Main description: Throughout the world, politicians are dismantling state enterprises and heaping praise on private markets, while in the United States a new rhetoric of "citizen empowerment" links a widespread distrust of government to decentralization and privatization. Here Joel Handler asks...

There has been a major shift in welfare policies in the developed world towards activation, decentralization, and privatization. The 1996 US welfare reform welfare for single mother families was no longer an entitlement and there were stiff work requirements enforced by sanctions and time...

Since income-maintenance is widely conceded to be the heart of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, much attention has focused on the administration of the budget. How is the budget for a family established, and how may it be modified? How often is it changed and under...