Social welfare policy in the East Asian and Latin American NICs: A comparative study of social welfare variations

The dissertation compares the welfare state development of the seven newly industrializing countries in East Asia and Latin America (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico) and attempts to explain their cross-regional social welfare variations.;The examination of social welfare practices in these countries shows that the welfare states of the East Asian NICs are weak, small, and limited while the Latin American welfare states are more deeply rooted and provide relatively more generous and more extensive benefits. Six major theories of welfare state are elaborated and applied to explain these variations of welfare efforts. These are (1) logic of industrialism theory, (2) monopoly capitalism theory, (3) social democracy theory, (4) interest group politics theory, (5) state centered theory, and (6) openness of economy theory. By using comparative methods and cross-sectional analysis, this research finds that the way of state incorporation into the international economy and its domestic consequences clearly affected the welfare state development in these countries and contributed to their cross-regional social welfare variations. Namely, the export oriented industrialization in the East Asian NICs, combined with their developing country status, has hampered the expansion of welfare state while import substituting industrialization provided a relatively more favorable environment for the growth of welfare state in the Latin American NICs, at least in its initial stages. These contrasting effects on the welfare state development can be ascribed to the different degrees of emphasis and urgency on international competitiveness and the different characters of domestic industrial structure which the two different ways of incorporation into the world economic system have imposed on these developing countries, respectively.;The implications of these findings are clear. Conventional welfare state theories, which largely focus on domestic variables for the welfare state development and its variations, are wanting when they are applied to the developing countries such as the seven NICs. The more satisfactory and complete understanding of the political economy and welfare state development of these non core and semi-peripheral countries can be obtained only when we also consider the interactions between the state and the international economy and their impacts on domestic political economy.