This edited volume offers comparative, historical, and political surveys of the international development of social policy concepts and language and the changing boundaries they entails. The volume features comparative and transnational perspectives on social policy language and key social policy concepts in the OECD (Economic Co-operation and Development). What characterizes social policy language in the individual countries and regions? How does social policy language and concepts travel between countries and what role have international organizations played in that respect? Which are the do ... More

This edited volume offers comparative, historical, and political surveys of the international development of social policy concepts and language and the changing boundaries they entails. The volume features comparative and transnational perspectives on social policy language and key social policy concepts in the OECD (Economic Co-operation and Development). What characterizes social policy language in the individual countries and regions? How does social policy language and concepts travel between countries and what role have international organizations played in that respect? Which are the dominant social policy concepts and how are they contested? How did they become dominant and how does it relate to the institutional legacies of different types of welfare regime? The individual chapters, written by a cross-disciplinary group of leading social policy researchers address these questions and trace the development of concepts such as ‘welfare state’ and ‘social security’. Theoretically, the volume draws on a number of perspectives, including conceptual history and the literature on role of ideas and discourse in public policy.