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This book considers the impact of neoliberal policies and ideology on the status of care work in Nordic countries. With new research perspectives and empirical analyses, the book assesses challenges for care work including technologies, management and policy-making. Arguing that there is a care crisis even in the supposedly feminist Nordic ‘nirvana’, the book explores understandings of the care crisis, the serious consequences for gender equality and the hitherto neglected effects on the long-term sustainability of the Nordic welfare states. This astute take on the Nordic welfare model provides insights into what the Nordic experience can tell us about wider international issues in care.

This collection of original essays explores the myriad expressions of austerity since the 2008 financial crisis. Case studies drawn from Canada, Australia and the European Union provide extensive comparative analysis of austerity --fiscal consolidation and structural reforms to labour and the public sector. Contributions examine such themes as privatisation, class mobilization and resistance, the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of the far right. The potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in shaping future austerity and alternatives is signalled. The controversies around the pandemic’s merciless revelation of the status of public health infrastructures after decades of austerity capitalism and the sudden visibility of the fragility of globalized neoliberal capitalism at large at the same time help to anticipate alternative scenarios: a) another return to the status quo ante crisis, b) selective escape from the prerogatives of austerity capitalism mainly in the areas of immediate concern for public health and c) more comprehensive departures from what then could finally be understood as late austerity capitalism and post-neoliberalism. What is needed is a transition to a mode of economic governance that not only opens up scope to overcome austerity and structural reform policies, but which also offers a functional framework for the indispensable social-ecological transformation of the economy. Such an objective calls for democratic economic governance to overcome the austerity regime and combine environmental and social policy objectives. Given the rapidly shifting terrain, this comprehensive handbook provides important insights into a complex and fast changing period of politics and policy.

This book considers the state of the British welfare regime after COVID-19 and the prospects for progressive change. It considers what has happened to the welfare state as a ‘strategy of equality’ in the past twenty-five years and whether and how this aspiration might be rebuilt in the future. It begins with a detailed assessment of the welfare record under recent Conservative governments (2010-2020) and under New Labour (1997-2010). It then traces an alternative (and forgotten) history of thinking about welfare and social change in and around the Labour Party in the period 1920-1980. Chapter Four considers the big challenges that face the welfare order after COVID-19: ageing, a changing world of work, and climate change. The fifth chapter assesses the impact on welfare and the public finances of the first year of COVID-19. The Conclusion outlines what we would need to do now to build a new ‘strategy of equality’ after the pandemic.

The development of social policy in Europe is explored in this accessible intellectual history and analysis of the welfare state. From the Industrial Revolution onwards, the book identifies three important concepts behind efforts to address social concerns in Europe: social democracy, Christian democracy and liberalism. With guides to the political and ideological protagonists and the beliefs and values that lie behind reforms, it traces the progress and legacies of each of the three traditions. For academics and students across social policy and the political economy, this is an illuminating new perspective on the welfare state through the last two centuries.

The book revisits the stage of formulating policy solutions by investigating the basic political dimensions inherent to this critical phase of the policy process. It focuses attention on how policymakers craft their policy proposals, match them with public problems, debate their feasibility to build coalitions and dispute their acceptability as serious contenders for government consideration. Based on international case studies, this book is an invitation to examine the uncertain and often indeterminate aspects of policymaking using qualitative analysis embedded in a political perspective.

The ongoing social crises and moral conflicts evident in global social policy debates are addressed in this book. The book focuses on the ‘social’ of social policy, which is increasingly conceived in a globalised form, as new international agreements and global goals engender social struggles. It tackles pressing ‘social questions’, many of which have been exacerbated by COVID-19, including growing inequality, changing world population, ageing societies, migration and intersectional disadvantage. The book critically engages with contested conceptions of the social which are increasingly deployed by international institutions and policymakers. Focusing on social sustainability, social cohesion, social justice, social wellbeing and social progress the book is even more crucial as policy makers look to accelerate socially sustainable solutions to the world's biggest challenges.

This volume constitutes the Irish element in the ever-expanding International Library of Policy Analysis series, edited by Michael Howlett and Iris Geva-May and published by Policy Press. It provides unique insights into the state of policy analysis in Ireland. It draws together contributions from some of the leading policy analysis experts, both academics and practitioners, to provide a multidimensional set of perspectives on how policy analysis has developed to its current state, a century after the country gained independence. The chapters examine the range of institutions and actors involved in policy analysis from across the government, the private sector and broader civil society. The intention is not to critique specific policy outcomes or policy developments, rather the chapters focus on the organizational processes, institutions and locations that contribute to the construction and supply of policy ideas as well as methods of policy analysis and evaluation. The chapters examine the policy capabilities of the institutions wherein policy development and evaluation are conducted. Our aim is to ensure that this volume constitutes a window into the research frontier of Irish policy analysis.

This book is an innovative and systematic overview of policy analysis in Colombia and an instructive view of how it might help studies elsewhere. It casts new light on Colombia in a systematic overview of policy analysis for an international audience. Examining the historical development and current status of policy analysis as a field of study and in practice, the book considers public policy analysis in government and the judiciary, and across domains including health, education and the military. Chapters delve into Colombia's notable success in economic regeneration, the management of cultural diversity and the resolution of long-term internal armed conflict. Not just an important summation of policy analysis in Colombia, the book also provides insights and lessons applicable elsewhere.

The book provides fresh perspectives on the link between welfare policy and employment relations. A central argument of the book is that austerity in the work first policies (including Universal Credit) play a key role in attacking both social and employment rights. The book analyses the role and strategies of trade unions and civil society organisations in contesting the reform agenda demonstrating the importance of union organisation and bargaining for welfare policies. The geographies of austerity play a central role in the politics of welfare, with the ‘left behind’ regions, bearing the brunt of public expenditure cuts. In the case studies of Greater Manchester, as England’s flagship Devolution initiative, and the Sheffield Needs a Pay Rise Campaign the book explores the role of trade unions and civil society organising against welfare reform and precarious work. The final two chapters are devoted to exploring alternatives including lessons which can be drawn from Denmark’s, more redistributive welfare and industrial relations system and the importance of challenging the austerity narrative. The author calls for a greater role for economic and welfare democracy involving strengthening employment rights through coordinated collective bargaining and investing in public services and local government as a basis of building a democratic and accountable labour market.

Many of the Nordic countries have designed parental leave policies in ways that can promote participation of fathers in child care. Norway was the first country to introduce a father-specific leave quota in 1993. This quota is non-transferable and generously paid, and Norway has functioned as a sort of laboratory for testing such radical policies. This book is a collection of research publications from three studies conducted at various stages since the introduction of the quota. It looks at its various design characteristics and possible consequences such as take-up, framing of the leave, what fathers do when on leave, how they develop as caregivers and competent parents, how working life relates to male employees with care obligations in terms of parental leave, how fathers adapt their leave to work and how immigrant fathers relate to the laws and expectations directed to fathers in Norway. Although the chapters are based on different qualitative studies, they show changes in employed men’s fathering practices over the years and how the parental leave design may have contributed to this change.