Beyond National Standards: Reconciling Tension between Federalism and the Welfare State

Jennifer Wallner

Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 2010, vol. 40, issue 4, 646-671

Abstract: There is a tension between federalism and the welfare state. A keystone of federalism is preserving diversity by allowing populations to pursue alternative pathways from a national agenda. Under the logic of social citizenship, the welfare state should provide similar access to comparable programs for all citizens. To reconcile this tension, federations are encouraged to adopt national standards. But this begs the question: Are national standards a necessary condition for sub-national policy similarity? I test this by examining the Canadian education sector in a comparative context. My central findings suggest that national standards aren't necessary for the achievement of sub-national policy similarity. In lieu of national involvement, contextual factors help sub-national governments defy the odds and reconcile the tension between federalism and the welfare state. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/publius/pjp033 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:publus:v:40:y:2010:i:4:p:646-671

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Publius: The Journal of Federalism is currently edited by Paul Nolette and Philip Rocco

More articles in Publius: The Journal of Federalism from CSF Associates Inc. Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().