A policy travelogue Kingfisher, Catherine Pélissier
2013., 20130915, 2013, 2013-11-05
eBook, Book
An ethnography of the development and travel of the New Zealand model of neoliberal welfare reform, this study explores the social life of policy, which is one of process, motion, and change. ...Different actors, including not only policy elites but also providers and recipients, engage with it in light of their own resources and knowledge. Drawing on two analytic frameworks of the contemporary anthropology of policy-translation and assemblage-Kingfisher situates policy as an artifact and architect of cultural meaning, as well as a site of power struggles. All points of engagement with policy are approached as sites of policy production that serve to transform it as well as reproduce it. As such,
A Policy Travelogueprovides an antidote to theorizations of policy as a-cultural, rational, and straightforwardly technical.
This book, a sequel to Inequality and Public Policy in China (2008), examines the evolution of inequality in China from 2002 to 2007, a period when the new 'harmonious society' development strategy ...was adopted under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. It fills a gap in knowledge about the outcomes of this development strategy for equity and inequality. Drawing on original information collected from the recent two waves of nationwide household surveys conducted by the China Household Income Project, this book provides a detailed overview of recent trends in income inequality and cutting-edge analysis of key factors underlying such trends. Topics covered include inequality in education, changes in homeownership and the distribution of housing wealth, the evolution of the migrant labor market, disparities between public and non-public sectors, patterns of work and non-work, gender, ethnicity, and the impacts of public policies such as reforms in taxation and social welfare programs.
Universal social policies have the power to reduce inequality and create more cohesive societies. How can countries in the South deliver universalism? This book answers this question through a ...comparative analysis of Costa Rica, Mauritius, South Korea, and Uruguay, and a detailed historical account of Costa Rica's successful trajectory. Against the backdrop of democracy and progressive parties, the authors place at center stage the policy architectures defined as the combination of instruments that dictate the benefits available to people. The volume also explores the role of state actors in building pro-universal architectures. This book will interest advanced students and scholars of human development and public and social policies, as well as policymakers eager to promote universal policies across the South.
This book investigates why people are willing to support an institutional arrangement that realises large-scale redistribution of wealth between social groups of society. Steffen Mau introduces the ...concept of 'the moral economy' to show that acceptance of welfare exchanges rests on moral assumptions and ideas of social justice people adhere to. Analysing both the institution of welfare and the public attitudes towards such schemes, the book demonstrates that people are neither selfish nor altruistic; rather they tend to reason reciprocally.
Why do some societies fare well, and others poorly, at reducing the risk of early death? Wealth, Health, and Democracy in East Asia and Latin America finds that the public provision of basic health ...care and other inexpensive social services has reduced mortality rapidly even in tough economic circumstances, and that political democracy has contributed to the provision and utilization of such social services, in a wider range of ways than is sometimes recognized. These conclusions are based on case studies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, as well as on cross-national comparisons involving these cases and others.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. In the latest edition of Social Policy Review, experts review the leading social policy scholarship from the past year. The book ...addresses current issues and critical debates within the field, with a particular focus on intergenerational research. Published in association with the Social Policy Association, this comprehensive volume will be essential reading for students and academics in social policy, social welfare and related disciplines.
During the past forty years, thousands of studies have been carried out on the subject of happiness. Some have explored the levels of happiness or dissatisfaction associated with typical daily ...activities, such as working, seeing friends, or doing household chores. Others have tried to determine the extent to which income, family, religion, and other factors are associated with the satisfaction people feel about their lives. The Gallup organization has begun conducting global surveys of happiness, and several countries are considering publishing periodic reports on the growth or decline of happiness among their people. One nation, tiny Bhutan, has actually made "Gross National Happiness" the central aim of its domestic policy. How might happiness research affect government policy in the United States--and beyond? In The Politics of Happiness, former Harvard president Derek Bok examines how governments could use the rapidly growing research data on what makes people happy--in a variety of policy areas to increase well-being and improve the quality of life for all their citizens.
The NHS, education, social care, local government, employment services, social housing and benefits for the poor face major challenges from a government determined to entrench a radical and divisive ...liberalism permanently in British public life. This book analyses the immediate challenges from headlong cuts that bear most heavily on women, families and the poor, and from a root-and-branch restructuring which will fragment and privatize the bulk of public services. It sets this in the context of escalating inequalities and the longer-term pressures from population ageing. It demonstrates that a more humane and generous welfare state that will build inclusiveness is possible by combining policies that limit child poverty, promote more equal outcomes from health care and education, introduce a greater contributory element into social benefits, invest in better child and elder care and address low wages and workplace rights. It analyses the political forces that can be marshalled to support these shifts and shows that, with political leadership, the welfare state can attract mass support. (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku).
Written by a team of internationally respected experts, this book explores the conditions under which social policy, defined as the public pursuit of secure welfare, operates in the poorer regions of ...the world. Social policy in advanced capitalist countries operates through state intervention to compensate for the inadequate welfare outcomes of the labour market. Such welfare regimes cannot easily be reproduced in poorer regions of the world where states suffer problems of governance and labour markets are imperfect and partial. Other welfare regimes therefore prevail involving non-state actors such as landlords, moneylenders and patrons. This book seeks to develop a conceptual framework for understanding different types of welfare regime in a range of countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa and makes an important contribution to the literature by breaking away from the traditional focus on Europe and North America.
Published ten years after the first edition, this new Handbook offers topical and comprehensive information on the welfare systems of all 28 EU member states and their recent reforms, giving the ...reader an invaluable introduction and basis for comparative welfare research. Additional chapters provide detailed information on EU social policy, as well as comparative analyses of European welfare systems and their reform pathways. For this second edition, all chapters have been updated and substantially revised, and Croatia additionally included.
The second edition of this Handbook is most timely, given the often-fundamental welfare state transformations against the background of the financial and economic crises, transforming social policy ideas, as well as political shifts in a number of European countries. The book sets out to analyse these new developments when it comes to social policy. In the first part, all country chapters provide systematic and comparable information on the foundations of the different national welfare systems and their characteristics. In the second part, using a joint conceptual foundation, they focus on policy changes (especially of the last two decades) in different social policy areas, including old-age, labour market, family, healthcare, and social assistance policies.
As the comparative chapters conclude, European welfare system landscapes have been in constant motion in the last two decades. While austerity is not to be seen on the aggregate level, the in-depth country studies show that all policy sectors have been characterised by different reform directions and ideas. The findings not only reveal both change and continuity, but also policy reversal as a distinct type that characterises social policy reform. The book provides a rich resource to the international welfare state research community, and is also useful for social policy teaching.
