Disability and Neoliberal State Formations explores the trajectory of neoliberalism in Australia and its impact on the lives of Australians living with disability, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It examines the emergence, intensification and normalisation of neoliberalism across a 20-year period, distilling the radical changes to disability social security and labour-market law, policy and programming, and the enduring effects of the incremental tightening of disability eligibility carried out by Australian governments since the early 2000s. Incorporating qualitative interviews with disabled people, disability advocates, services and the policy elite, alongside extensive documentary material, this book brings to the fore the compounding effects of neoliberal reforms for disabled people's wellbeing and participation. The work is of international significance as it illustrates the importance of looking beyond the UK, EU and the USA to critically understand the historical development and policy mobility of disability neoliberal retraction from smaller economies, such as Australia, to the global economic centre.

The family is currently a controversial topic both within the UK and Europe. While demographic trends seem to suggest that family structures and attitudes within the European Union are converging and that member states are facing similar social problems, their policy responses are very different. This book examines the differences between these national responses and that of the EU as contained in the social chapter. It analyses the key concepts underlying the formulation of family policy and illustrates it with the latest data much of it hitherto unpublished.

Christian democracy has been one of the most successful political movements in post-war Western Europe yet its crucial impact on the development of the modern European welfare state has been neglected. In this study, Kees van Kersbergen demonstrates the precise nature of the links between Christian democracy and the welfare state. Using a variety of sources the author describes the origin and development of the Christian Democratic movement and presents comparative accounts of the varying degrees of political entrenchment of national Christian Democratic parties. Drawing upon cross-national indicators of welfare state development he identifies and explains the existence of a distinctively Christian Democratic (as opposed to a liberal or social democratic) welfare-state regime which he labels "social capitalism".

This title was first published in 2002: When a developer wants to realize a housing scheme, what can the local planning authority do to assure that the resulting residential environment is of a high quality? This book explores the question through a cross-national comparison of housing development processes in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. It analyzes how decisions about the residential environment are made in different situations, and by whom. By applying this analysis to housing development processes in different countries, the book paints a picture of how public policy and market mechanisms together influence the development of housing. From this, conclusions are drawn about how local planning authorities can achieve their objectives concerning the quality of housing areas.

All too often the experience of users of family therapy is neglected in the theory and practice of family therapy as well as in the literature itself. In Introducing User-Friendly Family Therapy the authors describe in detail how the results of an action research project helped the professionals involved to modify their practice. They draw out the implications of the research for providing a genuinely user-friendly service and set the arguments for a more humanistic approach in the wider context of contemporary social policy.
Thought-provoking and practical in emphasis, this book places the user at the centre of the stage and insists that family therapy can only flourish if it becomes genuinely empowering and user-friendly.

This book explores the contribution of women to the development of housing management in the 20th century. It outlines tactics and strategies of organization and factors which have seemed to help or hinder women's participation in housing. Evidence from statistical sources, historical documents and personal interviews is also assessed. Throughout the discussion, key issues are linked to current trends in the 1990s, making this volume suitable as a source of reference for students and researchers in housing and related fields.

Jim Kemeny develops a conceptual framework to present a critical study of comparative rental markets. The framework centres around the concept of the process of maturation of cost rental housing and two policies for handling this which have been adopted by industrial societies. These are, firstly, the Anglo-Saxon "dualist" system, seen in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and secondly, the Germanic "unitary market" system, seen in Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. Using a comparative approach based around international case studies, Jim Kemeny shows how each system stems from different power structures, is governed by different policy strategies, and is informed by different ideological views of how markets operate. Offering a radical critique of the orthodox view, it is argued that the time is now right for English-speaking nations to abandon state control over cost renting but allow to it to compete directly with profit renting, as in the "unitary market" model. International in scope, this volume should be of interest to researchers in housing, sociology and related fields.

Explores the impact of policy on specific groups of women and the role that they play as both tenants and managers in shpaing a service and housing design around their particular needs.

The Economics of Welfare occupies a privileged position in economics. It contributed to the professionalization of economics, a goal aggressively and effectively pursued by Pigou's predecessor and teacher Alfred Marshall. The Economics of Welfare also may be credited with establishing welfare economics, by systematically analyzing market departures and their potential remedies. In writing The Economics of Welfare, Pigou built a bridge between the old and the new economics at Cambridge and in Britain. Much of the book remains relevant for contemporary economics. The list of his analyses that continues to play an important role in economics is impressive. Some of the more important include: public goods and externalities, welfare criteria, index number problems, price discrimination, the theory of the firm, the structure of relief programs for the poor, and public finance. Pigou's discussion of the institutional structure governing labor-market operations in his Wealth and Welfare prompted Schumpeter to call the work "the greatest venture in labor economics ever undertaken by a man who was primarily a theorist." The Economics of Welfare established welfare economics as a field of study. The first part analyzes the relationship between the national dividend and economic and total welfare. Parts II and III link the size of the dividend to the allocation of resources in the economy and the institutional structure governing labor-market operations. Part IV explores the relationship between the national dividend and its distribution. In her new introduction, Nahid Aslanbeigui discusses the life of Pigou and the history of The Economics of Welfare. She also discusses Pigou's theories as expressed in this volume and some of the criticisms those theories have met as well as the impact of those criticisms. The Economics of Welfare is a classic that repays careful study.

The Public Nature of Private Violence is a timely and pathbreaking book that explores the complex and diverse feminist and legal responses to domestic violence from a cross-cultural perspective. In addition to more general discussions of violence against women, the essays in this volume consider child abuse by mothers, battering in lesbian relationships, state sanctioned violence, non-physical violence and incest. The contributors argue that domestic violence must be viewed in its social and cultural context, in which the state is complicit, and not simply within the private, psychological domain of the family. The Public Nature of Private Violence offers a vast array of practical suggestions for different governmental and non-governmental actors attempting to combat the incidents of abuse and oppression suffered by women and children.

Is neoclassical economics dead? Why have the biggest industrial economies stagnated since the financial crisis? Is the competitive threat from China a tired metaphor or a genuine danger to our standard of living?

Lord David Sainsbury draws on his experience in business and government to assemble the evidence and comes to some startling conclusions. In Windows of Opportunity, he argues that economic growth comes not as a steady process, but as a series of jumps, based on investment in high value-added firms. Because these firms are engaged in winner-takes-all competition, rapid growth in one country can indeed come at the expense of growth in another, contrary to the standard models. He suggests a new theory of growth and development, with a role for government in 'picking winners' at the level of technologies and industries rather than individual firms. With the role of industrial policy at the centre of the Brexit debate, but a significant intellectual gap in setting out what that policy should be, this book could not be more timely.

What have been the roles of charities and the state in supporting medical provision? Far from being of only historical interest, these are issues of major relevance today, as the assumptions and practices of the welfare state are increasingly thrown into doubt.
Medicine and Charity Before the Welfare State offers a broad perspective on the relationship between charity and medicine in Western Europe up to advent of welfare states in the twentieth century.
Through detailed case studies, the authors highlight significant differences between Britain, France, Italy and Germany, and offer a critical vocabulary for grasping the issues raised.
This volume reflects recent developments relating to the role of charity in medicine, particularly the revival of interest in the place of voluntary provision in contemporary social policy. It emphasises the changing balance of `care' and `cure' as the aim of medical charity, and shows how economic and political factors influenced the varying forms of charity.


eBook available with sample pages: 0203427785

The modern welfare state is indeed one of the greatest achievements of the post-war 20th century. With its key aims of eradicating the five giant social ills of Want, Ignorance, Disease, Squalor and Idleness, it aimed to providing a minimum standard of living, with all people of working age paying a weekly contribution; in return, benefits would be paid to anyone who was sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. The modern welfare state, therefore, is about maintaining a delicate equilibrium between dependent social groups on the one hand and the active working classes on the other. In the case of old-age security, this balance is being achieved (or not) by the so-called Generation Contract. This social pact is more of an implicit, unwritten and unspecified social contract. This ground-breaking book demonstrates how countries are addressing population-ageing challenges in depth, using the case study of Austria to gain the required complexity and differentiation in a comparative European framework of empirical evidence. This is a broad social science study in political economy and sociology, not an economic analysis. Though focusing on pensions, it centres on the (im)balance between work and non-work, issues of health, work ability, employability, and benefit receipt from old-age security to disability allowance. It will be required reading for all sociologists and social policy experts and academics working within this area.

Democracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State investigates political thought under the conditions of the postwar welfare state, focusing on the Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1989). The volume argues that the welfare state informed and altered basic questions of democracy and its relationship to capitalism. These questions were especially important for West Germany, given its recent experience with the collapse of capitalism, the disintegration of democracy, and National Socialist dictatorship after 1930. Three central issues emerged. First, the development of a nearly all-embracing set of social services and payments recast the problem of how social groups and interests related to the state, as state agencies and affected groups generated their own clientele, their own advocacy groups, and their own expert information. Second, the welfare state blurred the line between state and society that is constitutive of basic rights and the classic world of liberal freedom; rights became claims on the state, and social groups became integral parts of state administration. Third, the welfare state potentially reshaped the individual citizen, who became wrapped up with mandatory social insurance systems, provisioning of money and services related to social needs, and the regulation of everyday life. Peter C. Caldwell describes how West German experts sought to make sense of this vast array of state programs, expenditures, and bureaucracies aimed at solving social problems. Coming from backgrounds in politics, economics, law, social policy, sociology, and philosophy, they sought to conceptualize their state, which was now social (one German word for the welfare state is indeed Sozialstaat), and their society, which was permeated by state policies.

During the past decade, the appropriate role of government in society has been subjected to a sweeping reevaluation throughout the world. An important element in this ongoing debate has been a reappraisal of the form and magnitude of public social welfare policy. The essays that make up this volume examine a variety of aspects of this topic as it applies to family policy in the United States, including both the political debate over who should be served and how programs should be funded, and the intellectual questions surrounding the nature of social organization and its role within the state. Divided into three major subject areas, the work reexamines basic elements of current policy debate surrounding family life. The first section explores fundamental features of family policy, considering whether there is a conflict of interest between adults and children in fashioning social policy, and outlining the parameters of a feminist family policy. The second section examines the linkage between ideology and action. Among the topics covered are the link between state political culture and family policy, latchkey children, treatment of the nation's elderly and its link to a mythical past, abortion, and family policy in the People's Republic of China. The final section analyzes a number of specific policies, including AFDC program cutbacks, the decline in family planning resources, nonfamily-based care, and joint custody arrangements, and attempts to trace their impact. A concluding chapter examines the future of family policy. This work will be a valuable resource for both students and professionals in the fields of public policy studies and sociology, as well as an important addition to public and academic libraries.

This title was first published in 2000: This volume is based on papers presented at the sixth International Research Seminar on "Issues in Social Security", held by FISS on 12-15 June 1999 in Sigtuna, Sweden. The book relates to the discussion about the merits of improving the incentive structure of social security programmes by privatization. The first part contains two important chapters - the first looks at the interaction between programmes and how they make one of them to serve the purposes of the other. This mechanism is termed "domain linkage". The second chapter deals with welfare state programmes that contain behavioural risks, like health insurance, sickness benefits, unemployment and disability insurance - where moral hazard is a potential problem. The second part of the book groups a number of international comparative studies. The first three deal with retirement issues, and the fourth looks at the development of poverty and income distribution.

Southern Europe has been hit hard by the global economic crisis and, as such, their welfare states have come under acute strain. Unmet need has sharply increased while significant welfare reforms and deep social spending cuts have been prominent in the crisis management solutions implemented by governments, labouring under EU constraints and the strict rescue-deal requirements for Greece and Portugal. This volume provides a systematic comparative appraisal of welfare-state reform trajectories across Southern Europe prior to and during the crisis, and traces the impact of austerity policies and wider recession upon income inequality and poverty. It brings together a number of cross-country studies on major social policy areas, raising crucial questions. What policy choices are driving reforms as Southern European economies work their way out of fiscal difficulty? Can the crisis provoke the improvement of institutional capabilities and recalibration of social? Or, instead, does structural adjustment indicate a significant policy turn towards the erosion of social rights? The contributions critically approach these issues and bring evidence to bear upon whether Southern European welfare capitalisms are becoming more dissimilar. This book was originally published as a special issue of South European Society & Politics.

This important research literature review discusses some of the most prominent literature in the field of individual choice and economic welfare. It analyses material exploring how economics as a scientific enterprise may inform political decision-making. The premise is explored paradigmatically through different interpretations including utility-individualism in the context of welfare economics, preference-individualism in social choice theory, and choice-individualism in constitutional economics. The review covers the foundational literature as well as contemporary pieces, which have sparked further discussion in the field. This review will be valuable to researchers and scholars alike as well as to all those gravitating towards this fascinating topic.

Contents:
Introduction Johnston Birchall 1. Housing policy and the disabling of local authorities Peter Malpass 2. Housing associations: a move to centre stage Mike Langstaff 3. Building societies: builders or financiers? Douglas Smallwood 4. The social and economic consequences of the growth of home ownership Stuart Lowe 5. Private rented housing and the impact of deregulation A.D.H. Crook 6. The 1987 housing policy: an enduring reform? D.A. Coleman 7. Issues of race and gender facing housing policy Norman Ginsburg and Sophie Watson 8. Council tenants: sovereign consumers or pawns in the game? Johnston Birchall Conclusion Johnston Birchall

The 'Golden Age' of the welfare state in Europe was characterised by a strengthening of social rights as citizens became increasingly protected through the collective provision of income security and social services. The oil crisis, inflation and high unemployment of the 1970s largely saw the end of welfare expansion with critical voices claiming the welfare state had created an unbalanced focus on the social rights of individuals, above their responsibilities as citizens. During the 1980s many western countries developed contractual modes of thinking and regulation within welfare policy. Contractualism has proved a significant organising principle for public reforms in general, and for social policy reforms in particular as it embraces both a way of justifying certain welfare policies and of constructing specific socio-legal policy instruments. Engaging with both the critique of the welfare state and the subsequent policy responses, expert contributors in this book examine contractualism as a discourse, comprising principles and justifying ideas, and as a legal and social practice. Covering the international debate on conditionality they discuss European experiences with active social citizenship ideas and contractualism providing individual case studies and comparisons from a wide range of European countries.

The rapid political changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have had repercussions for many elements of the socialist system. Housing provision, always an important part of the socialist agenda, has undergone extensive changes. These have solved some problems but given rise to others. The studies in "The Reform of Housing in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union" highlight the various aspects of housing reform, including such issues as rehabilitation, private initiatives, housing quality, welfare requirements and home ownership. While in some countries policy-makers have adhered to the older methods of housing provision, in others the number of massive state-run projects has declined in favour of smaller privately-funded enterprises. The latest changes reflect the socio-economic restructuring of the countries in general and thus housing can be seen as a spearhead for reforms throughout the system. The contributors are active researchers in the former Eastern Bloc who analyze the latest reforms and academics from Western Europe who supply a context of broader housing issues. This book should be of interest to undergraduates and academics in Soviet studies, urban studies, social

This is a case study of the shifting boundary between family and state in Britain from the mid 1970s to 1990. The book describes a variety of family centres and shows how they have responded to the crises in child welfare and social work. The book also considers the issues of gender in policy.

This comprehensive volume brings to light little known implications of legal, economic, and custodial factors following a divorce. The Consequences of Divorce goes beyond the past decade's extensive focus on emotional and social adjustment outcomes to explore in-depth the post-divorce legal, economic, and custodial variables that impact the entire family. This important volume examines the economic conditions of both marriage partners after the divorce, the effect of legislative models on child support payment, child custody patterns and their impact on the family, and intervention strategies that take such custody problems into account. Teachers, counselors, researchers, and attorneys will be better prepared to offer support to family members after a divorce with the understanding of the economic and custodial conflicts that they will gain from this new book.The authoritative contributors examine statistics that show a marked decline in the economic well-being of women and children, which lead to questions of standards of adequacy for child support awards and an exploration of a new child support scheme from Australia. Different child custody arrangements are analyzed according to their consequences for each family member, providing valuable information for treating divorced families. Specific topics of interest include decreased parental involvement for fathers after a divorce, siblings separated by divorce, mothers without custody, and children's own viewpoints of custody arrangements. This informative book will lead to increased services to divorced families by expanding professionals'awareness of critical economic and legal issues that affect each member of the family.

Housing studies have often neglected important areas of debate that affect other social sciences. While there are an increasing number of studies that focus on specific areas such as over-crowding and home-ownership, the development of broader housing concepts has been slow. Jim Kemeny looks at the nature of housing research and focuses on various key debates in social theory and their relation to housing. Looking in particular at three main areas - political science, social change and welfare - he provides a critique of the current methods of theory. Case studies are presented to illustrate the application of various theories, covering areas such as privatism, collectivism, urban planning, hegemony, ideology and myth.

Housing should provide a safe and healthy environment for its inhabitants. Many technical, social, planning and policy factors relating to housing may affect physical and mental health and social wellbeing. These factors can be expressed in terms of basic human requirements which can, accordingly, be incorporated into housing standards, policies and goals of attainment relevant to an individual country's needs, resources and priorities. No universal interpretation of health housing is possible, but typical requirments, as outlined in this volume, can form the necessary basis. The objective of this book is to encourage administrations to formulate a sound housing policy to solve basic health-related housing problems and to meet WHO's objective of "healthful housing" for all by the year 2000.