The conventional wisdom has it that a balanced budget is the height of economic rationality, that social security should be privatized, and that most adult welfare recipients could and should get jobs. All our social and economic problems, we are told, are due to too much government; if we only left the American free enterprise system alone, the free market would heal all that ails our society and lead to lasting prosperity. Challenging these widespread stereotypes and myths, this book starts with the fundamental theory underlying capitalist ideology, showing that even in theory an unfettered free market cannot deal effectively with the many needs of a modern economy. Our society has many social goals to which the great majority subscribe-goals such as sustained full employment, universal health care, and quality education for all. The free market will not, the author argues, bring us quality education for every American child, affordable universal health care, Social Security for the elderly, assistance for the poor, or protection of the environment. Only an active, participant government can affect positive change in such areas of social concern.

Neoliberal calls for welfare state reforms, especially cuts to public pensions, are a contentious issue for employees, employers, and national governments across the western world. But what are the underlying factors that have shaped the response to these pressures in Canada and Australia? In Beyond the Welfare State, Sirvan Karimi utilizes a synthesis of Marxian class analysis and the power resources model to provide an analytical foundation for the divergent pattern of public pension systems in Canada and Australia. Karimi reveals that the postwar social contract in Australia was market-based and more conducive to the privatization of retirement income. In Canada, the social contract emphasized income redistribution that resulted in strengthening the link between the state and the citizen. By shedding light on the impact of national settings on public pension systems, Beyond the Welfare State introduces new conceptual tools to aid our understanding of the welfare state at a time when it is increasingly under threat.

Don't Drink the Water is not a book trying to promote any existing religious, spiritual or national agenda. It does not attempt to blame anyone for the current state of human affairs. It is the story of how the author combined his personal experience with the thoughts of many of our more renown philosophers, states-men, scientists and long term thinkers from around the world to conclude that the goal of a secure and sustainable world for all humans is not an unattainable "Utopia." Don't Drink the Water makes a compelling case - Living in a time when we have secure and stable relations with each other and our environment is simply the logical outcome of the ongoing evolution of human intelligence.

Gring-Pemble asserts that the role of language in shaping policy options is rarely studied and poorly understood. She seeks to analyze congressional hearings and debates on welfare to understand the role of language in framing welfare policy and contemporary welfare discussions. She reviews welfare history in the United States and provides a rhetorical analysis of welfare deliberations. In the process she illustrates the significance of language and ideology in shaping American social policy outcomes.

aA lively, smart, combative collection, brimful of ideas and insights, this book takes on athe war on crimea and shows how America might move beyond it.a
--David Garland, author of "The Culture of Control"

aThis brave book challenges us, urgently, to rethink crime and punishment for the 21st century. It is not by accident that the US became the worldas largest incarcerator in just thirty-five years. After the War on Crime exposes how structural inequalities based on race and class and written into our laws, institutions and everyday practices have blackened our jails and prisons and reproduced segregated communities inside and out.a
--Susan Tucker, Director, The After Prison Initiative, Open Society Institute

Since the 1970s, Americans have witnessed a Pyrrhic war on crime, with sobering numbers at once chilling and cautionary. Our imprisoned population has increased five-fold, with a commensurate spike in fiscal costs that many now see as unsupportable into the future. As American society confronts a multitude of new challenges ranging from terrorism to the disappearance of middle-class jobs to global warming, the war on crime may be up for reconsideration for the first time in a generation or more. Relatively low crime rates indicate that the public mood may be swinging towards declaring victory and moving on.

However, to declare that the war is over is dangerous and inaccurate, and After the War on Crime reveals that the impact of this war reaches far beyond statistics; simply moving on is impossible. The war has been most devastating to those affected by increased rates and longer terms of incarceration, but its reach has also reshaped a sweeping range of socialinstitutions, including law enforcement, politics, schooling, healthcare, and social welfare. The war has also profoundly altered conceptions of race and community.

It is time to consider the tasks reconstruction must tackle. To do so requires first a critical assessment of how this war has remade our society, and then creative thinking about how government, foundations, communities, and activists should respond. After the War on Crime accelerates this reassessment with original essays by a diverse, interdisciplinary group of scholars as well as policy professionals and community activists. The volumeas immediate goal is to spark a fresh conversation about the war on crime and its consequences; its long-term aspiration is to develop a clear understanding of how we got here and of where we should go.

The voices of orphans and other vulnerable children and young people and of their carers and professional development workers are documented and analysed to both criticise the inadequacies of current social development work and to create a new, alternative theory and practice of project management in Zimbabwe and southern Africa. This is the first extensive and intensive empirical study of Zimbabwean orphans and other vulnerable children and young people. Chronically poor children and their carers can be corrupted or silenced by management systems which fail to recognise their basic human needs. Resilience in the face of such adversity is celebrated by the dominant project management ideology and practice but is a major barrier to achieve genuine sustainable improvements in the lives of vulnerable children. We propose a new person-centred project management approach aimed at delivering comprehensive services for orphans, which explicitly recognises the needs of orphans and other poor children to be fully socially, politically and economically included within their communities and which avoids the reinforcement of power based inequalities and their unacceptable consequences. The moral bankruptcy of much social development work in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Southern Africa is described and we delineate an alternative project management policy and practice.

How do outside factors affect public administrators' decisions to make changes in their organizations? How do they manage those changes? "The Management of Change" answers these questions theoretically and empirically. In addition to providing a conceptual framework for public sector managers and administrative consultants, this unique book also presents real-life case studies, following actual administrators over a 20-year period and examining their decisions.

In this distinctive introduction Stephen Sinclair illuminates the subject of Social Policy by showing readers how Social Policy analysts think about welfare issues and policies. From what influences the decision to have children to how everyday terms such as 'youth crime' or 'poverty' reveal the structural processes shaping society, the book illustrates the insights which Social Policy analysis offers to understanding the social world and its problems. Written by an academic with extensive experience of teaching Social Policy analysis to new audiences, the book provides a stimulating introduction to the study of the factors and polices shaping wellbeing. Each chapter includes boxed summaries, applied examples illustrating key issues, and bullet points clarifying key concepts and theories.

"An excellent, well-written study. . . . Unique in its sociological focus and its emphasis on young widows." Choice "[In] this intelligent and emotionally gripping book, [the author] peels away both the cultural-symbolic layer of heroism in war and the psychological layer of individual grief. She presents a sensitive sociological analysis." Contemporary Sociology

Particularly in the 1990s, social welfare programs have been cut back in a number of countries. Indeed, the phrases "ending welfare as we know it" or "dismantling the welfare state" have been used to describe this trend. In this analysis by well-recognized social welfare scholars, the nature and extent of changes in social welfare programs in key industrial or post-industrial countries is scrutinized. Determining if and how social welfare and employment prospects have been cut back in the United States, Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Japan helps to identify the population groups hardest hit by cutback. In the United States, for example, poor, single-mother families have suffered major reductions in income support, while more powerful groups have avoided major losses. This cross-national study not only sheds light on general trends in social welfare but also provides clues to what constitutes successful reform and what has failed. This major comparative analysis will be of interest to scholars, students, policy makers, and professionals as well as the general public concerned with social welfare issues, full employment, poverty, and economic inequality.

Kloos and Zein's excellent bibliography provides a thorough guide to an amazing amount of information. . . . With 4,614 entries, it is more than twice the size of the earlier version. Its scope includes infectious and noninfectious diseases, physical trauma, mental health, health services, maternal and child health, nutrition, and famine, including resettlement and refugees. The works are well selected, including both standard publications and less well known Ethiopian and Italian works. The broad scope makes the work useful for medical workers as well as those engaged in social or cultural research. Choice This bibliography provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive listing of published and unpublished works on health and disease in Ethiopia for the period 1940-1990. It brings together in one volume more than 4,000 citations for writings in all areas of health and disease, many of which have not been previously cited in the English-language literature on the subject. The volume's ten chapters are divided into subsections that classify major disease groups and health problems. The bibliographic entries are organized alphabetically within each chapter. Further subdivisions of the topics, including diseases and specific problems, are provided in the subject index. About half of the references deal with infectious diseases, and approximately 700 with malnutrition, nutritional deficiency diseases, famine, and supplementary feeding. An effort was made to include as many references as possible on mother and child health, health services, and traditional medicine, all extremely important, but relatively neglected subjects. While the great majority of the references cited are on Western-style medicine, many works on traditional medicine, socioeconomic problems, and famine are also included. The complexity and immensity of health problems in developing countries demand that they be understood by health officials and researchers if significant and sustained improvements in the health status of the population is to be achieved. By presenting the great bulk of the biomedical, famine, and health-related socio-economic literature, this bibliography contributes to a better understanding of both broadly based and specific health problems in one of the world's least developed countries. It will be valuable as an interdisciplinary research tool for students, senior researchers, health officials, and relief aid organizations.

The result of an intensive two-year research study, this volume examines the likely course of the AIDS epidemic over the next fifteen years. Extremely well-documented and based largely on sophisticated statistical analysis, the study makes detailed forecasts of who will become sick; explores the social, political, and economic consequences of the spread of the disease; and analyzes the controversial policy choices that must be made if the epidemic is to be contained. The authors argue that current policies have failed in their efforts to combat the spread of AIDS and suggest new public policy measures aimed at dramatically reducing the spread of the virus. AIDS researchers, health care practitioners, and policymakers will find The Catastrophe Ahead both an invaluable source of detailed statistical information about the AIDS epidemic and an urgent call to action.

Based on the study results, the authors conclude that by 2002, a million and a half people may die of AIDS and more than 4 million others may be infected with the disease. They explore various scenarios--worst, best, and middle cases--demonstrating that blacks face by far the greatest risks: under the most likely scenario some 15 percent of all blacks between the ages of 15 and 50 will carry the virus by 2002. The authors propose a universal routine voluntary testing program to avert this catastrophe, enabling people to sexually self-segregate themselves based on whether or not they carry the HIV virus. While the authors concede that this program cannot completely stem the tide of infection, they argue that it offers one of the best defenses available against the epidemic. Well written and illustrated with numerous tables and figures, this volume should be required reading for anyone involved in AIDS counseling and policymaking.

"The mind and heart of America, in this tremendous hour, require an inspiration which cannot come out of the party caucus and the editorial room of the daily newspaper." So writes Russell Kirk in Prospects for Conservatives. Sixty years hence the hour is late, the situation even more dire. Our governing elites, in all areas of social, political, and cultural life, have snapped the central axis of humanity and trampled upon the principles of natural, social, and transcendent order. But such are not ever lost, and it is these that Russell Kirk offers to us in this work--perhaps his best, in terms of style as well as intellectual depth and creativity, as Bradley Birzer notes in his introduction to this new edition.

As Dr. Birzer goes on to indicate, the book's importance lies less in the specific issues it addresses than in its discussion of eternal truths. In Prospects, the author engages problems of the intellect, community, justice, order, loyalty, tradition, and power; and associates each of these either with the seven classical and Christian virtues or with the seven deadly sins. Yes, the hour is late, but transcendent order can never be entirely extinguished, and its re-articulation in Prospects for Conservatives--bringing it into clear view so that it can affect everyday living--is an unexpected grace from the pen of Russell Kirk, given to all whose intellects and imaginations have not yet lost their bearings. In an age when it is all too easily led off course, Dr. Kirk offers American conservatism a sure way forward, and reason for hope in perilous times.

This book provides a holistic study of the physical and mental health conditions that predominate among people of color. By presenting a thorough review of Third World cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors centering on health care, Henderson lays a firm foundation for understanding traditional non-Western cultures. Since immigrants, women, and people of color will be 85% of the net growth in the work force by the year 2000, human services professionals who assist people of color in state, county, and municipal agencies, nonprofit organizations, hospitals, and nursing homes will be challenged to provide assistance to an increasing number of culturally diverse clients.

This book brings together essays on modernity, social integration, social differentiation and social exclusion by Lockwood, Mouzelis and other eminent social theorists. At the same time it addresses critical issues facing Western democracies, such as social exclusion, the underclass, unemployment, new inequalities, globalization and the new competitive environment. Its novelty lies in the imaginative way it uses social theory to critique old, and suggest new, policies and political practices.

This book explores the development of state welfare in Taiwan, focusing on the interconnection between capitalist development and state welfare from 1895 to 1990, using an integrated Marxist perspective to which the capitalist world system, state structure, ideology, and social structure are considered simultaneously. It argues that neither citizenship nor welfare needs were the concern of Taiwanese social policies. A decline in legitimacy and risen social movements forced the state to expand welfare, namely the National Health Insurance, in the 1980s.

Examining the issues of treatment, organizational planning, and research, this multidimensional study offers a critique of both the theoretical and programmatic aspects of providing mental health services to traditionally underserved populations. Focusing on minority groups, the book uses the case of Hispanics to illustrate the largely unaddressed need for services that are relevant to social groups with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Vega and Murphy maintain that the present service system is socially insensitive, that mental health services in the United States were never designed to serve a multicultural population, and that, in general, those who dominate the current mental health system from administrator-clinicians to bureaucrats and politicians do not know how to direct their services to minority groups. Calling for fundamental reconceptualization and change, the book argues for community-based planning and intervention as an enlightened and necessary alternative, and provides a detailed description of such a program in terms of both philosophy and method. The eight chapters offer a reassessment based on understanding not only the rationale for these necessary services, but also the important philosophical and pragmatic issues that have resulted in the current, inadequate system; they provide the new thinking necessary to reframe the objectives of mental health services for cultural minorities. The early chapters explore some of the critical junctures in the community mental health movement between 1946 and 1981, the development of theory in the movement's early days, and the thrust of community-based intervention--the culture-specific methodology that has not been well-understood or implemented. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the relationship between medicalization and the degradation of culture and on the reconceptualization of knowledge, order, illness, and intervention. The last three chapters analyze an example of community-based intervention in operation, and citizen involvement and the political aspects of community-based policies are reviewed. This timely discussion of the requirements for a socially responsible and community-based services delivery program lays the theoretical foundation for a future public mental health system. As such, it will prove invaluable and important reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the health and human services areas, including social work, clinical psychology, and medical sociology; it also has much to offer professional administrators and planners. Culture and the Restructuring of Community Mental Health has been designed to meet the needs of both academics and practitioners.

With the election of a community organizer as president of the United States, the time is right to evaluate the current state of community organizing and the effectiveness of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Since 2002, ACORN has been dramatically expanding and raising its national profile; it has also been weathering controversy over its voter registration campaigns and an internal financial scandal.

The twelve chapters in this volume present the perspectives of insiders like founder Wade Rathke and leading outside practitioners and academics. The result is a thorough detailing of ACORN's founding and its changing strategies, including vivid accounts and analyses of its campaigns on the living wage, voter turnout, predatory lending, redlining, school reform, and community redevelopment, as well as a critical perspective on ACORN's place in the community organizing landscape.

"One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades."-John Gray, New York Times Book Review "A powerful, and in many insightful, explanation as to why grandiose programs of social reform, not to mention revolution, so often end in tragedy. . . . An important critique of visionary state planning."-Robert Heilbroner, Lingua Franca Hailed as "a magisterial critique of top-down social planning" by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail-sometimes catastrophically-in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. "Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit."-New Yorker "A tour de force."- Charles Tilly, Columbia University The Institution for Social and Policy Studies

This book investigates how mental health in South Africa is conceptualised and constructed in public policy. Critiquing embedded assumptions within existing policy documentation, the book advocates for policy solutions centred on poverty alleviation and economic development.

Mental health in South Africa has historically been neglected within the health-care system, a stark reality underscored by the Life Esidimeni tragedy, which exposed widespread mismanagement, negligence, and insufficient resources in mental health-care services. While South Africa has enacted progressive mental health policies, their effective implementation remains hindered by systemic challenges. This book investigates the dominant problems represented in mental health policies, including the segregation of mental health from general health services, inadequate intersectoral collaboration in mental health care, community disconnection from mental health services, the association between poverty and mental health issues, and infringements upon the rights of individuals with mental health problems. Overall, the book underscores mental health as a socio-economic issue, requiring new policy solutions.

This book will be an essential read for mental health professionals and policy makers in South Africa, as well as for researchers working on the good governance of mental health, both within the country and at global and multilateral levels.