Reforming governance in the Israeli welfare state: The role of organizational settlements beyond the state in instituting change

Asa Maron

No 05/2014, Working papers of the ZeS from University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS)

Abstract: Welfare state governance reforms are established by new constellations of actors and experimental organizational structures. This paper analyses two most similar cases of governance reforms in two welfare state domains: (1) services for children and teens at risk; and (2) employment services and social security benefits. It utilizes a comprehensive empirical study that surveys reform initiatives and the establishment of innovative governance coalitions formed in order to enable the recalibration of the Israeli welfare state to changing conditions. In both cases, preliminary deliberations of senior bureaucrats were able to establish change coalitions, which were vital in order to overcome bureaucratic stalemates that result from path-dependent administrative legacies. Notwithstanding, governance coalitions differ in their ability to institutionalize new governance configurations within the state: while the new configuration for governing services for at risk populations won political legitimacy and was instituted, the workfare governance configuration suffered from political illegitimacy and was ultimately abolished. By focusing on the organizational aspects of welfare state reform, the paper argues that tentative coalitions' potential to transform into legitimate and sustainable governance configurations depends on their ability to establish inclusive organizational settlements between agencies with different interests, beyond the bureaucratic structure of the state.

Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zeswps:052014

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