I investigate the link between the general features of state governments and their ability to reform welfare. The best indicator of governments’ characteristics is Elazar's political cultures. I define what successful welfare reform means, drawing on implementation research and experience. My criteria stress process, the avoidance of political and administrative problems. I then test the link between the Elazar cultures and successful reform using recent case studies of state implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Elazar's “moralistic” states perform best, and the association holds, even controlling for other influences. Results depend, however, on how welfare reform is defined.
Criticism of trends in political science centers on specific methodologies—quantitative methods or rational choice. However, the more worrisome development is scholasticism—a tendency for research to become overspecialized and ingrown. I define that trend more closely and document its growth through increases in numbers of journals, organized sections in the American Political Science Association, and divisions within the APSA conference. I also code articles published in the American Political Science Review to show a growth in scholastic features in recent decades. The changes affect all fields in political science. Scholasticism serves values of rigor. To restrain it will require reemphasizing relevance to real-world issues and audiences. To do this should also help restore morale among political scientists.
Most academic research on public policy achieves little influence in government. The disconnect reflects the different ways researchers and government learn about policy. In social policy, typically, scholars make rigorous but narrow arguments about how to improve social conditions while saying little about politics or government. Policymakers, however, reason in broader, integrative ways and pay more attention to program experience and institutions. Evaluations have influence in part because they serve the governmental style. By reasoning more like policymakers, scholars could have greater influence. But to make that connection, the teaching of public policy and academic incentives must change.
Much of today's entrenched poverty reflects the fact that poor adults seldom work consistently. The problem cannot be blamed predominantly on lack of jobs or other barriers to employment, as the chance to work seems widely available. More likely, the poor do not see work in menial jobs as fair, possible, or obligatory, though they want to work in principle. Government has evolved policies explicitly to raise work levels among the poor. Workfare programs, linked to welfare, show the most promise but still reach only a minority of employable recipients. Welfare reform should, above all, raise participation in these programs, as the share of clients involved largely governs their impact. Welfare should also cover more nonworking men to bring them under workfare. While work enforcement may seem punitive, the poor must become workers before they can stake larger claims to equality.
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