Liberal democracies are under increasing pressure. Growing discontent about inequality, lack of political participation and identity have rekindled populism and a shift away from liberal values.
This book argues that liberalism’s reliance on a utilitarian policy framework has resulted in increased concentrations of power, restricting freedom and equality. It examines five key areas of public policy: monetary policy, private property and liability, the structure of the state, product markets and labour markets.
Drawing on the German ordoliberal tradition and its founding principle of the dispersal of power, the book proposes an alternative public policy framework. In doing so, it offers a practical pathway to realign policy making with liberal ideas.
The development of social policy in Europe is explored in this accessible intellectual history and analysis of the welfare state.
From the Industrial Revolution onwards, the book identifies three important concepts behind efforts to address social concerns in Europe: social democracy, Christian democracy and liberalism. With guides to the political and ideological protagonists and the beliefs and values that lie behind reforms, it traces the progress and legacies of each of the three traditions.
For academics and students across social policy and the political economy, this is an illuminating new perspective on the welfare state through the last two centuries.
‘Commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government,’ wrote Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations, ‘and with them, the liberty and security of individuals.’ However, Philipp Rössner shows how, when looked at in the face of history, it has usually been the other way around.
This book follows the development of capitalism from the Middle Ages through the industrial revolution to modern day, casting new light on the areas where pre-modern political economies of growth and development made a difference. It shows how order and governance provided the foundation for prosperity, growth and the wealth of nations.
Written for scholars and students of economic history, this is a pioneering new study that debunks the neoliberal origin myth of how capitalism came into the world.
Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, this book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines the development since the 1980s of a new 'post-industrial' technocratic regime and its complicity in the populist backlash against politics and political elites that is visible today.
The new technocracy – a combination of network governance, risk management and performance management – has, the author argues, abandoned the overtly anti-democratic sentiments of its industrial predecessor and proclaimed a new partnership with democracy. The rise of populism, however, is a clear sign that the inherent problems of this partnership have been exposed and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exacerbate existing problems.
In this collection, innovative and eminent social and policy analysts, including Colin Crouch, Anna Coote, Grahame Thompson and Ted Benton, challenge the failing but still dominant ideology and policies of neo-liberalism.
The editors synthesise contributors’ ideas into a revised framework for social democracy; rooted in feminism, environmentalism, democratic equality and market accountability to civil society.
This constructive and stimulating collection will be invaluable for those teaching, studying and campaigning for transformative political, economic and social policies.
The 2008 global economic crisis was unprecedented in living memory and its impact on economic and social life immense. Large-scale social policy interventions played a crucial role in helping to mediate the crisis, and yet the welfare state continues to come under attack. A new age of austerity, based more on politics than economics, is threatening to undermine the very foundations of the welfare state.
However, as this important book illustrates, there is still room for optimism - resistance to the logic of austerity exists within organisations and governments, and among peoples, demonstrating how essential social policies remain to human progress.
The second of a three-book series covering the post-2008 global economic crisis and the period of austerity, this volume draws together edited chapters from leading scholars engaged in the debate and will be equally suitable for academics and other researchers studying international and comparative social policy, as well as upper level undergraduate and postgraduate students.
This book dissects the complex social, cultural and political factors which led the UK to take its decision to leave the EU and examines the far-reaching consequences of that decision.
Developing the conceptual framework of securitization, Ryder innovatively uses primary sources and a focus on rhetoric to examine the ways that political elites engineered a politics of fear, insecurity and Brexit nationalism before and after the Brexit vote. He situates Brexit within a wider shift in international political ideas, traces the resurgence in popularity of far-right politics and explores how Britain and Europe now face a choice between further neoliberal reform or radical democratic and social renewal.
This book rethinks meritocracy as a form of coloniality, namely, a social imaginary that reproduces narratives of ethnic and racial difference between European centres and peripheries, and between Europe and its others.
Drawing on interviews with working and middle class, white and Black Italians who moved to Britain after the 2008 economic crisis, the book explores the narratives of Northern meritocracy and Southern backwardness that inform migrants’ motivations for moving abroad, and how these narratives are experienced within classed, racialised and gendered migrations.
Connecting decolonial theory with the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, this book provides innovative insights into the relationships between meritocracy, coloniality and European whiteness, and into the social stratification of EU migrations.
In this enlightening study, Ian Cummins traces changing attitudes to penal and welfare systems.
From Margaret Thatcher’s first cabinet, to austerity politics via New Labour, the book reveals the ideological shifts that have led successive governments to reinforce their penal powers. It shows how ‘tough on crime’ messages have spread to other areas of social policy, fostering the neoliberal political economy, encouraging hostile approaches to the social state and creating stigma for those living in poverty.
This is an important addition to the debate around the complex and interconnected issues of welfare and punishment.
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND.
Drawing on Roma community voices and expert research, this book provides a powerful tool to challenge conventional discourses and analyses on Romani identity, poverty and exclusion.
Through the transformative vehicle of a ‘Social Europe’, this edited collection presents new concepts and strategies for framing social justice for Romani communities across Europe. The vast majority of Roma experience high levels of exclusion from the labour market and from social networks in society. This book maps out how the implementation of a new ‘Social Europe’ can offer innovative solutions to these intransigent dilemmas.
This insightful and accessible text is vital reading for the policymaker, practitioner, academic and activist.
