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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The welfare State within the context of liberal globalisation in Africa: is the concept still relevant in social policy alternatives for Africa?
Author:Lumumba-Kasongo, TukumbiISNI
Year:2006
Periodical:African Journal of International Affairs (ISSN 0850-7902)
Volume:9
Issue:1-2
Pages:1-40
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:social welfare
social policy
democracy
globalization
politics
Welfare state
Africa--Social policy
Abstract:Africans are struggling to reclaim their rights to wealth, liberty, and democracy as mechanisms of articulating social progress. Is the concept of the welfare State still relevant within the existing dominant paradigms of liberal globalization? In this study, using a historical-structuralist framework, the author examines the nature of the arguments about the welfare State. He categorizes three types of regimes, namely, social welfare State, liberal welfare State, and transitional democracy and compares their performances in selected sectors. His main objective is to search for correlative explanations between the ideological foundation of each regime and its social programme policy. Based on the data used, he demonstrates that global liberal democratization has not yet created any conditions for greater social development and equity in Africa. In all sectors, transitional democracies have performed poorly as compared to other democracies. Liberal democracies have performed lower than social democracies. And social democracies have been systematically ranked higher in the selected social indices. The author concludes that the concept of welfare is still relevant, and thus should provide the epistemological and social basis for rethinking African democracies. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]
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