SPECIAL ISSUE ON GLOBALIZATION,
SOCIAL JUSTICE & SOCIAL WELFARE

INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE
Frederick (Fritz) MacDonald and James Midgley,
Special Editors

PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBALIZATION, SOCIAL JUSTICE AND WELFARE
James Midgley
Although the social science literature on globalization has proliferated, social policy and social work scholars have not adequately debated the consequences of globalization for social welfare and social justice. Drawing on different social science interpretations of globalization, four major perspectives that offer different analytical and normative insights into globalization are identified and their implications for social welfare and social justice are briefly examined. The implications of these perspectives for social policy and social work scholarship are also considered.

GLOBALIZATION AND DRUG AND ALCOHOL USE IN RURAL COMMUNITIES IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY
Charles Fiki
This paper presents an exploratory study of alcohol and drug use in two rural communities in Plateau State, Nigeria. The aim is to raise awareness of the rural alcohol and drug problem. The paper examines the patterns of alcohol consumption and drug use, and their perceived functions for substance use among rural farmers in Nigeria. The study shows the common use of marijuana and alcohol in addition to prescription drugs. There is also evidence of multiple or combinational drug use. Pleasure and relaxation emerged as the major reasons for drug and alcohol use.
Factors influencing alcohol and drug use are the relative neglect of rural communities, and the activities of hawkers, quacks, and other untrained individuals pervading the rural health sectors. The paper calls for further research to adequately capture the reality of alcohol and drug use in rural communities in Nigeria.

COLOR-BLIND INDIVIDUALISM, INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION AND PUBLIC POLICY
Pamela Anne Quiroz
A prevailing ideology of color-blindness has resulted in privatizing the discourse on adoption. Color-blind individualism, the adoption arena’s version of color-blind discourse, argues that race should not matter in adoption; racism can be eradicated through transracial adoption; and individual rights should be exercised without interference of the state. As privatization has increasingly dominated our world and disparities between countries have grown, so too has intercountry adoption. This paper examines the colonial aspects of intercountry adoption and implications for conceptualizing global human rights from our current emphasis on individual rights, as the real issue continues to be which children are desired by which parents.

THE CHALLENGE OF COMMUNITY WORK IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY
Howard Karger, Christian Iyiani and Pat Shannon
This article examines how and why five major stakeholders—international financial organizations; NGOs; governmental entities; multinational corporations; and community development projects—have failed to significantly and uniformly reduce aggregate global poverty. The article uses the results of a case study of HIV/AIDS prevention in a low-income Nigerian city to argue that effective action must involve local and global stakeholders in collaborative partnerships. It concludes by discussing the critical role of facilitators in such partnerships.

GLOBALIZATION, IMMIGRATION AND THE WELFARE STATE: A CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISON
Qingwen Xu
Over the past decades, the forces of globalization have helped created a huge wave of immigration. The relationship between globalization and immigration has been intensely examined in the last decade with a focus not only on whether and how much globalization has caused international immigration but also how to promote and sustain a just global system for the growing number of immigrants. This study selects three developed countries with different welfare state philosophies and traditions—Australia, Sweden and the United States—and compares how they cope with the growing number of immigrants and their various needs. This paper reflects thinking about states’ ability to redistribute resources, about the ability to agree upon a unified theory of welfare rights in a diverse society, and the feasibility of opening nations’ welfare systems to all immigrants in the globalization context and from a rights-based social work perspective.

GLOBALIZATION AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Loring Jones, David W. Engstrom, Tricia Hilliard and Mariel Diaz
Globalization demands that social workers embrace more than just local and national perspectives; they must adopt an international viewpoint as well. A negative aspect of globalization that deserves more attention is the international movement of labor. This paper presents a description and analysis of trafficking, the more deleterious part of this movement of people, in a global context. Decision makers seeking to make global migration more humane need to know about the dynamics and process of trafficking, as well as ways to combat it. Definitional controversies, contextual issues (including the dynamics and processes of trafficking), and consequences of this movement for individuals and societies are discussed. Implications for social work are also presented.

GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION AND PRACTICE: EXPLORING AUSTRALIAN PRACTITIONERS' VIEWS
Marina Findlay and John McCormack
The process of globalization is a controversial movement supported by some due to the potential cross-national benefits, but criticized by others because of the fragmented or uneven distribution of those benefits. As many social workers interact with clients who may be affected by globalization processes, we were interested to investigate their educational preparedness and practice views on this topic. Sixty-six social workers completed a questionnaire which explored the relationship between local and international issues. Practitioner responses indicated a strong interest
in the topic and widespread agreement that there is a link between local and global issues on clients in their daily practice. Also, while there was a diversity of opinion on educational preparedness for global practice, practitioner responses again indicated general agreement that ongoing education would be useful. The paper concludes with some suggestions to further enhance the knowledge and education of social workers for global practice.

TOWARD GLOBAL WELFARE STATE CONVERGENCE?: FAMILY POLICY AND HEALTH CARE IN SWEDEN, CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES
Gregg M. Olsen
Accounts of the welfare state and the dynamics governing its development have been pivotal and highly contentious in the social policy literature over the past few decades. Since the 1980s, research has suggested that, as a result of domestic pressures and strains and/or the impact of globalization, welfare states were declining in tandem. However, most of these studies were quantitative, focusing upon 18 or more advanced capitalist nations and, in their search to uncover broad cross-national trends, utilized narrow welfare state indicators. This study investigates the extent to which the social democratic welfare state in Sweden, the social liberal welfare state
in Canada, and the liberal welfare state in the United States have converged. It takes a qualitative approach, examining the character of the income security and social service programs in two broad policy domains—family policy and health care—and concludes that the welfare states in the three nations remain distinct, while
acknowledging some broadly similar trends and new developments.

INTEGRATING GLOBALIZATION INTO THE SOCIAL WORK CURRICULUM
Karen Smith Rotabi, Denise Gammonley, Dorothy N. Gamble and Marie O. Weil
The reality that social work is a global profession is explored. Authors encourage a broadening of social work education, moving beyond the traditional conception of “internationalized” to a “globalized” social work curriculum. Practical teaching strategies for a globalized perspective are presented with selected key concepts specifically applied to social policy, community practice, human behavior in the social
environment, and sustainable development. Discussion includes macro-scale ethical considerations in a neoliberal economic system.

GLOBALIZATION, WELFARE REFORM AND THE SOCIAL ECONOMY: DEVELOPING AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO ANALYZING SOCIAL WELFARE SYSTEMS IN THE POST-INDUSTRIAL ERA
Vanna Gonzales
Our understanding of the relationship between globalization and contemporary social welfare systems is heavily influenced by three conventional approaches to studying welfare reform: the political economy, moral economy, and mixed economy approaches. In addition to analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each of these approaches, a central aim of this article is to introduce the social economy approach as an emergent alternative. Drawing from a growing body of work on institutional innovation within the European third sector, I argue that the social economy approach makes a valuable contribution to understanding the role of welfare networks in reconfiguring globalizations’ impact on the character and quality of social provision so as to better reconcile social efficacy with social justice.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Stephen Marson
Senior Editor, The Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics

Marguerite G. Rosenthal, Ph.D
Professor, School of Social Work, Salem State College, MA

BOOK REVIEWS
Republican Women: Feminism and Conservatism from Suffrage
Through the Rise of the New Right
Catherine E. Rymph.
Reviewed by Leon Ginsberg.

Changing Lives: Delinquency Prevention as Crime Control Policy
Peter W. Greenwood.
Reviewed by Matthew T. Theriot.

Children and Youth in Adoption, Orphanages and Foster Care:
A Historical Handbook and Guide
Lori Askeland (Ed.).
Reviewed by Albert J. Ellett.

Empire of Scrounge: Inside the Urban Underground of
Dumpster Diving, Trash Picking, and Street Scavenging
Jeff Ferrell.
Reviewed by Robert D. Leighninger, Jr.

Black, Brown, Yellow and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles
Laura Pulido.
Reviewed by Cheryl A. Hyde.

White Slave Crusades: Race, Gender and Anti-Vice Activism, 1887-1917
Brian Donovan.
Reviewed by Leslie Leighninger.

BOOK NOTES
Taxes are a Woman’s Issue: Reframing the Debate
Mimi Abramovitz and Sandra Morgen

Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors
Charles S. Maier

Global Energy Shifts: Fostering Stability in a Turbulent Age
Bruce Podobnik

The Citizen’s Stake: Exploring the Future of Universal Asset Policies
Will Paxton and Stuart White, with Dominic Maxwell

Pharmaceutical Reason: Knowledge and Value in Global Psychiatry Andrew Lakoff

Differences that Matter: Social Policy and the Working Poor in
the United States and Canada
Dan Zuberi

A Call for Papers:
Beyond the Numbers: How the Lived Experiences of Women Challenge the “Success” of Welfare Reform