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This book examines local responses to political and economic crises in Germany and the UK. In Germany, the influx of refugees has thrown into question state capacity to cope with crisis and the acceptability of religious diversity. In the UK, policymakers have framed austerity measures as the most appropriate response to economic crisis, instigated initially by the financial crisis in 2007-8. However, in contrast to the far more visible, often rightwing, protests against the political establishment, local social activists have worked across different ethnic and religious groups to address social problems. The initiatives range from food banks to debt advice to helping some of the most vulnerable families and individuals overcome challenging life situations. Some are secular and others faith-based, though often, faith is related to individual motivation and possesses very little influence on the service itself. The emphasis instead is on collaborative activism, where organisations and individuals come to depend upon each other for mobilising resources and overcoming problems, an effort that in turn promotes trust and understanding across the diverse participants. This activism suggests new engagement with citizenship, which refers as much to participation in community-based, inclusive action to improve local quality of life as it does to individual rights. The volume brings together German and British academics to show how in both countries, concepts of individual, community, and citizenship are changing in an era of political and social division and persistent economic inequality.

Most current social welfare policies aim to ameliorate immediate problems or injustices, but they do little to foster human development or support the potential of people within marginalized communities. How can we more effectively use public policy to foster human development? How can we overcome the injustice of contemporary society and give people across the social and class spectrum equal opportunities to flourish? This book offers case studies and analyses of a number of different existing approaches to these questions, presenting newly conceptualised strategies for developing and implementing effective policies for fostering human development at the local, national, and international levels. It examines the discrepancies and obstacles that actual policies present to what a capability approach can do in social policy practice. The goal is to stimulate debate on how to overcome barriers in a variety of existing social policy scenarios.

This book provides descriptions and comparative analyses of the now complex and highly varied arrangements for the care of children, disabled and older people in Europe, set within the context of changing labour markets and welfare systems. It includes analyses of the modernisation of informal care and new forms of informal care, topics often neglected in the literature. Issues of gender, family change, social integration and citizenship are all explored in a series of chapters that report on original empirical, cross-national research. All contributors are high-ranking experts involved in the COST A13 Action Programme, funded by the European Union.

There have been major shifts in the framework of social policy and welfare across Europe. Adopting a multi-level, comparative, and interdisciplinary approach, this book develops a critical analysis of policy change and welfare reform in Europe. It applies a dynamic and change-oriented perspective to shed light on policy changes that are often poorly understood in the welfare literature, and contributes to a further development of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks for understanding social change. Using citizenship as a focus, several dimensions of change are analysed simultaneously: changes in the discipline of social policy itself; the changing character of social problems; changes in social policy and citizenship; and the emergence of new forms of social integration. The book also speculates on how different dimensions of change are interlinked.

This book, the second title in the Rethinking Community Development series, starts from concern about increasing inequality worldwide and the re-emergence of community development in public policy debates. It argues for the centrality of class analysis and its associated divisions of power to any discussion of the potential benefits of community development. It proposes that, without such an analysis, community development can simply mask the underlying causes of structural inequality. It may even exacerbate divisions between groups competing for dwindling public resources in the context of neoliberal globalisation. Reflecting on their own contexts, a wide range of contributors from across the global north and south explore how an understanding of social class can offer ways forward in the face of increasing social polarisation. The book considers class as a dynamic and contested concept and examines its application in policies and practices past and present. These include local/global and rural/urban alliances, community organising, ecology, gender and education.

With the Conservative Party breaking new ground in forming a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, this book examines the development and content of the Conservatives' approaches to social policy and how they inform the Coalition's policies. Chapters cover the development of Conservative Party social policy and specific policy areas.

Which underlying problems pose the greatest threat to British society in the twenty-first century? A hundred years after its philanthropist founder identified poverty, alcohol, drugs and gambling among the social evils of his time, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation initiated a major consultation among leading thinkers, activists and commentators, as well as the wider public. The findings have now been brought together in this fascinating book. Individual chapters range across the political spectrum but the book also reports the results from a web survey and consultation with groups whose voices are less often heard. The results suggest that while some evils — like poverty — endure as undisputed causes of social harm, more recent sources of social misery, such as an alleged rise in selfish consumerism and a perceived decline in personal responsibility and family commitment, attract controversy.

This book explores the experiences of informal home carers in the different welfare systems of the former West Germany and East Germany, and Britain. It is innovative in using a biographical case study approach to compare caring situations and caring strategies in the three different societies. The detail and variety of the case studies show how particular social and welfare patterns give rise to recognisable ‘cultures of care’. The book shows how the social relations of caring are structured within and outside the home environment, offers a research tool to take into account the significance of informal networks, uses separate analysis of ‘lived’ and ‘told’ life stories to highlight personal processes of continuity and change in meeting the challenge of caring, and links individual caring strategies to the structural features of welfare societies. European comparative research creates opportunities for fresh thinking about social policy, showing best practice and piecing together the strengths of each system. The findings of this book underline the significance of caring within social policy agendas and the need to extend and change the parameters of comparative social policy beyond a fixation on social insurance. The book adds to the debates about the need to ‘strengthen the social’ and to build a creative sense of moral agency in welfare systems.

This book examines the welfare of disabled people during the welfare state of the 1940s to the later 1970s. The welfare state seemed to promise universal health and welfare for all, but originally excluded millions of disabled people. With the rediscovery of poverty in the dynamism of the 1960s, it was commonly held that new and sweeping provisions would result in the full inclusion of disabled people in the welfare state and society. This appeared to have been achieved with the creation of extensive cash benefits in 1975, but these were ineffective and appeared just before the rolling back of the state and a renewed focus on the free market and a competitive society under the Thatcher governments. The book is the first to contextualise historically disability in the welfare state and under each government of the period. It adds disability policy to state of knowledge on the Labour and Conservative parties, the media and advocacy,the Trades Unions Congress, and the personal social services. It provides the first major analysis of the Disablement Income Group, one of the most powerful pressure groups in the 1960s, as well as an original analysis of the 1972 Thalidomide crisis using public documents previously unavailable under the thirty-year closure rule for public documents.

Throughout the European Union, rates of unemployment among young people tend to be higher than among the general population and there is a serious risk of marginalisation and exclusion. This book presents the findings of a comparative study of unemployed youth in Europe using a large and original data set. It addresses some of the key questions around the issue, including: How do young people cope with unemployment? Does unemployment lead to social exclusion of young people, implying a withdrawal from society, financial deprivation, and social isolation? Drawing on a research sample of over 17,000 young unemployed people in ten European countries, the book examines how different welfare strategies and fiscal structures in different countries influence the risk of social exclusion among unemployed youth. It also considers different dimensions of social exclusion, such as financial hardship, political participation, social isolation, and mental health among unemployed young people. Gender differences in unemployment and outcome are analysed as a result of gender specific coping strategies and unemployment behaviour. The results illuminate, in particular, the contrast between different welfare regimes in the north and south of Europe.

This important book presents new international comparative research that engages critically with Lefebvre’s spatial theories and challenges recent thinking about the nature of urban space. The book elucidates the production of urban public space and in so doing stimulates a rethinking of Lefebvre’s spatial theories and the essence of public space. The two main research objectives are to tease out the implications of the production of space for post-industrial city transformation and to unravel the role of differential space in such transformation. Empirically the research is grounded in three iconic post-industrial cities: Vancouver, Canada; Lowell, Massachusetts, US; and Manchester, England. Although strongly rooted theoretically, the book locates the conceptual ideas in the practice of urban policy making, urban planning and the politicised everyday use of public space. Extensive original archival research and interview research in the three cities forms the basis for an exploration of how urban public spaces, especially what Lefebvre calls differential space, are socially produced. Spatial coalitions, counter-representations and counter-projects are seen as vital elements in such processes. Differential space is shown to erupt through the vulnerabilities of neo-capitalist abstract space. The book demonstrates the importance of inclusive differential space for everyday democratic life in cities. The book contributes critically to the post-industrial city comparative analysis literature and provides an accessible guide for those who care about cities, public space, city planning and urban policy.

This book addresses the historical development of social and fiscal policies from the late 1970s to the present day by asking what has changed, how these changes have affected the lifecourse and what the potential lifetime impacts of policy change are. This book provides an overview of the development of policy change over the period and uses an innovative and unique lifetime approach ‘from the cradle to the grave’ to put it into perspective. The chapters begin by reviewing the political changes and policy story since the 1970s and they demonstrate the economic and social changes that have occurred alongside. The book then takes an innovative approach in looking at specific programmes about crucial aspects of the lifecycle — from maternity and childhood, through to adult events and risks before finally looking at retirement, survivorship and death. Finally, profiles of three hypothetical ‘families’ — the Meades, who are median earners, the Moores, high earners and the Lowes who are low paid — are developed for 1979, 1997 and 2008 to provide a comprehensive discussion of policy change and make innovative insights for the future. This book joins up the history of policy direction with an analysis of outcomes over the whole period.

Housing allowances have become increasingly important policy instruments in the advanced welfare states. Operating at the interface between housing and social security policy, they provide means-tested assistance with housing costs for low income households. In the present era of fiscal austerity, such schemes are seen by many governments as a more efficient way to help tenants with rent controls or ‘bricks and mortar’ subsidies to landlords. Yet as the contributions to this collection show, housing allowances are not without problems of their own, especially in relation to housing consumption and work incentives. This book examines income-related housing allowance schemes in advanced welfare states, as well as in transition economies of central and eastern Europe. Drawing on experiences in ten countries, including Britain, Sweden, Germany, Australia, and the USA, it presents new evidence on the origins and design of housing allowances, their role within housing and social security policy, their impact on affordability, current policy debates and recent reforms.

Drawing on recent historical research, the book reconsiders and challenges many long-held beliefs about the ‘evolution’ of social policy; presents a wide-ranging reappraisal of links between social theories and changes in social policy; pays particular attention to the importance of idealist social thought as an intellectual framework for understanding the ‘welfare state’ and has a distinctive focus on the importance of ideas in the history of social policy. Different ideas about the means and aims of social policy suggested by individualists, idealists and Fabian Socialists are examined in depth and their impacts on the world of social policy reassessed. Special consideration is given to the history of ideas in relation to informal care and voluntary action, as well as action by the state. This book provides a valuable framework that exposes many of the assumptions about the nature of ‘welfare’ and its future direction.

Western politicians consider leadership to be essential for the delivery of educational reform. Everyone in a school — including children — need to identify as a leader, have the word ‘leader’ in their job title and role description, and be enthusiastic about this shift in their identity. This book examines how leaders, leading and leadership became the dominant theme in education. The book asks questions about knowledge production and school leadership: what types of knowledge are used; which ways of knowing are preferred; and who are regarded as the trusted knowers? These questions uncover the assumed hierarchy of knowledge and demonstrate how successive governments have favoured functional types of knowledge, ways of knowing that aim to measure impact and knowers from particular research networks.

Social policy is now central to political debate in Britain. What has been achieved by efforts to improve services and reduce poverty? What is needed to deliver more effective and popular services to all and increase social justice? How can we make social policy work? These are some of the questions discussed in this book. The book covers key issues in contemporary social policy, particularly concentrating on recent changes. It examines the history and goals of social policy as well as its delivery, focusing in turn on the family and the state, schools, higher education, healthcare, social care, communities and housing. Redistribution is also examined, exploring child poverty, pension reform and resources for welfare. The chapters in this collection have been specially written to honour the 70th birthday of Howard Glennerster whose pioneering work has been concerned not only with the theoretical, historical and political foundations of social policies but, crucially, with how they work in practice. It is a collection of primary importance for those working in and interested in policy and politics in a wide variety of fields and for students of social policy, public policy, and the public sector.

Tony Blair was the longest serving Labour Prime Minister in British history. This book, the third in a trilogy of books on New Labour, analyses the legacy of his government for social policy, focusing on the extent to which it has changed the UK welfare state. Drawing on both conceptual and empirical evidence, it offers forward-looking speculation on emerging and future welfare issues. The book's contributors examine the content and extent of change. They explore which of the elements of modernization matter for their area, which sectors saw the greatest degree of change, and whether terms such as ‘modern welfare state’ or ‘social investment state’ have any resonance. The contributors also examine change over time with reference to the terms of the government. Was reform a fairly continuous event, or was it concentrated in certain periods? Finally, the contributors give an assessment of likely policy direction under a future Labour or Conservative government.

The idea of policy is ripe for critical reappraisal. Whilst the context for policy making changes constantly, multiple questions endure, such as how policy is conceived and why; what is taken for granted and what gets problematised; and how policy should be informed, analysed, and understood. This book identifies key topics within the policy arena and subjects them to theoretical and practical analysis. It explores the meaning and framing of policy, and examines its practice from the micro- to the supra-national levels, using illustrative case studies to demonstrate how policy is contested, shaped, and accounted for. Given the significance of policy as a means to organise and direct social, economic, and political life, this book presents the case for a critical restatement of its origins, development, and form — without which we risk being caught up in a cycle of change without understanding why or how. The book presents a productive encounter between the three themes of meanings, politics, and practices, themes normally not brought together in a single text. It emphasizes the multiplicity of perspectives that can be directed towards understanding the policy world, opening up new ground as well as visiting anew some familiar terrain.

This book analyzes the changing shape of Irish society over the hundred years since the 1916 rising, arguing that there are distinctive master patterns that characterize its development of a welfare state that triangulates among church, state, and capital. The book charts the influence of social movements that resisted oppressive power structures, including the labour and feminist movements, organizations working for the rights of tenants and the homeless, survivors of institutional abuse, groups of asylum seekers and refugees, and activists for gay rights and minority and ethnic cultural rights. The tension between these groups and the more conservative institutions that have dominated Ireland raises major questions about whether an inclusive welfare state is possible in a quasi-religious society.

This original edited collection explores the value of public engagement in a wider social science context. Its main themes range from the dialogic character of social science to the pragmatic responses to the managerial policies underpinning the restructuring of Higher Education. The book is organised in three parts: the first encourages the reader to reflect upon the different social and political inflections of public engagement and offers one university example of a social science café in Bristol. The following sections are based upon talks given in the café and are linked by a concern with public engagement and the contribution of social science to a reflexive understanding of the dilemmas and practices of daily life. This highly topical book will be of interest to academics, practitioners and students interested in critical social issues as they impact on their everyday lives.