in political and industrial reporting, as well as studying Marxism, partly neglecting literary criticism. His activities of that decade were not only the outcome of an intellectual curiosity, but a personal need as well, that strongly influenced his political outlook. The growing concern for social justice and for the suffering of the lower classes was the dominant force in Wilson's thought during the thirties. One of the stages in his gradual radicalization was his association in 1934–5 with The Modern Monthly, an anti-Marxist journal. What led the prominent critic, the literary editor of the prestigious New Republic, to join the editorial board of the Monthly, a little magazine with a small circulation? What was Wilson's contribution to the magazine's political approach? Why did he resign after a fourteen-month editorship? How did his association with the editors V. F. Calverton and Max Eastman — who had been denounced by the Communist Party as ‘ social fascists ’ and Trotskyists — influence Wilson's political standing with the Communists? These questions deserve close examination.
The Spectacle of Plains: Public Evidence, Personal Invention, and the Painting of Roger Brown
Authors: Garvey Timothy J.
Published: January 2009

In late March, 1977, in the midst of mocking jabs at the televised Nixon interviews, the U.S. Postal service, and genetic engineering, Chicago Tribune cartoonist Wayne Stayskal fired off one quick frame on the plight of newly elected President Jimmy Carter's hometown of Plains, Georgia. The cartoon presented a group of typically chunky, grinning Stayskal characters awkwardly bumping along with a pack of hounds before a solitary wooden shanty labeled “PLAINS.” As they jog along, the guide looks back from his straining hounds to drawl, “Hot dang… th'ar on Billy's trail ag'in folks!” Stayskal's cartoon clearly stemmed from a front page article in the Tribune of the previous day. Entitled “Tourists, Fear Rout Billy Out of Plains,” the story explained how fear for his family's safety in the suddenly popular small town had finally forced Billy Carter to move to an even more remote location several miles away. Yet while this was quite obviously the impetus behind this cartoon, the short notice of Billy's intended retreat from Plains was actually just one of many media references to the changing character of the town in the wake of his older brother's victories at the polls. Beginning in the spring of the previous year as Jimmy Carter suddenly emerged to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, Plains had risen just as rapidly to become the most famous small town in America. And at the peak of its early notoriety in 1977, Roger Brown characterized what this really meant for the town in a complex painting entitled Two Couples Viewing the Spectacle of Erosion at Providence Canyon Near Plains, Georgia (figure 1).
Jazzing It Up A Storm: The Execution and Meaning of Toni Morrison's Jazzy Prose Style
Authors: Rice Alan J.
Published: January 2009

The publication of Toni Morrison's new novel Jazz with its insistent jazzy themes and rhythms will have concentrated the minds of critics on the relationship of her work to America's most important indigenous artistic form, jazz music. However, in their headlong rush to foreground the impact of jazz on Toni Morrison's latest novel critics should be wary of isolating this novel as her only jazz-influenced work. All of her novels have been informed by the rhythms and cadences of a black musical tradition and in this article I want to stress the centrality of jazz music stylistically to her whole corpus of work. Morrison herself has acknowledged the centrality of a musical aesthetic to her work in interview after interview long before the publication of Jazz:

…a novel written a certain way can do precisely what spirituals used to do. It can do exactly what blues or jazz or gossip or stories or myths or folklore did – that stuff which was a common wellspring of ideas…

Morrison is writing out of an oral tradition which foregrounds musical performances as well as other oral forms. Some critics have acknowledged the importance of jazz to her work, notably Anthony J. Berret in his article “Toni Morrison's Literary Jazz”. But, despite some provocative and illuminating comments, his is not a systematic account of the use of a jazz mode in Morrison's fiction and I wish in this paper to attempt a more rigorous analysis of her early novels, outlining her willed use of a jazz aesthetic as a pivotal structural device.
Political Rhetoric and Policy-Making: James G. Blaine and Britain
Authors: Sewell Mike
Published: January 2009

James Gillespie Blaine has been seen by his contemporaries and historians alike as the archetypal late nineteenth-century politician. Acclaimed by supporters as the “Plumed Knight” and derided by opponents as the “continental liar from the state of Maine,” his political career was impressive. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives, Senator from Maine, came within 2,000 New York votes of winning the Presidency in 1884, and was twice Secretary of State. But his reputation endures mainly as a corrupt and unscrupulous politico. Historians have labelled him immoral, demagogic and “openly anti-British.” They have depicted him as a spokesman for a “seething” late nineteenth–century Anglophobia who was “excessively political, notably in his penchant for cultivating the Irish at Great Britain's expense.” This aspect of Blaine's reputation has been misinterpreted. However, he can still stand as the personification of politics at a time when the spread-eagle rhetoric of campaigns co-existed with pragmatism in policy formulation.
The (Hi)story of their Lives: Mythic Autobiography and “The Lost Generation”
Authors: Dolan Marc
Published: January 2009

Of what use is autobiography to history? At first glance, autobiographies would seem invaluable to historians. After all, no attempt to reconstruct or understand the past would seem complete without a sprinkling of quotations from some form of “eyewitness account.” Among the various forms of such accounts available to historians, the formal autobiography often provides the most comprehensive and comprehensible account extant of the personal experience of historical events. Yet even so strong an admirer of the genre as Allan Nevins was forced to admit that very few autobiographies were ideally suited to the traditional historian's purpose. Most, he conceded, were “imperfect” historical documents at best and could prove “far more deeply misleading” than many other historical sources.
Citizenship and Self-Respect: The Experience of Politics in the Civil Rights Movement
Authors: King Richard H.
Published: January 2009

It once seemed that the civil rights movement resulted from a kind of historical immaculate conception and signalled an historical “break” of major proportions. Now, however, we have historical studies tracing a long tradition of “core values” at work in black American culture and sociological studies that reconstruct the dense institutional matrix from which the civil rights movement emerged and drew sustenance. We can now identify historical developments – the great migration of southern blacks to the North, the increasing prosperity enjoyed by the South after World War II, and, most crucially, the Supreme Court decision of 1954 – that set the stage for the movement. Nor could the movement have come into existence without the nexus of black churches and colleges, the early work of the NAACP or the emergence of action-oriented organizations such as SCLC, SNCC and CORE. Even before Montgomery, we now learn, there were mass action campaigns by southern blacks that provided both information and inspiration for the fledgling movement in the capital of the Confederacy.
Parotid dermoid cyst: a rare entity
Authors: Islam S , Hoffman G R
Published: January 2009

Objective:

We report a rare case of parotid dermoid cyst.

Method:

A case report of parotid dermoid cyst is presented, as well as a brief review of the literature and a summary of the lesion's salient clinicopathological features.

Results:

A 69-year-old man presented with a slow-growing, soft tissue mass of the left parotid gland. Pre-operative evaluation included fine needle aspiration cytology and computed tomography. He subsequently underwent a superficial lobectomy; both the macroscopic and histopathological findings were consistent with a dermoid cyst. Although dermoids within the head and neck are not uncommon, such cysts have only rarely been encountered in the parotid gland.

Conclusion:

To our knowledge, there are only four previous case reports of parotid dermoid cyst in the English literature. Although the majority of cases of parotid dermoid cyst are diagnosed retrospectively, our case demonstrates the role of fine needle aspiration cytology and highlights the key cytological features suggestive of this entity.
Focusing of a ring ripple on a Gaussian electromagnetic beam in a magnetoplasma
Authors: MISRA SHIKHA , MISHRA S. K.
Published: January 2009

In this paper we present a theoretical investigation of the growth/propagation of a ring ripple, superposed on a Gaussian electromagnetic beam propagating along the direction of magnetic field in a magnetoplasma. The nature of propagation of the ripple is analysed in a paraxial-like approximation by radial expansion of the dielectric function, corresponding to the composite (Gaussian and ripple) electric field profile of the beam around the position of the maximum of the ripple. The two cases of collisional plasmas (with negligible thermal conduction) and collisionless plasmas (dominant ponderomotive nonlinearity) are considered. The effect of the magnetic field on the critical curves and focusing/defocusing of the ripple are studied and discussed.
Social Security Programmes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: Challenges for the new Palestine
Authors: Bar-On Arnon A.
Published: January 2009

Over the years during which Israel has occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian economy has become heavily dependent on wages earned in Israel. Yet Israel has done relatively little to modernise these territories' social security arrangements, or to enable Palestinian frontier workers to benefit from its own social security system. This article compares the occupational welfare, public assistance and health insurance programmes in the three entities, and suggests how they could be better organised to protect Palestinian workers and their families against daily contingencies which can decimate their economic security.
Housing Allowances in West Germany and France
Authors: Lawson Roger , Stevens Cindy
Published: January 2009

Means-tested housing allowances have played an increasingly important role in housing policies in a number of European countries in recent years. They have also provoked considerable controversy, particularly when associated with neo-liberal reforms. This has happened in West Germany, where a national scheme was introduced in 1965 as part of a reform programme involving widespread rent decontrol and a substantial reduction in ‘social housing’ expenditures. The discussion in this paper suggests that the new scheme was not very successful, either in preventing financial hardship or in providing a stimulus for house-building. Since 1965 there has been growing resistance to the idea of housing allowances as a primary instrument of housing policy, and the present government has favoured a different approach with the allowances complementing other more direct controls over the housing market.

Different interpretations of the role of housing allowances are examined in the section on France, and there is also discussion of controversial issues of a technical character. In an attempt to adapt aid closely to particular needs the French have developed extremely complex arrangements, which clearly create difficulties for administrators as well as potential recipients. There has also been conflict between an endeavour to use the allowances to improve housing standards and the aim of providing help for the poorest sections of the community.
Choice and Selection: the Social Process of Transfer to Higher Education
Authors: Reid W. A.
Published: January 2009

The allocation System whereby students pass from school to university is examined, and empirical evidence reviewed to establish the extent to which it approximates to the rationalistic model predicted by official literature on university admissions. Data from surveys in schools and universities tend to show that decisions are not the outcome of logical evaluations of objective information, but of poorly understood social processes in which institutional constraints and popular stereotypes play a major part. Implications are discussed for the secondary school curriculum, for inequalities in the selection process and for developments in admissions policies in an expanding system of higher education.
Resignation at the Treasury: the Social Services Committee and the Failure to Reform the Welfare State, 1955–57
Authors: Lowe Rodney
Published: January 2009

Between 1955–7 welfare expenditure in Britain came under serious attack. The main protagonist was the Treasury and its chosen implement a five-year review of the social services, to be presided over by a ministerial Social Services Committee. The attack rebounded, for the Committee provided the opportunity for the consolidation of the defence of welfare expenditure and for a frontal attack on Treasury assumptions. This neglected episode in Conservative government social policy places in historical context the early defeat of monetarism (with Thorneycroft's resignation in 1958) and provides the background to the establishment of the Plowden Committee and of the Public Expenditure Survey Committee. It also raises questions about the degree of post-war consensus and the failure to make the constructive development of the welfare state an objective of ‘conviction’ politics.
Social Policy and Social Justice
Authors: Pinker Robert
Published: January 2009

In this review of the changing relationship between social policy and social justice I will be concerned with three main areas of debate. Firstly, I wish to attempt a clarification of the moral ideals of social welfare which find expression in those criteria of social justice by which people in similar states of need are treated differently. My second concern is to review and redefine what constitutes the social division of welfare in Britain today. Thirdly, I wish to explore the extent to which these ideals of social welfare complement or conflict with one another.
The Housing Question and the Structure of the Housing Market
Authors: Duncant S. S.
Published: January 2009

This paper aims to discuss current attempts to understand the housing crisis, in particular what are categorized as managerial and reformist approaches, and to examine the prescriptions for solution that such approaches produce. These concerns are illustrated by a description of the institutional allocation of credit for house purchase in a particular town. This description attempts to link the nature of the housing crisis to the structure of the housing market. It is suggested that neither the managerial nor the reformist approach to housing questions is sufficient to explain the nature of the housing market, and that any possible solution to the housing question lies outside the realms of ‘housing’ itself.
Setting Health Priorities: A Review of Concepts and Approaches
Authors: Lind G. , Wiseman C.
Published: January 2009

The setting of health priorities is primarily concerned with the equitable distribution of resources and is now more than ever an important part of strategic planning within the National Health Service (NHS). The basic information which can be used to assist in such decision-making and the process by which different agencies become involved are important aspects of priority-setting; this article is based on a major review of the research literature on these aspects and provides a discussion and an analysis of experience within health and other fields. From this material a number of possible approaches to priority-setting are identified and discussed. The article concludes that, before it can be decided how priorities should be set in the future, outstanding questions about how far rational approaches are feasible, about who is to be involved and what role they should play, and about how far such decisions are to be taken nationally or locally will need further consideration.
Public Assistance in Israel: Issues of Policy and Administration
Authors: Doron Abraham
Published: January 2009

Public assistance in Israel has increasingly become the focus of public debate. This article examines the social function of the system, its structure and its mode of operation, and considers its place in the broader framework of the country's social policy. Particular attention is paid to the prevailing political culture which obliges the system to wage a continuous struggle to preserve its legitimacy and organizational survival, and to obtain adequate resources to meet the requirements of the population in need. In conclusion, it questions the efficiency and effectiveness of the assistance system in view of the growing trend to expand selective social services.
The Housewife: An Unjustified Financial Burden on the Community
Authors: Cuvillier Rolande
Published: January 2009

This article attempts to demonstrate how the community subsidizes a married couple in which the wife stays at home, through the combined effect of tax and social security privileges. Contrary to what might be thought, this system is not even really designed to protect ‘the family’: it operates irrespective of whether there are any children or not. It is in fact intended to reward the couple in which the wife devotes herself to looking after her husband. It is quite likely that women who go out to work (and who also do their housework) bear more than their share of the cost of this, because of the ‘overpayments’ that they are obliged to make in taxation and social security contributions. I propose that the system be abolished, as it corresponds to an out-of-date concept of marriage and has no justification from either the economic or the social standpoint. A housewife receives an income from her marriage and, if she actually does the housework, she improves the couple's standard of living. A number of working hypotheses are put forward in an attempt to see how the housewife could assume the normal responsibilities of a taxpayer and social security contributor.

It is impossible (a) to assess the value of the services provided by the housewife in her sheltered environment and (b) even to know for certain what she really does there (many housewives employ charwomen or au pair girls or even full-time servants). However, when it is a question of granting to a widow an income related to what she had when her husband was alive, she is entitled to a specified fraction – usually half – of what her husband received or would have received. If this principle is valid with respect to benefits, it ought also to be valid with respect to obligations. Thus, the main proposal made here is that the housewife should pay income tax and social security contributions on a fictitious amount equivalent to half of her husband's earnings; this amount would be treated as ‘earned income’, which is the most favourable assumption from her standpoint. At the same time, the husband would pay income tax and his own social security contributions on the whole of his own earned income, as he would if he employed a housekeeper. The above-mentioned fictitious amount would also serve as the basis of calculation of the housewife's entitlement to social security benefits, subject to redistribution so as to assure a minimum subsistence in case of need. Reforms along these lines could only be put into effect gradually, since it would be unjust to penalize people from one day to the next for irresponsible behaviour which they have been deliberately encouraged to adopt up to the present.
The Social Conditions of Destitution: The Situation of Men with Schizophrenia or Personality Disorder
Authors: Wood Susanne MacGregor
Published: January 2009

This article discusses the particular characteristics of men with schizophrenia or personality disorder and it compares these two categories with one another and with the destitute population as a whole. On a number of variables, no significant differences are discerned, the category as a whole sharing a background of considerable material and social deprivation. However, with reference to place of birth, loss of mother, and father's occupation, significant differences do appear. The two categories also show distinctly different patterns in the process of becoming destitute and they use existing agencies differently. Finally, the type of service most suitable for these men is discussed together with other issues raised by the question, ‘How can we improve the lot of the homeless single person?’
The Practice of Racial Dispersal in Birmingham, 1969–1975
Authors: Flett Hazel , Henderson Jeff , Brown Bill
Published: January 2009

The possibility of using public sector housing to disperse black people across our cities in the interest of racial integration is again attracting attention. Based on an analysis of housing department records, this article examines the effects on Birmingham's black settlers of the operation of one particular policy of racial dispersal. Having described the events leading to the introduction and ultimately the termination of the policy, the article proceeds to investigate the locations in which Asian, West Indian and native white tenants were housed, their area preferences, and the housing categories from which their allocations were made, as well as their ‘points’ levels on allocation. The article concludes by arguing that, on these dimensions, the consequences of the policy for black people were almost entirely negative.
Social Aspects of Employment: Data for Policy Research
Authors: Hakim Catherine
Published: January 2009

The population census provides a somewhat neglected and under-utilized source of statistical information. Data on the labour force from household censuses and surveys are of particular interest for policy research on the social aspects of employment. The characteristics of these data sources are outlined, and their potential for secondary analysis is explored with particular reference to census statistics. The census provides a useful source for studies of the changing definitions of ‘work’, ‘occupation’ and ‘employment’; the labour force participation profiles of individuals and families; the unemployed (both registered and unregistered); occupational segregation on the basis of sex or other factors; the separation of home and work-place and the characteristics of homeworkers; labour force minorities such as the self-employed and family workers; the labour force characteristics of ethnic minorities; qualified manpower; and the determinants of earnings. Recent developments have improved access to household census and survey data for researchers outside the government.
Temporal Aspects of Claiming Behaviour: Renewal of Rent Allowances
Authors: Walker Robert L.
Published: January 2009

The dimension of time has been relatively neglected in studies of means-tested benefits. This article explores some of the issues which arise when time is considered explicitly. It is based on housing department records for 205 rent allowance claimants in Bristol which were monitored over a twenty-seven- to thirty-two-month period between November 1974 and June 1977. All the claimants had initially applied for rent allowances in response to a one-off promotion undertaken by the local authority and so they do not constitute a representative sample. Nevertheless mathematical controls indicate that the findings are fairly robust. Only a third of the claimants studied were continuously in receipt of rent allowances during the monitoring period and most claimants who dropped out of the scheme did so as a consequence of changes in their circumstances rather than because they failed to reapply. For most claimants, therefore, the rent allowance scheme provided temporary assistance rather than continuing financial support. The implications of the marked fluctuations in the financial circumstances of the observed claimants are discussed in relation to the administration of means-tested schemes.
At risk of prevention
Authors: Billis David
Published: January 2009

The first part of this article explores the ways in which the term ‘prevention’ is utilized in the field of the personal social services. The conclusion is reached that, unlike its legitimate use in the physical world, the term is intellectually confused when applied to social services. In Part Two it is argued that this confusion has unanticipated and damaging consequences. It leads to an unfair deal for clients, to confusion and status differentials for staff, and an increase in the social control apparatus of public agencies. It is suggested that the abandonment of ‘pseudo-prevention’ may lead to the clarification and explication of more defensible boundaries based on the analysis of problems rather than the attainment of ideal states.
Freedom and the Welfare State: Introduction
Authors: Weale Albert
Published: January 2009

Does the welfare state contribute to the development of human freedom? This central problem of political evaluation has been answered in various ways. Some have seen the mechanisms of a redistributive tax-transfer scheme and the state supply of education and health services as steps down the road to serfdom. Others have seen the welfare state as providing a set of institutions through which individuals could realize the positive freedom that came with identifying individual interest and social interest. Yet others have seen the economic security provided by the welfare state as a necessary condition for the enjoying of the traditional social and political liberties. And again others have seen the principle of satisfying needs as prefiguring a form of social organization in which persons are freed from the constraints of private property.
Freedom and the Welfare State: Theoretical Foundations
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: January 2009

This essay critically assesses nine claims concerning freedom and the welfare state, the latter defined narrowly and the former broadly. On balance, the findings favour the welfare state. Allegations concerning its negative impact on freedom, where true, are contingently rather than inherently so. The positive impacts are more clearcut, and work to the benefit of citizens as a whole in addition to welfare recipients themselves.
An End to the Means Test? Social Security and the Attlee Government
Authors: Deacon Alan
Published: January 2009

The post-war Labour Government has often been criticized for its failure to remove the means test from social security. Labour ministers, however, had no reason to anticipate the problems which were later to arise in the administration of means tested social assistance. The experience of the supplementary pension scheme during the war had indicated that there would be few problems of take-up or stigma if old people were required to claim assistance as a supplement to their pensions. Furthermore, the abolition of the household means test in 1941 was believed to have removed the cause of much of the bitterness surrounding the means test in the 1930s. A further, crucial, point is that the assistance scale was not seen as a poverty line, but was believed to provide more than a bare subsistence income. Indeed, the recent opening of the official records of the period has revealed that the 1948 scale was not based upon the subsistence diets calculated by Beveridge, and the comparisons which have often been made between the benefits rates proposed by Beveridge and those introduced in 1948 are of little value, whatever price index is used to express the Beveridge figures in 1948 prices.
Incomes of the Early Retired
Authors: Altmann Rosalind M.
Published: January 2009

This paper examines the incomes of men retiring before age 65, using FES data for years 1970–77. The findings are that such men generally rely on state benefits for most of their income. In particular, it seems that many of the early retired are receiving benefits related to ill-health which suggests that early retirement decisions are attributable more to poor health than to any voluntary desire for increased leisure by those who can afford not to work. It is found that the incomes of the early retired improved over the 1970s relative to average eararnings, but this may be due to a rise in levels of state benefit rather than private sources of income. Incomes of this group have generally been lower than for men over age 65. There is, however, a small number of early retired men with very high incomes and extensive private support, but this is only about ten per cent of the group.
‘No Sufficient Security’: The Reaction of the Poor Law Authorities to Boarding-Out
Authors: Horsburgh Michael
Published: January 2009

The period from 1860 to 1870 saw the growth of a campaign to persuade the Poor Law Board to accept the practice of boarding-out pauper children. This paper examines the nature of the requests made to the board and the responses they elicited. The deterrent aspects of the New Poor Law and the difficulty of securing proper supervision of foster placements were the main objections raised in the board's office. Changes occurred through the direct intervention of George Goschen, appointed president in 1868. The campaign for boarding-out saw not only some success in their direct efforts, but increased the role played by women in poor law administration.
Ideology and Analysis in American Social Security Policymaking
Authors: Freeman Gary , Adams Paul
Published: January 2009

The extreme dispersion of authority and power in the American political system fosters a politics of bargaining, negotiation, and compromise. Nevertheless, technical-rational analysis plays a major role in the identification of public problems and in the legitimation of official responses. We explore this apparent paradox through an examination of the interaction between politics, ideology and analysis in the current crisis of the American public retirement system. Two analytical approaches are employed: an interpretation of the historical evolution of the programme through three relatively distinct phases; and an evaluation of the reports of three recent national commissions which have studied the social security crisis. We argue that in the American system policy must be made through either subsystem or consensual politics. Social security has benefited from the unusual conjunction of these two conditions through most of its history. Policy has been made by a small subsystem dominated by the social security bureaucracy itself and the programme has received widespread bipartisan support. Analysis has been central to this process, but its impact has differed over time. Analysis exerted a decisive influence on the initial shape of the programme even in the absence of an ideological consensus because it enjoyed a quasi-monopoly position in the President's Committee on Economic Security. During the long expansionary phase of the programme, subsystem autonomy and bipartisan consensus together fostered the emergence of a technocratic policy style, but the independent effects of analysis were more apparent than real. The contemporary commissions fail to provide an adequate response to the crisis because their technically competent proposals no longer rest on an underlying consensus and because the institutional autonomy of the old social security policymaking subsystem has broken down.
Housing Pathways and Stratification: Some Evidence from a British National Survey
Authors: Sullivan O. , Murphy M. J.
Published: January 2009

Five principles determining movement in the housing market relating to tenure, social class and fertility status were suggested by Payne and Payne (1977) on the basis of a small-scale study in Aberdeen. Analysis of a large-scale nationally-representative survey containing full housing and maternity histories suggests that some of these principles require modification at the national level. For example, movement into and between tenures, although heavily influenced by demographic and socio-economic factors, is not as rigid as the Aberdeen study suggested. The interaction of social class, age at marriage and childbearing patterns is assessed. Finally, changes over time in these relationships and the long-term effects on final family size and tenure are discussed.
Income Transfer Policies and the Poor: A Cross-National Perspective
Authors: Danziger Sheldon , Smolensky Eugene
Published: January 2009

A political revolution now under way among Western countries may have drastic repercussions on the poor. For most of the post-war period, government programmes designed to raise the income share of the poor proliferated and expanded. In the wake of the world-wide slowdown in economic growth following the first oil embargo of 1973, critics argued that the gains from redistributional programmes are far outweighed by adverse side-effects that reduce work and savings. These arguments have been taken with increasing seriousness. In the United States, England, Germany, and even in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, public income transfer programmes have been or are being cut back. On the face of it, only France and Italy seem to be resisting this trend; Switzerland, though it partook in the rapid expansion of the earlier period, has temporarily reached a plateau in spending.
Beveridge, Workmen's Compensation and the Alternative Remedy
Authors: Bartrip P.W.J.
Published: January 2009

The passing of the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897 did not affect an injured worker's rights to sue for damages at common law or under the Employers' Liability Act 1880. However, the evidence suggests that these alternative remedies declined in importance until the 1930s when certain court decisions and acts of Parliament gave them renewed significance. For several reasons Beveridge was antipathetic towards unmodified retention of the alternative remedy, but he proposed the establishment of an official committee for the purpose of making a full inquiry. As a result, the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, appointed the Monckton Committee on Alternative Remedies. The Committee's majority report largely endorsed the TUC's viewpoint in recommending maintenance of the alternative remedy. Subsequent legislation, the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act, permitted reduction of damages where industrial injuries benefit was secured; otherwise injured workers' rights to sue were perpetuated, albeit with questionable results. Down to the present day the costly alternative remedy survives, despite lack of evidence that it achieves either of its supposed objectives, namely, the compensation of personal injury victims or the deterrence of carelessness.
Leaving the Parental Home: An Analysis of Early Housing Careers
Authors: Jones Gill
Published: January 2009

Patterns of leaving home vary between classes in terms of the reason for the move, its timing, reversibility of the process, and the type of accommodation entered on leaving the family of origin. The association between leaving home and marriage is seen to be weakening as more young people move into single independent housing prior to marriage. The notion of transitional housing is raised, and it is argued that there will be an increasing demand for such housing, characterised by suitable accommodation for the single, geographically mobile young. The study draws upon evidence in the General Household Survey and the National Child Development Study.
Comparing Social Policies: Some Problems of Method and the Case of Social Security Benefits in Australia, Britain and the USA
Authors: Bolderson Helen
Published: January 2009

The cross-national works of development sociologists and of political scientists have sought to disentangle some of the determinants of welfare, whereas studies in comparative social policy have been mainly evaluative. These have laid themselves open to charges of being, variously, a-theoretical, unsystematic and narrowly focused on the state sector. However, a case is made here for the continuation of such studies with a clear focus on social policy rather than the mixed economy of welfare, using more explicit evaluative criteria and a range of methods. A small comparative study of social security benefit levels in Australia, Britain and the USA is used as an illustration of the potential in this approach and the problems of method involved.
Restructuring Canada's Welfare State
Authors: Lightman Ernie , Irving Allan
Published: January 2009

This paper highlights the development of the welfare state in Canada to its peak in the mid-1960s, and then traces the retreat from that height. While federalism and the complex relations between Ottawa and the provinces clearly represent a complicating factor, the paper argues that the fiscal crisis of the state has been the primary influence in the decline. As a major trading economy, Canada could not be immune from the onset of worldwide monetarism, though its effects were felt relatively late. Canadian monetarism has been marked by high taxes, an unwillingness/inability to cut government spending, and a singular absence of the anti-welfare state rhetoric of Reaganomics or Thatcherism. Neo-liberal outcomes are still likely to emerge, however, though they will be couched in market language and the need to be competitive internationally, particularly after the 1988 Free Trade Agreement with the United States.
Mothers, Markets and the State: A Scandinavian ‘Model’?
Authors: Leira Arnlaug
Published: January 2009

In Denmark, Norway and Sweden mothers of young children have a higher employment rate than have the mothers of other Western European countries. To make high quality childcare universally available is regarded as a national concern, and as part of the welfare state commitment. It is also often regarded as a precondition of mothers' employment. The modes of state intervention and the structure of child-care provision are basically the same in all three countries, yet this paper questions the commonly made assumption that Scandinavian reproduction policies are developed in accordance with one common model. The interrelationship between welfare state, market and family differs between the countries. While in Denmark and Sweden national policies supported the dual role of mothers in production and social reproduction, this was not the case in Norwegian policies in which the concept of the employed mother made only modest impact. Not surprisingly, Denmark and Sweden are more successful in approaching national aims for provision of childcare and also in facilitating mothers' labour market participation.
Group Rights v. Individual Rights: The Case of Race-Conscious Policies
Authors: Edwards John
Published: January 2009

Affirmative action and preferential treatment are group policies. Their desired effects will be on groups of people rather than on individuals. The two main purposes for such race conscious practice are to compensate for past harm and to promote greater equality of opportunity, and arguments in the debate about such practice have often marshalled ideas about group rights to compensation and equality of opportunity. Most rights-talk on the other hand is about individual rights and the idea of group rights sits uneasily with individual liberalism. This article discusses the nature of group rights and whether they can easily co-exist with individual rights in the pursuit of compensation and equality of opportunity.
The Social Consequences of High Unemployment
Authors: Hakim Catherine
Published: January 2009

Forecasts suggest that unemployment will remain above 2 million in Britain for the best part of the 1980s. The social consequences of protracted high levels of unemployment are explored. The evidence comes from four types of source: cross-sectional surveys of (unemployed) individuals; longitudinal and cohort studies; aggregrate time series; and area-based studies. The advantages and limitations of each are identified. The available evidence on the consequences of unemployment for poverty; health and mortality; mental health; crime and delinquency; and the social fabric is reviewed. The implications for policy and public expenditure are explored.
The Housing Needs of Women and Children Escaping Domestic Violence
Authors: Charles Nickie
Published: January 2009

This article discusses the experiences of women and children who become homeless as a result of domestic violence and assesses the extent to which their need for housing, both temporary and permanent, is being met within Wales. It explores women's experiences of living in and moving on from refuges. Refuge provision in Wales is not sufficient to meet the demand for refuge spaces. However, for those women and children who are accommodated in refuges, the experience is significant in supporting them through a highly stressful period of their lives. This is related to the communal nature of refuge living and the high levels of support from refuge workers and from other women. The availability of suitable and affordable move-on accommodation for women and children leaving refuges is also insufficient to meet need. This results in long stays in refuges for women and children who have been accepted as officially homeless and are waiting to be rehoused by local authorities and may lead to their returning to violent domestic situations. It also exacerbates the shortage of refuge provision for women and children in need of temporary, crisis accommodation. Women and children who have survived domestic violence need access to housing which is safe and affordable where support is available if wished for. These needs are not being met.
Social Policy Digest
Authors: Bennett Fran
Published: January 2009

In November, the Secretary of State for Social Security announced that most benefits would go up in line with inflation (or, for means-tested benefits, the Rossi price index) in April (24:3/95, 1.1). He also announced other plans, including: cuts in housing benefit for single people under 25 renting privately; a freeze in one parent benefit and lone parent premium; and an increase in the childcare disregard for family credit (24:1/93, 1.3). There will be changes to national insurance contributions for the self-employed. The Labour Party was reported to be reviewing its policies on social security.
Gypsies: Current Policies and Practices
Authors: Adams Barbara , Okely Judith , Morgan David , Smith David
Published: January 2009

This article describes current policies and practices in relation to English Gypsies and a study of Gypsies by participant observation. While governments in the past have always sought to prevent the Gypsies from travelling, local authorities have been equally concerned to prevent camping or settlement in their district. Despite the Caravan Sites Act 1968, which makes the provision of caravan sites mandatory, many authorities are reluctant to fulfil their obligations. By June 1974, pitches for little more than a quarter of Gypsy families had been provided. Harassment of travelling families who have no legal place to which to go persists.

The evidence suggests that the Gypsies are a cohesive ethnic group with membership based primarily on descent. They are not drop-outs from house-dwelling society and they maintain their separation by intent. They have a viable economy based mainly on scrap breaking and it seems likely that travelling, which facilitates their work, will persist. Though some Gypsies wish to settle, many do not.

Several short-term policy changes are proposed, requiring a more flexible and varied approach to accommodation for Gypsies. The hope is that Britain might ultimately become the first country to permit Gypsies their own separate way of life, travelling or settled by choice.
A model predictive controller for robots to follow a virtual leader
Authors: Gu Dongbing , Hu Huosheng
Published: January 2009

In this paper, we develop a model predictive control (MPC) scheme for robots to follow a virtual leader. The stability of this control scheme is guaranteed by adding a terminal state penalty to the cost function and a terminal state region to the optimization constraints. The terminal state region is found by analyzing the stability. Also a terminal state controller is defined for this control scheme. The terminal state controller is a virtual controller and is never used in the control process. Two virtual leader-following formation models are studied. Simulations on different formation patterns are provided to verify the proposed control strategy.