This book takes up the problems of social policy, state intervention and support in the hard times of austerity introduced by the Coalition government 2010-15, and continued under the Conservative government today. At a time when the economy is growing and pay levels finally rising, the necessity for more cuts in public expenditure is fiercely contested. The scope of state services, the levels of support for people in need, and the kinds of organizations that will deliver the services, will all be profoundly affected in coming years. The authors and editors assess some of these consequences visible now in the impact that expenditure cuts and reorganization have had on many areas of social policy, and explore the direction of change in the near future. Austerity Policies evaluates a wide range of changing form of state services and the transformations involving both the recipients and those delivering the services. It considers the past, present and future of austerity as a policy, and the problems affecting particular groups such as offenders, looked after children, and professionals such as social care workers and those engaged with domestic violence. The collection will be of interest to students and scholars of social policy, criminology, sociology, politics and media studies.

Citizenship, Work and Welfare analyses changing definitions of citizenship, particularly in relation to work, in 19th and 20th-century Britain. It traces the debates about the responsibilities of government and the entitlements and obligations of individuals that developed in response to the social and economic problems of industrialization. It shows how conceptions of the rights of citizenship have moved beyond basic necessities to the idea of 'inclusion' - the ability to take part in normal social activities. The book closes with a discussion of the difficulties of honouring citizenship entitlements at the end of the 20th century in a society with rising expectations, persistent unemployment and an ageing population.

Leo Strauss's connection with Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt suggests a troubling proximity to National Socialism but a serious critique of Strauss must begin with F. H. Jacobi. While writing his dissertation on this apparently Christian opponent of the Enlightenment, Strauss discovered the tactical principles that would characterize his lifework: writing between the lines, a faith-based critique of rationalism, the deliberate secularization of religious language for irreligious purposes, and an "all or nothing" antagonism to middling solutions. Especially the latter is distinctive of his Zionist writings in the 1920s where Strauss engaged in an ongoing polemic against Cultural Zionism, attacking it first from an orthodox, and then from an atheist's perspective. In his last Zionist article (1929), Strauss mentions "the Machiavellian Zionism of a Nordau that would not fear to use the traditional hope for a Messiah as dynamite." By the time of his "change of orientation," National Socialism was being led by a nihilistic "Messiah" while Strauss had already radicalized Schmitt's "political theology" and Heidegger's deconstruction of the ontological Tradition. Central to Strauss's advance beyond the smartest Nazis is his "Second Cave" in which he claimed modern thought is imprisoned: only by escaping Revelation can we recover "natural ignorance." By using pseudo-Platonic imagery to illustrate what anti-Semites called "Jewification," Strauss attempted to annihilate the common ground, celebrated by Hermann Cohen, between Judaism and Platonism. Unlike those who attacked Plato for devaluing nature at the expense of the transcendent Idea, the emigre Strauss effectively employed a new "Plato" who was no more a Platonist than Nietzsche or Heidegger had been. Central to Strauss's "Platonic political philosophy" is the mysterious protagonist of Plato's Laws whom Strauss accurately recognized as the kind of Socrates whose fear of death would have caused him to flee the hemlock. Any reader who recognizes the unbridgeable gap between the real Socrates and Plato s Athenian Stranger will understand why the German Stranger is the principal theoretician of an atheistic re-enactment of religion, of which genus National Socialism is an ultra-modern species.

This book draws attention to two neglected areas in the growing body of research on welfare in China: subnational variation and the changing mix of state and non-state provision. The contributors to this volume demonstrate the diversity of local welfare provision that lies behind broad national policies and programmes. Their focus on local diversity is particularly relevant to understanding the welfare system in China because national state programmes are so often organized by local governments in line with the specifics of their economic and social development. At the same time that social and economic development is itself independently creating an array of different conditions that shape non-state (family, business and third sector) welfare roles . Through chapters that draw on original research in eight provinces, the book adopts a 'local' perspective to illustrate and explain some of the transformations that are under way and discuss not only local government initiatives and programmes, but also the services and support provided by families, informal social networks and community or third sector organizations, as well as those delivered by private businesses on a commercial, for-profit basis. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese society, social policy, and Chinese studies more widely. Beatriz Carrillo is Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Jane Duckett is Professor of Chinese and Comparative Politics at the University of Glasgow, UK

to establish impact, attributing observed changes in welfare to the intervention, while identifying key factors of success. Impact evaluations are aimed at providing feedback to help improve the design of programs and policies. They also provide greater accountability and a tool for dynamic learning, allowing policymakers to improve ongoing programs and ultimately better allocate funds across programs. Such a causal analysis is essential for understanding the relative role of alternative interventions in reducing poverty. The papers in this section again adopt a variety of techniques. The rst two impact evaluation studies employ propensity score matching to establish, ex-post, a valid control group to assess the impact on child schooling outcomes among b- e ciaries of various interventions in Kenya and Ethiopia. The third chapter c- ries out an ex-ante evaluation of alternative cash transfer programs on child school attendance in Uruguay. The nal paper further carries out in-depth macro-modeling and micro-regression analysis to simulate the impacts of the food crisis and various policy responses, including food subsidies and cash transfers, on various dimensions of child poverty in Mali. Though using different approaches, the studies are gen- ally in agreement concerning the positive impact of the cash transfer program on child schooling and labor market outcomes. The studies from Kenya and Uruguay both nd that the schooling interventions are progressive.

Central and Eastern European countries are facing the transition from central to market systems with different strategies and capacities. As the task of societal transformation is without precedent in world history, the massive economic restructuring has revealed the need for distributive justice and general well-being. As the editors and contributors to this volume point out, the monolithic preoccupation with economic restructuring in a market economics framework is implemented at the expense of social protection and security. In contrast to traditional views of privatization as only an economic or managerial phenomenon, this collection approaches privatization as a broader integrated process of societal transformation. Privatization as defined here consists of integrated processes of societal restructuring that affect sociopolitical, economic, and ideological constructs as well as human and physical capital development, transformation of family structures, market stabilization, and organization of social care. Public policymakers as well as scholars and researchers of contemporary Eastern Europe will find this collection of great interest, and an important challenge to the economic models of privatization which undervalue social costs.

"compels us to take a careful look at what is going on in internet communications...and points sociological inquiry in the right direction." - Dr. Peter Messeri, Columbia University Online support groups have become a familiar feature of the Internet's landscape. The ease of access to online groups allow physically debilitated and geographically disperse individuals to seek social support without limitations of material resources, proximity, and temporality. The ability of computer-mediated communication to provide support effectively remains an open question, and this book brings us much closer to the answer. This groundbreaking book provides a much needed understanding of the kinds of social support in an online support group. It also illuminates the practices that enable users to acquire the support they desire. Online Social Support is an invaluable resource for those studying the Internet in sociology, communications, psychology, and social work.

The history of welfare provision has generally focused on the rise of the so-called welfare state and institutional provision for the poor. Recent studies have begun to look beyond the state to other ways in which assistance, care, and support were provided in the past, but the focus remains primarily on the poor. This work widens our understanding of welfare by focusing not on the poor but on those who have some wealth. It draws attention to the importance of family as part of a "mixed economy" of welfare provision that also incorporates the state, the market, and the voluntary sector. This book offers an exciting new approach to the history of welfare by focusing attention on the complex range of sources of support drawn on to meet family needs. The chapters highlight the significance of the family as a link in in the provision of assistance. They also focus on the role played by gender relations in shaping welfare strategies. An extensive introduction is followed by ten chapters presenting detailed studies of the provision of family welfare across western Europe and the United States over the past four hundred years.

The editors undertook this project to promote the International Conference on Death, Grief, and Bereavement in La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA. Throughout its history, the conference has attracted internationally known speakers. This book illustrates the quality of their presentations. Section One, "Professional Applications in End of Life Care," begins with Currier, Hammer, and Neimeyer's examination of the importance of the social network, including both religion and family, not just the individual, in working with those at the end of their lives. The authors analyse the impact of social support and its health implications. In Chapter 2, Parkes looks at the influence of child development on adult life and bereavement. Rather than simply showing how insecure child development affects loss as adults, he examines how insecure attachments in childhood can lead to extreme attachments to God, homes, territories, political leaders, and symbols and discusses interventions for these extreme attachments. Papadatou (Chapter 3) develops a model for professionals and caregivers who work with the dying. She suggests that those who give care to the dying also have multiple needs and also face suffering, examines the private world of professionals and what is healthy and what is unavoidable, and describes both functional and dysfunctional coping patterns used by professionals. Kobler (Chapter 4) uses case studies to explain how to develop and maintain relationships with children and their families in paediatric palliative care. She offers strategies for using rituals and ways to initiate and maintain relationships with children and their families. Thompson (Chapter 5) focuses on the effects of working in situations involving high levels of emotion and the stress that may result. He makes a strong case that such stress can do harm to individuals, groups, and whole organisations and offers a model for a more holistic approach that incorporates social and organisational strategies and practical ways to prevent and manage stress. Eves-Baine and colleagues (Chapter 6) examine the application of paediatric and adult-based principles to the newborn period. They discuss how to create the best situations for families when life-sustaining medical therapy has been withdrawn, how to support the family, and the ethical challenges that perinatal palliative care presents. The authors offer models for care through the journey of palliative and bereavement care. Section Two, "Facing End of Life and Its Care," begins with Gilbert's chapter presenting a strong argument that caregivers need to honour the multiple tracks that come with dying while maintaining a focus on the wishes of the dying person. He offers ways for the team to better meet the needs of the dying person. Koppleman (Chapter 8) follows the journey of a friend who faced death. It is a powerful story, told from the point of view of the dying in a scholarly fashion. Smith and Potter (Chapter 9) suggest that palliative care for the dying can be defined as offering "comfort care," both for those who are dying and for their loved ones. The authors present a model of the psycho-spiritual side of palliative care as a way of offering comfort to all those involved. Adams (Chapter 10) examines different methods of working with patients and families. It looks at the ways in which such work can be complicated by factors of geographic distance, differences in family reactions, differences in treatment plan concepts, and in meaning making. All of these factors may become stumbling blocks and may prevent the delivery of positive support. Pizzini (Chapter 11) looks at the experience of dying in prison from the perspective of inmates who are terminally ill, prison medical staff, and prison security staff. She discusses how to maintain dignity of the dying and a "good death" while in prison. McCord (Chapter 12) discusses attempts by hospice patients and others diagnosed with terminal illnesses to die either by their own hand or with physician assistance. She presents common risk factors, strategies to assess the degree of risk and possible plans for suicide and suicide postvention in the context of hospice. Section Three, "Cultural Considerations in End-of-Life Care" begins with The End of Life: Two Perspectives in which Robert G. Stevenson looks at two perspectives on the end of life that are not often examined in terms of their impact on the individual and his/her attitude toward this time. The two perspectives are that of adolescents, and that are shown in a military ceremony used in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Feu de Joie or Fire of Joy. In Chapter Fourteen, Janet McCord discusses suicide attempts by hospice patients and others diagnosed with terminal illnesses to die either by their own hand or with physician assistance. Connor's description of the need for hospice and palliative care around the world and the challenges of developing palliative care globally, and offers models that can be used around the world. Cox and Cox (Chapter 15) suggest ways to offer end-of-life care to Roman Catholics who do not fit the traditional model of hospice care and examine special needs, theology, and rituals. Cox and Sullivan (Chapter 16) offer suggestions on end-of-life care for American Indians, explaining cultural differences among American Indians and suggesting ways to improve care to a group that is generally neglected in hospice care. Smith (Chapter 17) looks at the cultural differences and understandings of Fundamentalist Christian views of a "good death" and the afterlife, ways to negotiate faith understandings that complicate end-of-life care, and ways to comfort individuals who may be marginalised because they do not share the theological views of the dying individual or key family members.

Bringing together many different theoretical viewpoints and empirical findings, this volume provides an up-to-date state-of-the-art report on violence in families. Included are in-depth analyses of child, spouse, and parent abuse, sibling violence, and sexual abuse.

This most timely, authoritative, and insightful book provides a new framework for understanding the circumstances currently surrounding America's elderly. It establishes the important foundation of three key forces which are changing the national perspective on the aging. They are: generational claims on the government to respond to social needs; diversity in aging populations; and increasing longevity. Torres-Gil provides a context, supported by informative background material, for recognizing the significant demographic changes being experienced in the United States. The work considers the policy issues, decisions, controversies, and choices now associated with aging and demonstrates how the perception of the elderly has changed from the 1960s and 1970s to today. It asks what is fair in the allocation of public and private resources to the elderly. How does the nation pay for services? How do we make and implement the political and economic decisions with which a government and a society are now faced?

Torres-Gil examines the ability of the government and the active labor force to support a large elderly population and urges a change in the current delivery of services and benefits. He addresses all the essential issues necessary to avoid inter-generational conflict--including comprehensive planning, the building of social consensus, and inter-generational coalitions.

A conceptual framework for analyzing social welfare policy Dimensions of Social Welfare Policy provides a comprehensive and widely-used framework for analyzing social welfare policies. The text encourages readers to develop their own thoughts on social welfare policy and to explore policy alternatives. Theoretical points are illustrated with examples from a cross-section of program areas including income maintenance, child welfare, model cities, day care, community action, and mental health. The text familiarizes students with the content of major social welfare programs such as TANF, OASDHI, SSI, and Title XX. Learning Goals Upon completing this book, readers will be able to: * Understand current policy issues * Reflect on where they stand in regard to controversial policy issues * Understand major social welfare programs * Better understand CSWE's core competencies and practice behaviors

This book presents the outcomes of a field action project at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Project Chunauti (English translation: Project Challenge) focused on a group of intellectually disabled, orphan children who were survivors of abuse, exploitation and neglect, and describes their journey toward empowerment. It offers a vision and a reproducible, adaptable model for rehabilitation that can foster the social re-integration of intellectually disabled orphans at institutions. As the implementation of laws is especially important for vulnerable groups, the book also outlines a socio-legal approach that not only impacts the children directly, but can also bring about policy level reforms. Project Chunauti was born out of the need to explore options for these children and to set standards for their care, protection, rehabilitation and social re-integration. The core objectives of the project were to provide support and services, including counseling, education, life skills and vocational skills training, as well as medical and psychiatric support to help them overcome the trauma of abuse and exploitation. Its further goal was to train the staff of state-run homes and state authorities, helping them prepare and implement care plans and rehabilitation, combat child sexual abuse and malnutrition, employ positive disciplining, and better understand disabilities. The book also draws on the Project team's experiences of rolling out the replication process in Maharashtra. This book highlights the role of the courts, media and other stakeholders in the journey towards empowerment and justice. It is a combination of social-work methods, application and implementation of law and legal advocacy, as well as best practices for protecting children's rights and developing rehabilitation and re-integration projects for intellectually disabled, orphaned children in India. The interventions detailed here provide a reproducible, adaptable model of intervention for children in institutional care across the country.

The aim of this book is to identify the variation in welfare regimes and the corresponding welfare outcome at the micro level. The research agenda of this report sets out from the tradition of the 'social indicator movement', and recent regime research. This volume is of interest to researchers in quality of life research, economists and political scientists interested in welfare regimes and comparative social welfare research, and administrators in social planning and social work.

Rejecting those who urge a bootstrap approach to people living in extreme poverty on the edge of society, sociologist Barbara Arrighi makes an eloquent, compassionate plea for empathy and collective responsibility toward those for whom either the boots or the straps are missing. This book further offers solutions in consciousness raising, community collaboration, and informed, responsible public policy. The book is a critique of a system that purports to serve yet sometimes impedes the welfare of those who are in need of the basic elements for survival, including affordable shelter. It analyzes the structural factors of poverty and the social psychological costs of being poor and lacking a home. Utilizing interview findings from families who have lived in a shelter in northern Kentucky and from staff members, the book examines the degrading effects of shelter life on women's self-respect and children's development. Rather than an examination of individual pathologies leading to lack of shelter, it centers on women and children living in shelters and offers a sociological study of poverty and the family.

"Wages for Caring" examines policies and programs of compensation for family caregivers of the disabled elderly from a broad analytical perspective, weighing current policies of home care services against principles of access, equity, quality, and funding of long-term care. Linsk, Keigher, Simon-Rusinowitz, and England challenge widely held assumptions that currently hold the family responsible for care, and accept the government's role in deterring or delaying institutionalization. The authors focus on programs and policies that already exist which could be adjusted to include families and to promote support of family caregiving. In assessing the potential of broad implementation of wages for caring, they contend that if implemented appropriately, family compensation may offer benefits not available through any other kind of service system.

First, the authors review incentives to family care and services to families providing home care, and include an overview of attendance allowance and caregiver compensation programs in other developed countries. Next, they present several original studies in an integrated format to allow for the analysis of pros and cons of several compensated family care programs. Third, they examine provisions of Medicaid programs at the state level, as well as provisions of the aging network and their potential to complement family care. The focus is largely on poor clients and families, for whom the burden of care has the most relevant costs in terms of potential government liability. Finally, the authors develop consumer centered criteria to evaluate policy and program provisions, with special attention to the special needs of low-income elderly and their families. Wages for Caring will prove particularly useful to public policymakers, social workers, gerontologists, and researchers.

When you are responsible for another person's physical needs, your own needs are often neglected. After caring for her spouse, who for ten years suffered from a rare, debilitating disease, Kay Marshall Strom is able to bring a voice of experience and compassion to this important topic. She shows you how to

• find spiritual support
• maintain balanced relationships
• decide when caregiving at home is no longer possible
• work out your financial situation
• understand the impact of long-term caregiving on the whole family
• deal with your personal losses

Drawing upon research examining life's trajectories, Mark Katz identifies sources of protection, strength, and understanding - the cards that enable some children to "beat the odds." He encourages therapists, educators, and other child caretakers to incorporate these factors into our system of care.

Soviet and Western sociologists come together in this book to present results of recent sociological surveys and to analyse important social issues against the background of the revelations of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The book spans six major issues: the family and women, social care, young people, deviance (including prostitution), leisure and privilege (including the black market).

Seeking to define the ways various cultures view pregnancy, miscarriage, and abortion, this multidisciplinary collection of essays seeks to illustrate how these views influence policy decisions and practices regarding abortion around the world. Putting questions of pro-life and pro-choice aside, the contributors provide demographic coverage of the issues involved and contextualize some of the personal realities that underlie the approximately 50 million abortions that are believed to take place yearly worldwide. While the political and social climates in which women seek abortions vary from place to place, many of the chapters try to understand the moral implications that guide the decision to end a pregnancy from the perspective of the those who seek to do so.

Focusing primarily on developing nations, this important contribution to the literature on abortion provides readers with a careful overview of the different meanings attached to abortion depending on the cultural, social, and political climate. Areas covered include Tanzania, Bangladesh, West Africa, Ghana, Romania, Russia, Mexico, and Nigeria. General chapters on induced abortion, demographic research and abortion policy, and social pressures to abort are also included. This unique approach to the study of abortion will contribute to a greater understanding of a prominent social issue.

This book focuses on the social and societal context of women's mental health. Drawing from multidisciplinary perspectives and scholarship, it pays particular attention to how women's mental health is experienced at the personal level, yet it is influenced by their relationships and interacts with the larger societal context (such as prevailing gender equality policies, income distribution, role burden, peace and security). Specific attention is given to the positive aspects of women's mental health (such as agency, resilience) and how women's personal relations across diverse domains (such as family, work, neighbourhoods) are constructed and influenced by, and in turn influence, broader societal structures/ policies/ opportunities. A unique feature of this book is that, at the end of each chapter, there is a Response section written by a non-academic such as a community member, practitioner or policy maker in which the invited authors respond to the chapter texts in the form of narrative, poetry, and/or prose, according to their various backgrounds, interests, and experiences.

This book presents an alternative theoretical approach to the study of the transformation of the modern welfare state. It draws upon the undogmatic Marxism of Gramsci in order to deconstruct the Marxist tradition and develop a general theory of capitalist regulation which emphasizes the primacy of the political. In so doing, it seeks to integrate French regulation theory and British state theory within the broader framework of discourse analysis. This theoretical framework is applied in an empirical analysis of the Danish variant of the Scandinavian welfare state model. The book is written for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals within the field of political theory, institutional economics and sociology.

This book sheds light on new research related to welfare state, child care policies, and small children's everyday lives in instuitutions in a variety of countries. In uniting recent social childhood research, welfare perspectives and historical and comparative approaches, the book explores institutionalization as a feature of modern child life.