Rethinking the Paradigm ofthe Mutual Exclusion Relationship between the WelfareState and Civil Society

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  • 福祉国家と市民社会の「相互排除パラダイム」を再考する
  • フクシ コッカ ト シミン シャカイ ノ 「 ソウゴ ハイジョ パラダイム 」 オ サイコウ スル

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to verify the hypothesis that a mutual exclusion relationship exists between the welfare state and civil society (the nonprofit sector). The mutual exclusion relationship hypothesis assumes that the amount of social security in a nation negatively correlates with the rate of participation in voluntary associations. In order to test this hypothesis, we compared countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and clarified the relationship between the welfare state and civil society by analyzing each nation's data. We compared the data from several indexes regarding social security contained in OECD statistics and the average rate of civic participation stated in the World Value Survey. This comparison yielded three main findings. First, the relationship between social security expenditure (as percentage of GDP) and the average rate of civic participation is not linear, but rather exhibits different patterns unique to each welfare regime. This implies that a welfare state does not necessarily exclude an active civil society, and vice versa. Second, the welfare state is not related to civil society in a single way. They have various aspects and functions, and the relationships among these are equally various. Third, chronologically speaking, countries where the social security expenditure had increased were likely to decrease the rate of participation between 1995 and 2005. Given this information, the mutual exclusion relationship hypothesis could be construed as partially supported in the context of neoliberalization.

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