Social Policy

10 Key excerpts on "Social Policy"

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  eBook - ePub

  Introduction to Social Policy Analysis

  Illuminating Welfare

  • Sinclair, Stephen, Stephen Sinclair(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Policy Press

    (Publisher)

  5 At that time, it was known as Social Administration, and focused on the education of social workers. Nor is it the case that government welfare policies are a recent development. The date of the earliest social policies or first welfare states is debatable. The English Poor Laws can be traced back to at least the 1600s, and the first national unemployment insurance scheme was introduced in Germany in 1883, so welfare systems have a long history.

  What defines the academic subject of Social Policy is its field of inquiry – the issues that it is concerned with and the questions that it addresses. However, there is even debate over that. There are many alternative definitions of what Social Policy is and what it studies, for example:

  •‘The term “Social Policy” refers to forms of state intervention which affect the social opportunities and conditions under which people live.’6

  •‘Social Policy studies the ways in which societies provide for the social and economic needs of their members.’7

  •‘Social Policy is the study of human wellbeing.’8

  It might be discouraging for those studying a subject for the first time to learn that experts cannot agree on how to define it. However, this lack of consensus is not a sign of failure, but reflects the complexity of what is involved in analysing social problems and the varied responses to them. First of all, considering all the possible factors that affect well-being or the interventions that have an impact on social and economic conditions, it is clear that Social Policy is a wide-ranging subject. One implication of this is that ‘welfare’, however it might be regarded, certainly extends beyond what is often thought of as the ‘welfare state’.

  A second distinctive factor that complicates Social Policy analysis is that the issues with which it deals are not merely technical and scientific, but also moral. For example, it is often suggested that – compared to the past or conditions in the developing world – there is no real poverty in a developed society such as the UK or the US.9 This view depends upon beliefs about what ‘poverty’ is and how it should be defined and measured (see Chapter Four

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  Inequality in U.S. Social Policy

  An Historical Analysis

  • Bryan Warde(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Another perspective from within the United States views Social Policy as part of public policy and practice that deals with what Rittle and Weber (1973) describe as “wicked problems.” These problems are perennial social or cultural problems that are difficult to resolve because of the number of people and contradictory opinions. Also making these problems difficult to resolve are the substantial economic burden of doing so, as well as the typically interconnected nature of the problem. In the United States, these problems include but are not limited to poverty, health and wellness, education, and social inequality.

  Dissenting from the enhancement thesis, American sociologists and political activists Piven and Cloward (1971) define Social Policy as a mechanism for powerful elites to contain, manage, and regulate poor people. To contain, manage, and regulate the poor, social policies impose the cultural norms and mores of the powerful elites on them by way of policy rules of suitable behavior and sanctions for noncompliance. Conceptually informing these social policies have been religious doctrine and ideas such as predestination and Protestant values of hard work and self-reliance, racism, patriarchy, xenophobia, and the “survival of the fittest” mantra of Social Darwinism.

  In a similar vein, Blau and Abramovitz (2004) suggest that Social Policy in the United States has not always contributed to the well-being of all of its citizens, especially those with less power. Examples include social policies that displaced Native Americans from their tribal homelands, legalized the enslavement and segregation of Blacks, excluded particular groups of immigrants, denied women basic civil rights, criminalized homosexuality, and penalized single motherhood (Blau & Abramovitz, 2004).

  Broadly speaking, then, the common themes from these various definitions imply that Social Policy is a multidimensional construct. It includes the courses of actions that a society takes to enhance the well-being of its citizens or deal with wicked problems. It also has social control and discriminatory functions. These courses of actions cover a broad range of functioning, which include but are not limited to social welfare, health care, education, labor, criminal justice, and social inequality. It is a political and dynamic process, and through its resulting programs and institutions reflects a nation’s ideologies, values, history, cultural norms, and economic system. It also tells us about who we are and how we relate to each other.

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  Health Promotion

  Disciplines and Diversity

  • Robin Bunton, Gordon MacDonald, Gordon Macdonald, Robin Bunton, Gordon MacDonald, Gordon Macdonald(Authors)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  It points to the need for analysis of broader beliefs and cultures as well as detailed understanding of the nature of available policy advocates, areas of public support, the nature of key ‘stakeholders’ and influences of policy, as well as government and organizational structures. Such an area of study could be said to form the raison d’être of Social Policy. The broad focus of concern matches that of the contemporary discipline, though this has not always been the case. There would appear to be a substantial convergence of interest between health promoters and Social Policy analysts, at least as far as the area of study is concerned. Perspectives may vary considerably within health promotion, as this volume illustrates. Variety also exists within the study of Social Policy, as the following brief outline of the discipline illustrates. Social Policy Social Policy refers to the sets of arrangements and structures associated with state policies, ranging from broad economic policy to specific areas such as crime control. Social Policy is more often used to refer to policies that are ‘integrative’ in one way or another; that is, they are designed to bind or to bring about harmonization in society in some way (Boulding 1967). Though usually associated with national and local government, Social Policy may be the result of non-government initiatives or the unintended outcome of a variety of political, social, and organizational imperatives. Social Policy also refers to a particular field of academic study, with its own concerns and perspectives. It is the academic study of Social Policy that is the main concern of this chapter, though these two areas cannot easily be divorced from each other. The study of Social Policy is in large part influenced by current developments in the Social Policy environment

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  Global Social Policy and Governance

  • Bob Deacon(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  socialisation of global politics. By the last phrase is meant the idea that agendas of the G8 are increasingly filled with global poverty or health issues.

  Social Policy

  Social Policy as a field of study and analysis is often regarded as the poor relation of other social sciences such as economics, sociology and political science. It is dismissed as a practical subject concerned only with questions of social security benefits or the administration of health care systems. Some of those who profess the subject would insist to the contrary, that by combining the insights of economics, sociology and political science and other social sciences to address the question of how the social wellbeing of the world’s people’s is being met, it occupies a superior position in terms of the usefulness of its analytical frameworks and its normative concerns with issues of social justice and human needs.

  Social Policy as sector policy

  The subject area or field of study of Social Policy may be defined in a number of ways that compliment each other. At one level it is about policies and practices to do with health services, social security or social protection, education and shelter or housing. While the field of study defined in this sectoral policy way was developed in the context of more advanced welfare states, it is increasingly being applied to developing countries (Hall and Midgley, 2004; Mkandawire, 2005). When applied in such contexts, the focus needs to be modified to bring utilities (water and electricity) into the frame and to embrace the wide range of informal ways in which less developed societies ensure the wellbeing of their populations (Gough and Woods, 2004). It is one of the arguments of this book that whereas Social Policy used to be regarded as the study of developed welfare states and development studies as the study of emerging welfare states, this separation did damage to both the understanding within development studies of how welfare states developed and to the actual social policies

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  Analyzing Social Policy

  Multiple Perspectives for Critically Understanding and Evaluating Policy

  • Mary Katherine O'Connor, F. Ellen Netting(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  social policies . This raises the question of what makes a policy “social,” since policies typically involve many people in some ways. Aren't all policies somewhat social? Similar to the health care example just provided, a Social Policy is concerned with problems of individuals or groups in relation to the social context of which they are a part.

  Jansson (2008) defines social policies as “a collective strategy that prevents and addresses social problems” (p. 9). Building on Jansson's definition and our definition of policy, we are defining social policies as “chosen courses of action within unique contexts with goals of preventing and addressing social problems .” In addition, social policies may contain or lead to principles and procedures that guide a course of action dealing with individual and aggregate relationships in organizations, communities, and societies.

  So what are social problems? A social problem generally involves issues related to maintaining or achieving quality of life for groups of people. Depending on the context, these concerns can be the result of a wide consensus within members of an organization, community, state, or nation. The concern can also be voiced by the socially powerful or economically privileged. A problem, then, to be considered a social problem rather than an individual one, needs to be big enough (impacting numbers of individuals or groups), severe enough (representing sufficient concern, even danger), or important enough to be called a social problem by those who are powerful enough to name it as such. Thus, Jansson's distinction between “preventing and addressing” is decisively important, since prevention requires different strategies to alert people to potential impact or concern before the social problem has become so obvious to demand a reaction. In the United States, we tend to have trouble dealing with problems before they are defined.

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  European Foundations of the Welfare State

  • Franz-Xaver Kaufmann(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Berghahn Books

    (Publisher)

  The specific difference of Social Policy may be defined not only on the basis of normative but equally on cognitive assumptions, specifically through its sphere of consequences, by asking what concrete conditions Social Policy affects, or rather, claims to exert an effect upon. Attempts to define Social Policy in this way also have a long tradition. The economic perspective on Social Policy still harks back to Adolph Wagner’s classic definition of ‘the state policy which seeks to combat shortcomings in aspects of distributive processes by force of legislation’ (1891: 4). However, Bortkiewicz’s definition appears sociologically more fruitful: ‘Social Policy is … the state’s position on conflicting social forces, expressed in legislation and administration’ (Bortkiewicz 1899: 334–35). Numerous social theorists have followed Bortkiewicz’s line that Social Policy’s field of action is the relation between different classes or social groups. As opposed to this, newer writers, more influenced by welfare thinking, argue that Social Policy’s real field of impact is to be found in the social position or life situation of individuals or specific groups. 1 A comprehensive definition of ‘life situation’ is given by Weisser (1956: 635) as the ‘scope that people’s external circumstances offer for meeting their basic wants, as determined by unhindered and thorough contemplation of the meaning of their lives’. From the perspective of more recent understandings of policy – those for which the realization of politically desired effects (and naturally the avoidance of unwanted effects) represents the problem – it is advisable to take this perspective of outcome and impact as the starting point for further theoretical considerations. Social Policy as Governmental Intervention in Social Circumstances When Sir Robert Peel’s Factory Act of 1819 first imposed state regulation on industrial child labour in England, it was described as state interference

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  Social and Labour Market Policy

  The Basics

  • Bent Greve(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2 Elements of Social Policy

  2.1. Introduction

  This chapter highlights the variety of issues and possible elements that can be found in the field of Social Policy, such as child, family, social security, housing, disability, health and long-term care (without going into detail, but providing the necessary background to understand why Social Policy is an important issue). It further provides definitions related to the distinction between benefits in kind, in cash and the variability of ways of providing and financing Social Policy.

  It also points to the variety of actors in the field and how they are, or might be, involved in delivering welfare, thus also highlighting a central discussion in Social Policy – the boundaries between state and civil society, and the role of the market, which has been increasing in many countries.

  Since way back to Richard M. Titmuss’s presentation of the many and varied ways to finance and deliver welfare, there has been a distinction between public, fiscal and occupational welfare. This area is included as a way of depicting the variety and complexity in the many ways of delivering and financing Social Policy.

  Many of the issues and concepts presented in this chapter are “timeless”, in the sense that they have been in existence for many years, and are seemingly important even when societies change, and also if new types of employment or living conditions are under development.

  2.2. Central fields in Social Policy

  How to distinguish between different aims and approaches, and how to look into variations and what is, in fact, included in Social Policy is not always clear. One way to do this is to look into a variety of sectors:

  1. a) Social insurance
  2. b) Social assistance
  3. c) Publicly funded social services
  4. d) Social work and personal social services
  5. e) Economic governance

  (Garland, 2016, p. 46)

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  Social Science and Government

  Policies and problems

  • A. B. Cherns, W. I. Jenkins, R. Sinclair(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Overall, the tone of these reports is consistent - a heavy emphasis on the desirability, need, and prospect of bringing social science into closer conjunction with the practical affairs of society. This is perhaps a response to the current awareness, widespread and uneasily accute, that all is far from well in American society, and the expectation that rational methods, grounded in scientific work, can help to steer the country through its troubles. Perhaps the emphasis on applied work comes from the desire to justify the expenditure of public monies on social science. Or perhaps it is the mark of an enterprise that feels its time has come. Whatever the source, it is clear that representative American social scientists are not so much dissatisfied with the practices of the past, which have been helpful in developing the disciplines, as they are eager and optimistic about their future prospects for a more important role in the affairs of the nation. They are proposing asocial science policy that will help them to achieve this role.

  Over the decades, but particularly since the end of the Second World War, the United States has evolved a pattern of strategies that has selectively, unequally, and without an overall plan, aided some of the social science disciplines to grow - even to prosper. Virtually at the height of governmental support for all science, social scientists were given an opportunity to outline what should be the influence of the federal government on social science policy, and they did so.

  The extent to which the policies recommended by social scientists will be put into effect remains uncertain. It appears that the current atmosphere in government is less propitious than it was at the time these policy-recommending reports were being prepared. The social sciences are almost sure not to realize all

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  Social Policy

  Theory and Practice

  • Spicker, Paul(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Policy Press

    (Publisher)

  PART 4 THE METHODS AND APPROACHES OF Social Policy Passage contains an image CHAPTER 18 Research for policy Policy research

  Research is an essential part of the study of Social Policy. Understanding social conditions, and the effects which responses have on them, depends strongly on being able to draw on good information about what is happening. People working in Social Policy in practice are expected to be able to interpret research material; and those who hope to develop policy need to appreciate what the effects of that policy might be, and how to find out what they really are.

  Having said that, the practice of research in Social Policy is quite different from the way that research is usually presented in textbooks about social science. The core activity in policy research is problem-solving – policy-makers outline the problems, researchers attempt to offer some answers. Some typical activities in Social Policy research might be:

  • to find out what is happening in a process
  • to identify and record the contribution made by different agencies to a policy
  • to establish the views of key stakeholders
  • to see what people make of a service, or
  • to evaluate the work of an agency.

  Ritchie and Spencer identify four general categories of applied research:

  • contextual , reviewing experiences, needs or the relationships between parts of a system;
  • diagnostic , looking for reasons and explanations of current issues;
  • evaluative , examining whether aims have been met or issues in service delivery; and
  • strategic , considering alternative approaches and options for improvement.823

  There tends to be an assumption in textbooks about social science that research should be generalisable – and so, that it should be designed to reveal insights about more than the subject being studied. There are times when this is looked for – when policy research is done in the hope that what is being found out can be applied somewhere else – but policy research is often not like that. The kinds of problems that Social Policy practitioners deal with tend to be particular – specific to circumstances, to the needs of a defined population, to an agency, or to the operation of a process. It follows that much of the material in the textbooks about theories of knowledge or the generalisability of results is beside the point.

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  Exploring the World of Social Policy

  An International Approach

  • Hill, Michael, Irving, Zoë(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Policy Press

    (Publisher)

  In view of this, Social Policy here concerns purposeful collective actions that influence the distribution of resources. Its analysis is very often, as in this book, driven by concerns about disadvantages and the structures of inequality, and therefore aims to improve welfare conditions and to contribute to social progress. This implies a particular focus on policies with self-evident welfare goals (such as those with respect to income support, health and social care) but also has regard (as for example in the discussions of employment, education and environment issues in this book) to the wide range of policies which have an impact on human welfare.

  Social policy and social change

  Examining the relationship between Social Policy and social change assists in delineating some key concepts used to analyze Social Policy in a way that detaches them from the specific concerns of mature welfare states. The purpose of this approach is to demonstrate the human commonalities that drive Social Policy development, and to emphasize that the answers to questions of when, how and why people seek to meet their needs collectively take us beyond the concern of ‘policy’ in any formal sense. The discussion will show that welfare is thus dependent upon a mixed economy and a combination of personal and collective efforts, describable in terms of the activities of households and families, localities and communities, and the economy and the state. Concerns about the extension of welfare, its desirability and the means by which it is achieved are matters of philosophical and ideological debate and political action. Social progress occurs as human needs are increasingly met, and human welfare is expanded. Social Policy is not entirely responsible for delivering these kinds of improvements to the quality of people’s lives, their health and well-being, but without Social Policy improvements they are unlikely to occur, and where they do occur they are unlikely to be patterned in a way that promotes social justice.

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