How We Know Welfare Institutions, Political Entreprenuers, and the Media

Eric Nowak

Date of Award

2004

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Fitzgerald, Keith

Keywords

Welfare, Institutions, Media

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

This paper deals with the complications inherent in social citizenship in the United States. It takes a close look at the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) reform and how political entrepreneurs were able to end entitlements that were created over six decades ago. This project traces welfare policy from its inception in the post-Civil War period and shows the development of bifurcated conceptions of social citizenship. Previous explanations for the split of citizenship ideas over time fail to give enough weight to the policy process and instead focus on broad structural variables, single elements (public opinion) in the policy process, or fail to recognize the complexity inherent in studying policies that have embedded meanings. This paper proposes a different look at welfare policy. One that seeks to show policy development as a series of critical junctures, where over time policy perceptions are institutionalized and reinforced by those structures. In the 1996 policy this bias is mobilized to legitimate the actions of political entrepreneurs.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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