Answer if you agree or disagree with the following opinions: 1.Negotiating Welfare in Postcommunist States
In this article, Cook asks the question "Why did postcommunist welfare states produce such divergent trajectories of change and outcomes from similar beginnings?" She then goes on to say that the answer to that question partially lies in the "differing intensity of downward economic pressures" (referring to European states). She then goes on to discuss liberalization and welfare provisions in Poland, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Each of these countries had their own distinct welfare models consisting of public-private mixes, expenditure patterns, and measures of exclusion from welfare provision. When comparing these welfare states against each other, Cook found that "overall levels of welfare effort depended in part on pretransition legacies, but changes adopted during recession continued through recovery" (p.58). Poland continued exceptionally high pension expenditures while maintaining effort in other areas. Russia's welfare effort declined as it initiated liberalizing policies, and in Kazakhstan, the declines in welfare effort for health and pensions in the early 1990s were sustained through recovery. Yang ultimately concludes that: (1) Emphasis on politics explains relatively well change in welfare states even in postcommunist cases where economic pressures on welfare are much stronger than in the industrial democracies; (2) Greater attention needs to be paid to statist stakeholders, especially in cases where there is a strong bureaucratic welfare inheritance; (3) Coalitions of interests around welfare in postcommunist states also differ from those in older democracies. 2. Jae-jin Yang- Parochial Welfare Politics and the Small: Welfare State in South Korea
Until recently, many have viewed South Korea's welfare system, along with their social security system as less than desirable and broken. That view has changed recently; "a growing number of scholars have viewed Korea as a rising welfare state in Asia" (Yang, 2013). While studies have shown South Korea's welfare system to be on the mend, and even beginning to take a positive shape. the system itself is still noted as being "underdeveloped and dualistic in coverage" (Yang. 2013). The current system in place in South Korea only allows for those individuals who have full-time or stable employment full benefits to the countries social security system. For those individuals who are not engaged in stable employment, the
countries public assistance programs are allowed to be highly selective as to what individuals are allowed to receive it. Yang lists 2 major reasons why South Korea has such great limitations on its welfare system:
• In contrast to industrial development: the Korean welfare state is relatively underdeveloped
• The theory of democracy and interest groups attributes welfare state development to a combination of the demands of interest groups and the response of politicians in competitive electoral democracies. Even with the limitations in coverage, South Koreas system has shown improvement. 3. I suppose that is a choice someone has to make, but I would like to believe most people on welfare do not want to be on welfare, but the system is set up for people to fail. Suppose someone is on welfare and they get a job and start making money, there may come a point where the government says they are making too much money and they can no longer receive assistance. Those individuals may still need that assistance, in addition to their job: but now they have to make a choice, quit the job and rely solely on welfare, or keep the job bring in less money. It is just a flawed system in general, and it needs to be fixed.
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