Research Paper on:
Issues of Welfare, Institutionalism, and Systems Theory

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
such humanistic ideals into the making of social services and agencies have become less than optimally effective. The age of globalization which presents a new socio-economic and political context  is characterized by a post industrialist paradigm that demands supranational integration and cooperative politics. Systems theory, as explained by Thomas Dye (1998), provides a conceptualization that integrates the  environment and the political system in terms of the demands and support that define the inputs and outputs of political decision making. Both systems theory and institutionalism allow for  the process of the welfare state within the history of American economical, moral and governmental development. Factors that influence all of the different forms of the welfare state  are the aging of the population, globalized economics and politics as well as the concept of responsibility. To many, social welfare and economic processes are at opposite ends of  an ideological continuum. Although economic development is about growth, profits, and accumulation, social welfare is about altruism, social rights, and redistribution. Economics is viewed as a dynamic process  that creates wealth and enlivens production. Social welfare is regarded as a mechanism for redistributing this wealth to fund social services for the poor and the oppressed. The  establishment of the institution of welfare was thought to be a process of liberal politics. The system of political decision making concerning welfare began with the depression eras  demand for employment and assistance for the unemployed. The American depression was at once an economic phenonomen and a cultural event of extreme magnitude. The lesson learned was  both economic and cultural - people learned that they had the ability to survive and that the political system could change to fit the needs of the time. In