Deforming Welfare: How the Dominant Narratives of Devolution and Privatization Subverted Federal Welfare Reform

Abstract

This article challenges the prevailing conventional wisdom that attests to the natural alliance between welfare reform and devolution; it identifies the serious harms that are engendered when states, for-profit corporations, and faith-based institutions implement the federal imperatives of welfare reform; and, ultimately, it puts forth a more dynamic, alternative policy framework that seeks to privilege both local voices and federal stewardship by forging anti-poverty partnerships centered on federal-state and public-private cooperatives.

Keywords: federalism, devolution, welfare law, poverty law, administrative law, Establishment Clause, church-state relations, faith-based initiatives