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Own Welfare (own + welfare)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	40%

Selected Abstracts

Corruption in Africa , Part 1

HISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2009
John Mukum Mbaku
As Africans struggled against colonial exploitation, there was near universal agreement among the freedom fighters and other nationalists that one of the most important determinants of poverty in the colonies was the control of the instruments of economic and political governance by foreign interlopers, all of whose objectives were in conflict with those of the Africans. Colonial institutional arrangements were primarily instruments for the exploitation of Africans and their resources. Europeans came to Africa to maximize metropolitan objectives and hence, established within each colony, institutional arrangements that enhanced their ability to exploit Africans and their resources for the benefit of the metropolitan economies. With their comparative advantage in the employment of military and police force, the Europeans were able to impose on the African colonies laws and institutions that enhanced their objectives but significantly impoverished Africans. Hence, independence was considered critical not only to the elimination of the psychological effects of foreign occupation but also to the empowerment of Africans and the enhancement of their ability to take full control of their governance systems. First, independence was expected to expel the European interlopers from the continent and allow the in-coming African leaders to rid their societies of the exploitative, despotic and non-democratic institutions that had been brought to the colonies by the Europeans. In the post-independence period, Africans were expected to have full control of their own destiny, allocate their own resources, and generally take responsibility for the design and implementation of policies affecting their own welfare. Second, the new leaders were then expected to engage all relevant stakeholder groups in each country in democratic constitution making to develop and adopt locally focused, participatory, inclusive and politically and economically relevant institutional arrangements. Finally, Africa's post-independence leaders were expected to use public policy as an instrument for the effective eradication of mass poverty and deprivation. [source]

Liberal Egalitarianism and Workfare

JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, Issue 3 2004
Paul Bou-Habib
abstract In this paper we ask whether liberal egalitarians can endorse workfare policies that require that welfare recipients should work in return for their welfare benefits. In particular, we focus on the fairness-based case for workfare, which holds that people should be responsible for their own welfare since they would otherwise impose unfair costs on others. Two versions of the fairness-based case are considered. The first defends workfare on the grounds that it would form part of an unemployment insurance scheme that individuals would endorse under certain hypothetical conditions that are salient for the purposes of determining just public policy. The second appeals to the notion of reciprocity in order to justify the requirement that people work for their benefits. We cast doubt on both of these arguments for workfare. Neither argument shows that the unconditional provision of welfare benefits is unjust; hence, the fairness case for workfare is inconclusive. [source]

Income distribution and well-being: what can we learn from subjective data?

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 1 2005
Claudia Senik
Abstract., How does the income of others affect my own welfare? This survey of the empirical literature stresses the contribution of subjective data to the understanding of this issue, with an attempt to disentangle direct effects (preference interdependence) from indirect informational effects. It shows that perceived mobility is central to the link between other people's income and individual satisfaction, as it determines individual opportunities and risks. Agents also appreciate the egalitarian nature of mobility itself, so that individual welfare depends on dynamic inequality rather than static income distribution. These studies illustrate how subjective data can bring information on aspects of utility and social interactions that are beyond the scope of the method based on action-revealed preferences. [source]

Four Motives for Community Involvement

JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES, Issue 3 2002
C. Daniel Batson
A conceptual analysis is offered that differentiates four types of motivation for community involvement: egoism, altruism, collectivism, and principlism. Differentiation is based on identification of a unique ultimate goal for each motive. For egoism, the ultimate goal is to increase one's own welfare; for altruism, it is to increase the welfare of another individual or individuals; for collectivism, to increase the welfare of a group; and for principlism, to uphold one or more moral principles. As sources of community involvement, each of these four forms of motivation has its strengths; each also has its weaknesses. More effective efforts to stimulate community involvement may come from strategies that orchestrate motives so that the strengths of one motive can overcome weaknesses of another. Among the various possibilities, strategies that combine appeals to either altruism or collectivism with appeals to principle may be especially promising. [source]

Incomplete Citizens: Changing Images of Post-Separation Children

THE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 6 2004
Felicity Kaganas
The image of the child as the victim of separation or divorce is well-established in legal, socio-legal and popular discourse. However, the authors argue, alongside this traditional image of the child, there is a different image of the child emerging, that of the autonomous, responsible child. This is apparent in academic discourse, policy documents and legal pronouncements. This child is included in the project of ,remoralising' the family by building the ,good' post-separation family. The ,good' child of separation or divorce is responsible for safeguarding his or her own welfare and is expected to make those choices that are assumed to best protect his or her best interests. In order to ensure that the child makes the ,right' decisions, he or she, like the adults concerned, is the target of education, information and therapeutic intervention. There is a blending of paradigms in which the ideal child is both an autonomous social actor and a vulnerable object of concern. [source]