Transatlantic Perspectives on Welfare Reform

January-February 1997

By Stanley W Carlson-Thies

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands—High on the agenda of Christian Democrats in Western Europe are welfare reform, the renewal of civil society, and the recovery of a strong sense of personal responsibility Our European counterparts, however, are more likely than American Christians to hold a high view of the state's responsibility to promote a just society and to be engaged in the details of policy. European welfare states are much more comprehensive than the United States version. It is no wonder that Europeans are worried about the financial viability and bureaucratic manageability of generous social programs. For many Christians, however, the key concern is the erosion of social institutions, the weakening impulse for people to help the needy directly, and the declining sense that people should be responsible for their own lives. As the heirs of Catholic and Protestant social teachings, which emphasize social and personal responsibility and the plural structure of society, European Christian Democrats naturally see the crisis of the welfare state from the perspective of the crisis of civil society.

This is what I discovered during two weeks in the Netherlands last November. I began my stay by giving a speech about the significance of Dutch pluralism for contemporary America at a conference in commemoration of 150 years of Dutch Reformed immigration to North America. The conference was cosponsored by the Historical Documentation Center for Dutch Protestantism and the Roosevelt Study Center. I ended my stay by taking part in a three-day workshop organized by Charles L. Glenn (Boston University), a member of the Advisory Council of the Center for Public Justice. The workshop examined European experiences of government's "ambiguous embrace" of faith-based schools and charities. It drew participants from across Europe, was hosted by Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and is part of a project initiated by sociologist Peter Berger.

Between these two conferences, I spoke at seminars on public policy toward religious charities sponsored by the research institutes of the Christian Democratic Appeal, the main Dutch Christian Democratic party, and the Reformed Political Federation, another key Dutch party. I also met with a social-philosophy group at the Free University that includes long-time friends of the Center, Sander Griffioen and Bob Goudzwaard. John Hiemstra (King's University College, Edmonton, Alberta), who collaborated on the Center's welfare project, also participated in some of these seminars.

Assisting the Needy in Different Contexts

In the seminars I emphasized the crucial importance (as well as shortcomings) of the "Charitable Choice" provision of the 1996 American federal welfare law. By providing unprecedented protections for the religious character of faith-based social-service providers that cooperate with public programs, Charitable Choice seeks to make government welfare a support, rather than substitute, for non-governmental assistance to the needy. The European Christian Democrats were surprised by this repudiation of the supposed American ideal of a "naked public square" and asked detailed questions about implementation.

Western Europeans have good reason to worry about an overly activist state. So it was striking to see Christian Democrats reject the American conservative assumption that if the state will just shrink, personal responsibility and social institutions will be revived. They pointed out that social institutions can flourish only if the state upholds the appropriate legal framework. Moreover, the state has a divine mandate to protect the poor and vulnerable. It is exactly when social institutions are weak and citizens are not inclined to help their neighbors that the state must take action—not to perpetuate dependency but to stimulate social responsibility.

In America, too often the debate about the state and civil society is disconnected from legislative battles over key social institutions such as the family, marriage, and schooling. Yet it is through these policies that government undergirds or undermines citizens' exercise of their own responsibilities. In the Netherlands, for example, the Liberal/Labor government is weakening Christian schools, broadcasting, and social-service providers through regulatory and legal changes. Christian Democrats are convinced that it is in the details of public policy that the critical battles over the plural society are actually won or lost.

Some Dutch Christians are resigned to defeat because, for the first time in more than half a century, there is no Christian party in the governing coalition. But most Christian Democrats see the same challenge as always: how to practice Christian principles in the public sphere. This is a question of vision and of details. As governments and faith-based organizations in the United States now try to implement far-reaching welfare reforms, our challenge is to carefully link vision and policy details.