Welfare, Right and the State, Vol. 14

Progress in thinking about welfare and the state has been hampered by two important limitations in the literature. The first has to do with the absence of any effective grounding for the idea of autonomy and the second has to do with the theory of the state.In this book David P. Levine seeks to address both of these problems and in so doing he begins to develop a framework for thinking about the welfare state. Levine starts with an exploration of the nature of welfare, which he connects not to basic needs as might be expected, but to what he refers to as the capacity to lead the self-made life. He then considers different ways of grounding the claim that providing for the welfare of citizens might be considered a duty of the state. Among the ideas explored are: shared membership in a community, rights, compassion and security. At this stage the ideas of right and the state are more fully examined emphasizing the relationship between right and rights and applying insights from Durkheim about the role of the state in relation to society. Finally, he explores the ideal of freedom and its relation to markets.This scholarly work should be of interest to academics and advanced students working in the field of social administration, sociology, political science, economics, philosophy, international studies and social work.Levine, David P. is the author of 'Welfare, Right and the State, Vol. 14', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415771993 and ISBN 0415771994.