ABSTRACT
In Canada, welfare-state restructuring is following the broader OECD pattern, which involves the erosion of forms of social citizenship established in the postwar era and the introduction of reforms often inspired by neoliberal views of the proper relationship of states, markets, and citizens. Such restructuring involves not only cuts in social expenditures but also changes in the very structure of programs. Thus, one important example of the neoliberal turn is the elimination of universal, flat-rate programs developed in the immediate postwar years, and their replacement by measures based on negative income tax/guaranteed annual income (NIT/GAI). Although there have been efforts to introduce such reforms in the United States, too, Canadian governments have been far more successful (Myles and Pierson 1997). Welfare state restructuring is also implicated in the broader reconfiguration of relations among the different layers of the state (federal, provincial, municipal). Inasmuch as these changes have been associated with funding cuts, they involve a destruction of the important set of supports constructed in the postwar era. In the process of welfare state restructuring, state-civil society relations are also being reconfigured. In spite of longstanding and growing responsibilities for service delivery, the role of civil society organizations as public policy advocates has been reshaped in significant ways by the state, thereby undermining the postwar system of representation (Bach and Phillips 1998).
