From welfare to social care? A comparative analysis of welfare state restructuring, mobilization strategies, and social policy change in the United States

Recent socioeconomic and political turbulence presents a puzzle for welfare state scholars endeavoring to understand the restructuring of long-established social policies and citizenship rights. Exemplifying this explanatory challenge, the American welfare state both expanded and contracted in the 1990s with family leave and welfare reform, policies of concern for "social care" advocates seeking public valorization of family carework and government support for the care of dependent persons. "From Welfare to Social Care?" argues that macro-demographic trends, post-industrial globalization, institutional effects, elite frames, and capital/labor conflicts cannot fully explain these policy developments.;Building on theories of institutions, social movements, and civic engagement to modify "power resources" theory, this study uncovers macro- and micro-process change links to explain policy reform at a meso-analytical level. Within American federalism, welfare state restructuring appears to depend on organizational resourcefulness, reformers' capacity to mobilize strategically to surmount institutional constraints and split opponents' power resources. Comparative-historical study of US family leave and welfare policies enacted in 1993 and 1996 substantiates this claim with a meso-analysis of the mobilization strategies and resources of feminist, child advocacy, Christian-Right, and small business groups. Covering the 1970s to 2006, this analysis relies on documentary materials, interviews with advocacy group leaders, participant observation, and organizational data.;In the US, the likelihood that social care reform groups will achieve their policy goals is greater if groups demonstrate more of the following four indicators of organizational resourcefulness: (1) development of a locally-rooted federated membership base coordinated with a Washington DC lobby; (2) significant prior local electoral participation with a major political party; (3) a policy designed to maximize broad-based support of potential coalition member groups; (4) a policy strategy designed to split the opposition of potential coalition member groups. In both cases, a strategy of developing local roots linked to national lobbying appears to be the strongest indicator of group capacity to achieve policy goals.;Revealing differences in the mobilization strategies of social care advocacy and opposition groups, this study suggests that more attention to state-market-family- community relations is needed in comparative social policy analysis to explain the timing and content of welfare state restructuring.