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WELFARE REFORM AND POLITICAL THEORY WELFARE REFORM AND POLITICAL THEORY LAWRENCE M. MEAD AND CHRISTOPHER BEEM EDITORS Russell Sage Foundation • New York The Russell Sage Foundation The Russell Sage Foundation, one of the oldest of America’s general purpose foundations, was established in 1907 by Mrs. Margaret Olivia Sage for “the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States.” The Founda- tion seeks to fulfill this mandate by fostering the development and dissemina- tion of knowledge about the country’s political, social, and economic problems. While the Foundation endeavors to assure the accuracy and objectivity of each book it publishes, the conclusions and interpretations in Russell Sage Founda- tion publications are those of the authors and not of the Foundation, its Trustees, or its staff. Publication by Russell Sage, therefore, does not imply Foundation endorsement. BOARD OF TRUSTEES Robert E. Denham, Chair Alan S. Blinder Larry V. Hedges Alan B. Krueger Christine K. Cassel Jennifer L. Hochschild Cora B. Marrett Thomas D. Cook Timothy A. Hultquist Eric Wanner Christopher Edley Jr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson Mary C. Waters John A. Ferejohn Melvin J. Konner Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Welfare reform and political theory / Lawrence M. Mead and Christopher Beem, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-87154-595-0 1. Public welfare—United States. 2. Public welfare—Great Britain. 3. Welfare recipients—Employment—United States. 4. Welfare recipients—Employment— Great Britain. 5. United States—Social policy—1993- 6. Great Britain—Social policy—1979- 7. Public welfare—Political aspects. 8. Citizenship. I. Mead, Lawrence M. II. Beem, Christopher. HV95.W45496 2005 361.973—dc22 2005049000 Copyright © 2005 by Russell Sage Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Reproduction by the United States Government in whole or in part is permitted for any purpose. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Amer- ican National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1992. Text design by Suzanne Nichols. RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 112 East 64th Street, New York, New York 10021 10987654321 To our children Contents Contributors ix Foreword xi Introduction 1 Christopher Beem and Lawrence M. Mead Chapter 1 A Summary of Welfare Reform 10 Lawrence M. Mead Chapter 2 Another Way Forward: Welfare, Social Reproduction, and a Basic Income 34 Carole Pateman Chapter 3 Making People Work: Democratic Consequences of Workfare 65 Desmond King Chapter 4 Is Conditionality Illiberal? 82 Stuart White Chapter 5 Conditional Citizenship 110 William A. Galston Chapter 6 An Ethic of Mutual Responsibility? Toward a Fuller Justification for Conditionality in Welfare 127 Alan Deacon Chapter 7 Restoring the Civic Value of Care in a Post–Welfare Reform Society 151 Christopher Beem vii viii Contents Chapter 8 Welfare Reform and Citizenship 172 Lawrence M. Mead Chapter 9 The Political Psychology of Redistribution: Implications for Welfare Reform 200 Amy L. Wax Chapter 10 PRWORA and the Promotion of Virtue 223 Joel Schwartz Chapter 11 The Deeper Issues 249 Lawrence M. Mead and Christopher Beem Index 271 Contributors Lawrence M. Mead is professor of politics at New York University. Christopher Beem is program officer of Democracy and Community, and Family at The Johnson Foundation. Alan Deacon is professor of social policy at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. William A. Galston is Saul Stern Professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. Desmond King is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of American Government at the University of Oxford and fellow of Nuffield College. Carole Pateman is professor of political science at the University of Cali- fornia, Los Angeles. Joel Schwartz is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Wash- ington, D.C. Amy L. Wax is professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Stuart White is fellow in politics at Jesus College, Oxford, and research director of the Public Policy Unit in the Department of Politics and Inter- national Relations at Oxford University. ix Foreword HIS PROJECT began when the two editors met at a Wingspread con- ference on welfare reform in Wisconsin in December 1999. Christo- Tpher Beem remarked that somebody ought to study the effects of reform on politics. After all, PRWORA represented a revolution in social policy. There had to be implications for politics and citizenship, but these had received almost no attention. Lawrence M. Mead was startled by this insight. He sensed that rare thing—a good research question! The con- versation grew into a project, and the eventual result is this book. Our agreement surprised us. Our politics are often at odds, and we continue to have significant disagreements about welfare reform. But we share an interest in theoretical inquiry. Although we have recently focused on concrete policy issues, both of us have a background in polit- ical theory. We both believed political theory had become too estranged from policy debate. We thought theory could contribute to the under- standing of welfare reform, and be enriched in the process. This agreement enabled us to learn from each other and work well together. What is more, that spirit extended to our coauthors. They rep- resent the farthest reaches of the political spectrum. Yet from our first meeting (again at a Wingspread conference), collaboration transcended partisanship. That commitment is reflected in the pages that follow. To an extent unusual for an edited volume, our authors address common issues and respond to each other’s arguments. Each rendered useful comments on many of the other chapters. We thank them sincerely. We also thank John Tambornino for astute comments that significantly strengthened our book. A political theorist who has now moved to an academic position, John exemplifies the close engagement of theory with policymaking that we hope to promote. This project straddles the boundaries between theory and public pol- icy. Our point is to draw those worlds closer together. But this very fea- ture made the effort difficult to fund. Thus, we especially thank our sup- porters. Besides the Johnson Foundation, they include Joe Dolan of the xi xii Foreword Achelis and Bodman Foundations, Eric Wanner of the Russell Sage Foundation, and Michael Laracy of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. We are very grateful for their trust. Finally, we thank everyone at the Russell Sage press for seeing this project quickly and ably through to publication. We have dedicated this book to our children. We hope they will inherit a world where political issues have constructive outcomes. We believe that controversies like welfare reform, though deeply felt, can give birth to better public policy and also to a more vibrant political order. Lawrence M. Mead New York University New York, New York Christopher Beem The Johnson Foundation Racine, Wisconsin Introduction CHRISTOPHER BEEM AND LAWRENCE M. MEAD N 1996, UNDER increasing pressure from a Republican Congress, Presi- dent Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportu- Inity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) into law, bringing a dramatic shift in welfare policy toward the indigent. The previous policy, Aid to Fami- lies with Dependent Children (AFDC), had supported poor families largely on the basis of entitlement, meaning that eligibility was based almost exclusively on financial need. Few questions were asked about whether the parents could support themselves. And, for poor mothers without spouses, AFDC had seemed to many to foster the dissolution of low-income families and communities. Accordingly, PRWORA replaced AFDC with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Under TANF, needy families could receive aid only if the parents met far more demand- ing work and child support requirements. And, in any event, that support was limited to five years. In 1997 and 1998, soon after the passage of PRWORA, Tony Blair’s New Labour government in Great Britain introduced its New Deal.1 This was a key element in Blair’s effort to develop a so-called Third Way between Con- servatism and traditional Labour policies. The New Deal moved away from the concept of social welfare, associated with T. H. Marshall, in which aid was given as a right of citizenship with few questions asked (Marshall 1964).2 As in the United States, critics had argued that income given in this spirit—the dole—had become a way of life that immured recipients in poverty. Building on earlier Conservative reforms, the new policy required youth and the unemployed, after a short period on aid, to look for work or undertake other activities as a condition of further support. The require- ments were less drastic than PRWORA, and largely exempted welfare mothers, but the motivations behind them were similar (see Lødemel and Trickey 2001).3 This broad shift in the late 1990s from an entitlement to a work-based support system for the indigent is what we mean in this volume by welfare reform.4 Yet the term reform fails to anticipate the strong disagreement that followed. As many rejoiced at the death of traditional welfare, others 1 2 Welfare Reform and Political Theory damned welfare reform as a moral and political disaster, bound to force thousands of poor families into the streets. Several years later, it is clear that neither the best nor the worst predictions have come to pass. American and British welfare caseloads have sharply declined, and many former recipi- ents are working. However, poverty levels have changed much less, the ability of the new workers to improve their lot over time appears limited, and the long-term implications for families and children are unclear.

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