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To Devolve or Not To Devolve? Welfare Reform in the States
Author(s) -
Gainsborough Juliet F.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
policy studies journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.773
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1541-0072
pISSN - 0190-292X
DOI - 10.1111/1541-0072.00045
Subject(s) - devolution (biology) , welfare , workforce , local government , public administration , government (linguistics) , central government , political science , welfare reform , economic growth , business , economics , law , sociology , linguistics , philosophy , anthropology , human evolution
This article analyzes variation in the degree to which states have responded to the devolution of welfare at the federal level by devolving authority over welfare policy to local government. I find that to the extent that states have devolved authority to lower levels of government, they tend to be states that already had a high degree of involvement of local government in welfare provision. In states without this record of local government involvement, the devolution that has occurred has not generated greater involvement of local government, but rather responsibility has been devolved to regional entities with ties to workforce development and with a substantial degree of business involvement. As states gain increasing authority over a redistributive policy, they may begin to treat it as a subset of a larger developmental policy—workforce development.