State and Regional Politics: Introduction

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, Sep 2017

The policy decisions of the states have become increasingly important to social welfare in recent years. In that sense, it is an opportune time to introduce an interdisciplinary collection of articles which has as its principal focus the circumstances and the processes of policy at the state level. With one exception, the articles which address regional concepts do so in the context of comparative or case studies of one or more state policy decisions.

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State and Regional Politics: Introduction

" Th e Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 10 : Iss. 2 State and Regional Politics: Introduction Timothy W. Lause Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol10/iss2/2 Follow this and additional works at; https; //scholarworks; wmich; edu/jssw - Much of the states' new prominence in social welfare is due to a conspicuously diminished scope and level of federal activity since 1980. Four of these articles establish significant connections between their research and one or more of these recent reversals in national policy. Mueller and Comer examine the fate of state health system agencies, following federal deregulation in 1981. They explore several potential explanations for state decisions, grounded in the framework of an interesting varient of general innovation theory as developed within political science. The results of their analysis suggest that "dissinnovation" or termination of the agency is negatively related to general factors normally associated with decisions to adopt reforms initially but in interaction with several variables which are more specific to the problem, such as the costs of hospitalization in the states. The aftermath of federal deregulation and reduced block grants is also explored in Sink and Wilson's case study of initial allocations in Alabama. In that article they develop a model of interaction between the initiation of that mechanism of fiscal transfers and regionally placed systems of political culture and balances of power among the branches of state goverment. Demone and Gibelman contribute an examination of factors effecting state decisions in the design of social service delivery strategies within the rubic of expanded state discretion. They devote special attention to purchase of service arrangements and relate the examined advantages and disadvantages to a discussion of future trends. * The editor wishes to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the following reviewers who provided able assistance in the preparation of this special issue: Dr. Elwin Barrett, Bobbeye Humphrey ACSW, Bernice Hutcherson ACSW, Dr. Art Crowns, Donovan Rutledge ACSW (Wichita State) Dr. John Bardo (Southwest Texas State) Dr. Buford Farris and Dr. Gary Hamilton (Saint Louis University) Dr. Shirley Porter (Western Illinois) Dr. Marie Caputi, Hugh Gibson ACSW, and Thomas Racunas ABD. Thanks is also extended to Drs. Robert Leighninger and Normon Goroff, regular editors of the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, for their help in the completion of this project. The results of Heffernan's study of welfare spending are illustrative of a number of common objections to increasing reliance upon the states. They are also indicative of the challenges facing social welfare scholarship and advocacy even if future elections restore a period of incremental growth in federal funding roles. Controlling for differences between state wealth and several other measures similar to those used in Mueller and Corner's study, Heffernan concludes that in their allocation of their own revenues there are rather stable patterns in which some states exceed predicted spending, while others regularly make less than predicted efforts. Since the states appear to be "resilient in their desire to carry out programs consistent with their own traditions," reduced federal funding would compound benefit inequalities between states on the basis of those varied traditions. On the one hand, these inequalities may substantiate need for national standards requiring a larger federal funding role than that of the seventies. On the other hand, to defer actions to promote benefit allocations in the states in favor of creation of an adequate federalized program appears to be a remote prospect in the imediate future unless accompanied by a "swap" which yields a net loss of federal social program transfers to the states. One of his principal points is that as yet social research lacks & reasonable understanding of what exact circumstances account for the differences in spending efforts. Three of these articles explore regional constructions as partial explanations of differing state policy decisions. The two case studies in that group fall within traditional boundaries of the south. Sink and Wilson's article on block grants in Alabama, already mentioned, was the only one of the two which focused upon spending. McNeece and Ezell discuss the interaction of political culture and symbolism in describing the backlash to reform in Florida's juvenile detention criteria. Along with Block's overview of a sunset review of social work licensing, the study of juvenile detention reform illustrates one of the reasons the framework of this collection was not equated with the scope or duration of the Reagan agenda for social welfare. Both issues fall within domains of state policy which are largely removed from federal politics. Savage's article is the most ambitious of the studies concerned with regional traditions in state p (...truncated)


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Timothy W. Lause. State and Regional Politics: Introduction, The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 2018, Volume 10, Issue 2,