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CSD Statement
of Purpose During coming decades, it is likely that domestic policy in the United States and other economically advanced nations will undergo a fundamental transformation. While the ultimate outcome of this transformation is impossible to predict, it is likely that a new emphasis on development will in part replace the traditional welfare state emphasis on maintenance. Social development refers to investing in people, promoting active citizenship, and strengthening families and communities. As this new domestic policy unfolds, we anticipate that the Center for Social Development at Washington University will play a leading role. The purpose of CSD is to chart new directions and study innovations in the domestic arena, particularly where such innovations are likely to have the greatest impact on public policy and private action. The domestic arena includes areas that are typically thought of as social welfare and economic development as well as broader aspects of family, community, and national life. CSD brings together and provides a stimulating environment for people working on diverse social development topics. The approach is multidisciplinary, drawing on existing knowledge, study methods, and experts from many fields. The Center builds alliances and fosters new approaches to inquiry. Through innovation, research, networking, and policy development, CSD makes intellectual and applied contributions in social development theory, federal and state policy, and community projects. Social Development CSD promotes innovation and study of social development at many levels:
In the past, the term social development has typically been associated with "third world" development, but the title of the Center affirms that social development is a concept that applies directly to the United States and other economically advanced nations, and projects of CSD emphasize learning from other countries. Also, social development and economic development have in the past been distinct fields of study, but this separation is artificial. CSD's work forges intellectual and applied connections between social and economic development. Maintenance: The Welfare State of the Twentieth Century In fiscal terms, welfare has been the chief function of the modern state. Welfare spending (i.e., government payments to individuals for income security, medical care, housing, and so forth) makes up over half of federal expenditures in the United States, and even more in Western Europe. Questions must continually be raised about whether the money is being spent in the best possible way. In order to formulate these questions, it is helpful to identify distinguishing features of the welfare state. Many features come to mind, but five are especially prominent: Transfer of income. Foremost, the welfare state is characterized by the transfer of income to support consumption. Social insurance and means-tested transfers make up well over 90 percent of all welfare spending. In this social policy scheme, an individual's "welfare" (well-being) is defined by his or her level of income, and it is assumed that this income supports a certain level of consumption. This definition of welfare-as-consumption derives directly from intellectual underpinnings in neoclassical economics. But as any ordinary accountant or financial planner knows, consumption by itself does not constitute well-being. Savings and investment -- for long term development -- must be taken into consideration as well. Passive support for the unemployed. The foundation of the welfare state was a system of industrial capitalism in which most employees worked productively with little education and training. Consistent with these conditions, welfare state provisions such as Social Security benefits, Workers' Compensation, and Unemployment Insurance were designed to support people off the job, but not to prepare people for new jobs. Since those days, the world of work has changed dramatically, but US social policy has not. In a post-industrial era, where ever more skills -- and more flexible skills -- are required to succeed in the labor market, policies designed simply to support unemployed workers are tragically out of date. Preoccupation with problems. On the services side, the welfare state has been dominated by modern day social work and other professions with an orientation toward problem solving. The basic idea has been to identify an individual or family "problem", and then "intervene" in an attempt to solve that problem. With this narrow focus, so preoccupied with problems, social workers may overlook opportunities for success. There was a distinctly different tradition earlier in this century, but today social work has little theory or practice that emphasizes social skills and healthy development, and still less that emphasizes capacities instead of weaknesses. Focus on individuals. Despite the communitarian rhetoric that pervades social policy discussions, the welfare state is, in reality, highly individualistic. Both income support and services have been aimed almost exclusively at individuals. Occasionally we focus on families, but seldom on neighborhoods and communities. In sharp juxtaposition to this individual focus, it is apparent that the most vexing social issues of our time -- alienated youth, crime, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS, homelessness, violence within families -- stem from broad social and economic factors such as wealth inequality, loss of employment, racial discrimination, weakening of community institutions, changes in family structure, and failing schools. Bureaucratic organization. The welfare state has been organized primarily as a top-down, bureaucratic, and largely disconnected set of activities. To be sure, we have enacted lofty and well-intentioned policies, but we have paid too little attention to what those policies actually do when they "reach the ground" in communities and households. Programs and services are often not what they were intended to be. They are unresponsive to genuine needs, and fragmented. These five characteristics -- transfer of income, passive support for the unemployed, preoccupation with problems, focus on individuals, and bureaucratic organization -- together constitute the maintenance orientation of the welfare state of the twentieth century. This emphasis on maintenance has alleviated suffering to some extent, but it has done little to build capacities that would enable people and communities to become self-sufficient. It is clear that maintenance by itself is an inadequate foundation for constructing social policy. A new direction is needed. Development: A New Domestic Policy for the Twenty-First Century In contrast to the five maintenance characteristics described above, a development policy would emphasize the opposites: building assets instead of providing income for consumption, developing human capital instead of aimless support for unskilled workers, enhancing capacities instead of problem-centered treatment, building communities instead of individualism, and creating responsive human service organizations instead of bureaucracies. Building assets and promoting investment. A development policy would promote asset accumulation. This policy would recognize that individuals, families, and the nation as a whole must complement income-and-consumption with savings-and-investment. Moreover, asset building would become a foundation of social policy, so that many social and economic goals -- especially higher education, home ownership, small business development, retirement security, and some aspects of health care -- are achieved to a significant extent through programs of asset accumulation. Work in this area was pioneered Michael Sherraden (Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy), and Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro (Black Wealth/White Wealth). Assets and the Poor outlines propositions regarding behavioral effects of asset accumulation, and proposes a new domestic policy based on Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). This thinking has generated widespread academic discussion and policy initiatives. Many states and the federal government have passed legislation to create IDAs, though mostly in targeted, demonstration policies. Investing in people. Social policy cannot be separated from economic policy. The United States, as every other nation, must pay considerable attention to developing a labor force capable of competing in the international arena. Fortunately, today we have more discussion of the importance of primary and secondary education, and effective transitions from school to work. However, little attention has been paid to transformation of some of the largest social policy provisions -- particularly Social Security benefits, Unemployment Insurance, and Workers' Compensation -- so that they contribute more directly to enhancement of skills, participation, and productivity. Enhancing capability. Instead of a narrow focus on personal problems (deviance, deficiency, abnormality), a development orientation affirms ordinary life events and opportunities, with a primary emphasis on stability and capability. Instead of seeing only problematic or "at risk" characteristics of an individual or family, a development perspective looks first to characteristics of strength, capacity, and competence. To those who are therapy-minded, this approach may sound peculiar. Perhaps it can be understood by analogy: Peter Drucker, the management guru, has identified a common managerial error that he calls "feeding problems and starving solutions." According to Drucker, the only thing one gets by "problem-solving" is damage containment. Only opportunities produce growth. Drucker suggests that a manager first draw up a list of opportunities facing the organization, and make sure that each is adequately staffed. Only then should the manager draw up a list of problems. Looking at
cities, Jane Jacob's confronted this issue some 30 years ago in The Economy
of Cites. After examining the various popular notions of causes of poverty,
she concluded: Promoting citizenship, mutuality, and inter-racial understanding. However great a society's commitment to individuality and freedom, it requires a countervailing commitment to community and civic participation. Voluntary association has been a hallmark of American democracy, and mutual ties have served as an essential counter-balance to America's economic individualism. This was recognized from the outset of the Republic by Thomas Jefferson, later noted by Alexis de Tocqueville, and today has reappeared in calls for greater social responsibility and a stronger sense of community in work by Amitai Etzioni, Robert Putnam, and others. Despite community-oriented rhetoric, most social policies address individual and family issues -- rental subsidies for the unhoused, food stamps for the unfed, criminal justice for the unruly, and psychotherapy for the unhinged. The vast majority of today's social workers ply their trade with individuals, in agencies and offices quite removed from community settings. This extreme individualism is a misallocation of resources, and an abandonment of some of the best traditions in social work practice. Although an emphasis on community is not by itself a solution (one is reminded of rather naïve community action efforts during the 1960s), it is an essential starting point. Fortunately, extreme individualism in social policy and practice may be changing. National and community service has been implemented, albeit in a small way, as a national policy. In the social work profession, Harry Specht and Mark Courtney called for a return to community-based services rather than office-based psychotherapies. Recent successes of community development corporations (CDCs) are noteworthy. These community-building efforts forge ties across economic class and racial groups. In the years ahead, community-building should become a pillar of domestic policy and social practice in America. Creating responsive and effective human service organizations. The administrative structure of the welfare state is a product of its origins in industrial society. The structure is top-down, hierarchical, categorized into hundreds of separate "programs", and often unresponsive to local needs and conditions. As we move into a post-industrial era, it is clear that this administrative structure and principles of operation are out of date. Dramatic change is needed, including fewer layers in the organizational structure, fewer forms to fill out, more integrated delivery systems, more incentives for outstanding performance, more control by those who are in the front lines, greater responsiveness to individual needs and circumstances, and more emphasis on outcomes and returns on investment. In the public sector, state and local governments have been in the forefront in "reinventing" policy, organizations, programs, and services that deliver domestic policy. This thinking is beginning to emerge at the federal level. Recent innovations in areas such as public/private partnerships, collaboration across different service areas, devolution of authority to local control, client "empowerment" strategies, "one stop shopping" for services, use of information technology to reduce paperwork and office visits, and return on investment accounting are all encouraging developments. But welfare state bureaucracies are deeply entrenched and a great deal remains to be done, particularly in linking new organizational forms to family and community development strategies. The Work of the Center The work of CSD is to build theoretical and applied foundations for a transformation from welfare state to development society. In our view, this transformation has already begun and will proceed across several decades. At best, it will be a difficult and sometimes wrenching period. The politics of changing the welfare state will be heated. Possibilities for regressive action will be great. The best hope of charting a successful course through this transformation will be to articulate a common-sense vision of development, and establish the conceptual and practical tools for getting there. CSD hones ideas and innovations, creates development projects, undertakes research, brings together expert scholars, holds workshops and conferences, serves as a data base and information source, publishes reports and scholarly papers, advises and consults as needed, and participates in policy development at local, state, national, and international levels. CSD's principal
focus is on families and communities at the bottom of society. Center faculty and staff
engage in research ranging from the local to the international. Projects
connect academic and applied interests, incorporating public, non-profit,
and private sectors. Emphasis is on partnerships for joint study and joint
action. The watchwords of all CSD projects are inquiry, innovation, and impact. |
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