Assistantism
With Assistenzialismus in the strict sense today is called the charitable classic poor relief. The main focus is on helping poor populations, e.g. B. to give street children, food, clothes, medicine and shelter. The term was coined with critical intent by the liberation theologian Paulo Freire .
Assistantism in the broader sociological sense is a form of exchanging perks for political consensus. Assistantism is thus related to clientelism . It has two aspects: an expansive welfare policy of the state and the lethargic waiting of the regional population for state help. At the same time, the state administration is often expanding, which is intended to compensate for the regional shortage of productive jobs.
criticism
As far as the term assistantialism describes the non-emancipatory work of church, but also state and private organizations for the poor, this work is not aimed at opening up long-term alternatives for the poor. In addition, it is often associated with missionary work and in this context also with indoctrination in foreign languages. Liberation theologians were critical of this approach and demand that this form of care be limited to medical help.
The broader term of assistantialism describes exchange relationships between the state or administration and regional clientele groups, such as B. be practiced in southern Italy or parts of Spain. In Calabria , where a tradition of independent entrepreneurship is completely lacking and state transfer payments (including those from the European Union) made up over 50 percent of the regional product in the 1990s and 35 percent of all employees worked in public administration, the transfers have indeed increased the Prosperity and consumption led, but not self-sustaining development promoted. The following are negative implications:
- the emergence of "political entrepreneurship" protected more by protection than by its own competitiveness;
- the development of less productive micro-entrepreneurship that thrives on subsidies and / or moves into the shadow economy;
- criminal entrepreneurship that controls the public allocation of resources.
The accusation of assistantism is also often made in political-populist movements such as the Bolivarian Revolution .
The strategies of empowerment represent an alternative to assistantism . However, the question of whether a program to improve children's health care by paying a premium to the mothers should be criticized as assistant socialist or welcomed as an activation strategy is often difficult to decide.
literature
- Reiner Engelmann: Street children in the jungle of the big cities. Munich 2002.
- Paulo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Education as a practice of freedom. 1970.
- Paulo Freire: Education as a Practice of Freedom. Examples of the pedagogy of the oppressed. 1977
- Jürgen Sand: Social work with street children. 2001
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anne-Sophie Tombeil: Regional development processes in Southern Europe: Italy and Spain in comparison. Springer Verlag, 2013, p. 248.
- ↑ Tombeil 2013, p. 248 f.
- ↑ Germ cells from discipline and passion . In: The Week , September 13, 2012.
- ↑ See e.g. As for such a program in Honduras , the KAS abroad Information 2/2014, p 106 website of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation .