A basic income would be an income paid periodically and unconditionally to every man, woman and child as a fundamental right of citizenship and without reference to employment, marital and household status. It would be a means of ensuring the twin objectives of freedom and security for all. This work provides an introduction to the basic income debate, examining a range of arguments for and against, and so should be of interest to anybody concerned with the future direction of the welfare state.

The opening chapters suggest that transitions in welfare capitalism can be understood in terms of shifts in dominant 'corporeal' discourses. The body as a focus for power and resistance in differing welfare regimes is further explored in individual contributions on health and social care, bodily metaphors in social policy and the relationship between animal and human welfare. In highlighting the significance of the body in social policy, the book opens up a novel, and potentially rich, vein of academic enquiry.

This text provides an accessible account of the social construction of racialized groups. Using both primary (in-depth interviews) and secondary data. Four nations are examined: the UK, US, South Africa and Jamaica. The author maintains how little attention has traditionally been given to theorizing multiracial identity in the context of white supremacist thought and practice. This concise, wide-ranging, contentious and well referenced study provides students of identity politics and miscegenation with an insightful read. The book also contains a glossary.

Drawing on the writings of diverse authors, including Jean Baker Miller, Bell Hooks, Mary Daly, Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire and Ignacio Martin-Baro, as well as on women's experiences, this book aims to develop a 'liberation psychology'; which would aid in transforming the damaging psychological patterns associated with oppression and taking action to bring about social change. The book makes systematic links between social conditions and psychological patterns, and identifies processes such as building strengths, cultivating creativity, and developing solidarity.

Policing Urban Poverty provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging analysis of the policy implications of social problems for the welfare state in general and the police service in particular, through an examination of the relationship between discourses on urban poverty, crime and disorder in Britain and America. Drawing on extensive empirical evidence, the book adds to the sociological and historical analyses of these issues by considering their practical relevance at different times and in different places for police policy-makers. Throughout history the police have been charged with the difficult task of peace-keeping and crime-fighting in poor communities, with potentially calamitous consequences when things go wrong. Senior police officers have argued that successive governments have not provided adequate support and guidance to assist them in their attempts to be tough on crime and its causes.

This book traces the origins and development of social work as we now know it. Providing an ambitious synthesis of historical and international material, it explores the different faces of social work, whether defined by social policy developments, professionalization, and crises in the profession, changes in client group, or shifts in practice orientation. This is a unique book undertaken by an author with a strong international reputation and, as such, it promises to be a landmark for years to come in social work literature.

Pollution, deforestation, elimination of species, greenhouse gases and depletion of the ozone layer. These results of human activity are, as most people would agree, undesirable. But what is the value of the natural world that would be lost if the environment were destroyed or seriously degraded? This is the central question of environmental ethics and the focus of this book. It argues that to properly understand how and why nature can have value requires a radical revision of the way philosophy is understood and practised, and an equally radical restructuring of the concepts and categories upon which modern philosophy has been based.

This study is concerned with the role of entrepreneurs, and the nature and scope of entrepreneurship in the economy. It broadly covers a range of economic and non-economic theories of the characteristics and behaviour of entrepreneurs. Also considered are government policies to increase the number of entrepreneurs in the economy and social entrepreneurship linked to economic development. It includes illustrations of successful entrepreneurs and more detailed case studies.

This book provides a critical interpretation of the construction of Irish national identity in the longer perspective of history. Drawing on recent sociological theory, the authors demonstrate how national identity was invented and codified by a nationalist intelligentsia in the late nineteenth century. The trajectory of this national identity is traced as a process of crisis and contradiction. One of the central arguments is that the negative implications of Irish national identity have never been fully explored by social science.

Drinking alcohol can be immensely pleasurable and life enhancing. On the other hand, it can be associated with dangers and risks. This book explores some of the implications of this dichotomy--which creates many policy and practice dilemmas--by a detailed exploration of the place of drinking in women's lives. Interviews and case-studies show women's drinking practice to be constructive and autonomous responses to the social and material contexts of their lives.

Using case-studies from Oxford to Beijing and Chicago, Women and the City shows women constructing their lives in the urban environment, sometimes working against a system where needs are marginalized. Women are shown as community activists, homeless women, career women, patients, travelers, rock musicians, and workers. The book emphasizes women as active agents, and the contributors include women working in urban management as well as academics from diverse backgrounds.

The research for this book was prompted by a combination of events, in particular the election of Mary Robinson as President of Ireland (November 1990) and the X case which rocked Irish society (February 1992). The book is an exploration of the dynamics between the Irish and European Courts, the legislators and the Irish citizens in relation to certain socio-sexual questions: divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. Spanning the 73 years since the creation of the Irish State, it questions the nature of the moral order regulating Irish society and the concept of democracy underlying it: from a moral order based on the natural law and Victorian ideology, to a moral order based on the fundamental rights of individuals. The book examines the fragile balance struck between tradition and modernity, and is an indirect tribute to the work of former President Mary Robinson as a constitutional lawyer and senator.

Gendered Policies in Europe examines the policy process, focusing on the shifts in equal opportunities legislation towards measures to help parents combine employment and family life. The authors track the inputs of members states and pressure groups to European policy formation and analyse outputs and outcomes at national levels as they impact on gender issues in law and practice. They draw on examples of the implementation of reconciliation policies to illustrate how the policy process operates in different national contexts.

The city of Belfast tends to be discussed in terms of its distinctiveness from the rest of Ireland, an industrial city in an agricultural country. However, when compared with another 'British' industrial port such as Bristol it is the similarities rather than the differences that are surprising. When these cities are compared with Dublin, the contrasts become even more painfully evident. This book seeks to explore these contrasting urban centres at the start of the twentieth century.

Social policy and political theory are based upon rationalist models of the human subject. Drawing particularly upon contemporary Kleinian and feminist political theory the author explores the powerful role that emotions such as love, hate and fear play in the development of the human subject. From this base the book then examines a range of contemporary issues such as employment, dependency, care and generosity, conflict and oppression which are relevant to struggles around the welfare state.

The chapters in this book illustrate, from a number of different perspectives, the ways in which power is located and articulated through gendered negotiations and acted out within the changing and differing setting of the household. The book is divided into four sections. The first section provides a theoretical, historical and philosophical setting, whilst the following three sections provide empirical contributions which examine aspects of Gendered Care ; dimensions of Gendered Time and Space , and straddling work and home, Gendered Work, Income and Power .

John Maynard Keynes's seminal The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money remains central to economic debate over sixty years after its publication. This book shows how Keynes's masterpiece is best understood not as an attempt to tackle the immediate policy issues of this age but to extend the range of thought available to economists. Understood as such, it continues to provide the most effective framework to the central issues about the functioning of the economy. The authors offer a clear exposition of Keynes's thought and its continuing relevance for economists in academic, business and government life.

Cultures, Communities, Identities explores a wide range of cultural strategies to promote participation and empowerment in both First and Third World settings. This book starts by analyzing contemporary debates on cultures, communities, and identities, in the context of globalization. This sets the framework for the discussion of cultural strategies to combat social exclusion and to promote community participation in transformative agendas for local economic and social development. The final chapter focuses on the use of cultural strategies and new technologies across national boundaries, at the global level.

Heikki Mikkeli charts the history of the idea of Europe and European identity. The first part introduces the various attempts to unify Europe from antiquity to the European Union. In the second part the relationship of Europe with America and Russia is considered, as well as the ambivalent role of Central Europe. The possibility of a common European identity is also discussed; a theme which may have an impact on the ways European history is written in the future.

The opening chapters of this book suggest that transitions in welfare capitalism can be understood in terms of shifts in dominant "corporeal" discourses. The body as a focus for power and resistance in differing welfare regimes is further explored in individual contributions on health and social care, bodily metaphors in social policy and the relationship between animal and human welfare. In highlighting the significance of the body in social policy, the book opens up a novel and potentially rich vein of academic inquiry.

Focusing on freedom of speech, this text deals with the perennial problem of how a small country should react in the face of pressure threatening its sovereignty. Should it give way or resist? The author describes in detail how the Soviet Union operated both overtly and covertly in the propaganda war and discusses the reactions of the West, the United States, Great Britain, West Germany and Sweden.

In this work, the author argues that the focus on religious fundamentalism in ethnic conflict has obscured the ambiguous role of "mainstream" Western religion. The book examines the relationship between the religious and secular spheres at a time of rapid transition in South Africa and Northern Ireland. It analyzes the role of mainstream Protestantism as a site of struggle between competing world views. The book explains why this contest limits the potential of the church as a force for reconciliation.

The probation service's venture into financial partnerships with non-statutory agencies during the 1990s was viewed both as a development opportunity for improving sevices and as a threat to professional identity and job security. Judith Rumgay studies partnership development with particular focus on programs for substance misusing offenders. She explores tensions between probation and voluntary organizations, identifies features common to successful partnerships, and compares partnership arrangements with in-house specialist projects. She argues that the partnership enterprise touches the heart of the probation service's mission in local communities.

The authors use regulation to explain the antecedents to current welfare developments in Britain. They show how first a Conservative and more recently "New Labour" governments have used in-work benefits so that today they have become the preferred instrument of intervention in the labor market for setting wages. The authors discuss the ways in which these measures address issues of child poverty and the adequacy of incomes, and how far they are disciplining devices to encourage a new moral order.

At the heart of the green debate are a set of basic contradictions concerning beliefs and actions. This book reveals the problems associated with these contradictions, including adherence to decentralized political forms while accepting authoritarian intervention on behalf of the environment; a belief that this is the politics of the new age but in practice split between left and right; a rejection of the rationalist scientific project and a reliance on the lessons of the science of ecology.