The Global Social Policy (GSP) Digest was produced under the editorship of Alexandra Kaasch with support from Bielefeld University and the University of Saskatchewan. It has been compiled by John ...Berten, Fabian Besche, Anatoly Boyashov, Timo Brunotte, Sara Cufre, Martin Fritz, Alexandra Kaasch, Branka Marijan, and Robin Schulze Waltrup. All the websites references were accessible in June 2019. This edition of the Digest covers the period from February 2019 to June 2019.
On 1 October 2017, after a long and hard fight against cancer, Bob Deacon, emeritus professor of the University of Sheffield and honorary professor of global social policy (GSP) at the University of ...York, passed away, aged 73. When I saw him for the last time, he was already somewhat ‘between the worlds’. There was a pile of MA theses still to be marked; we discussed my job issues, research, the GSP journal and politics. Bob insisted to go for a walk – we managed about 10 metres. Just a meeting like so many others, but so different as his body had clearly reached its limits and no longer allowed him access to his desired energy and enthusiasm. We are left with a rich account of writings, ideas, and memories of a great colleague and friend whom we miss a lot! However, Bob’s contributions to GSP and the many connections he made between disciplines and different worlds of scholarship and activism will continue to guide GSP research in many ways. This double special issue has been compiled and written in Bob’s honour and memory. It intends to provide a state of the art of GSP research, and a selection of contributions following his approaches by a number of Bob’s closest colleagues. Instead of a topical Forum, it combines shorter pieces of acknowledging Bob’s work in different contexts, with six full articles that go deeper into theories and research inspired by Bob’s concepts and approaches. The variety and diversity of contributions show what Bob represented in academia as well as his work and impact within international organisations.
This Forum revisits an enduring debate in social policy - between universalism and targeting; and specifically, whether (on what criteria) and, if so how, to target various forms of social assistance ...or protection. The motivation for revisiting this discussion is the World Bank's (WB) recently published report 'Revisiting Targeting in Social Assistance: A New Look at Old Dilemmas'. We start this Forum by situating this debate between universalism and targeting within the history of social policy that helps us trace the roots of the arguments and highlight its significance for the current post-Covid-19 context as well as for the future of social policy. We consider some key themes and discuss the implications of this debate from the perspective of global social policy.
PDF
