In the wake of the financial crisis, and with increasing numbers of people in precarious and low paid jobs, there has been a surprising surge of support for populist right-wing political parties who often promote an anti-welfare message. Tougher approaches and welfare chauvinism are on the agenda in many countries, with policies which reduce the welfare state for those seen as undeserving and changes that often disproportionally benefit the rich.
Why are voters seemingly not concerned about growing inequality? Using a mixed-methods approach and newly released data, this book aims to answer this question and to show possible ways forward for welfare states.
137 8 Populism, welfare chauvinism and hostility towards immigrants Anders Ejrnæs and Bent Greve Introduction This chapter looks into the development in populism, welfare chauvinism and hostility towards immigrants in different welfare regimes. As depicted both in the theoretical chapters and in Chapter 7, it seems that attitudes towards those who, rightly or wrongly, are taking jobs and/or using the benefit system can help in the deeper understanding of populism and welfare chauvinism. Immigration has been the most important issue among citizens since
This edition brings together specially commissioned reviews of key areas of social policy and considers a range of current issues within the field.
The book contains invaluable research, including discussions on modern slavery, childcare and social justice and welfare chauvinism, as well as a chapter centred on the Grenfell Tower fire. Bringing together the insights of a diverse group of experts in social policy, this book examines critical debates in the field in order to offer an informed review of the best in social policy scholarship over the past year.
Published in association with the SPA, the volume will be of interest to students and academics in social policy, social welfare and related disciplines.
In many European countries, processes of individualisation have contributed to transforming the middle class into a multitude of people, a sort of ‘middle mass’ with an unstable social identity and radical activism. The different ‘worlds’ of European welfare states seem progressively less able to manage this new kind of middle-class activism.
This book is an essential contribution to ongoing public and academic debates on the unpredictability of middle-class attitudes and on their changing relations with the welfare state. Identifying key trends in the literature, it considers the impact of recent welfare reforms on the needs and preferences of the middle class.
This book develops new ways of thinking beyond the nation as a form of political community by seeking to transcend ethnonational categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Drawing on scholarship and cases spanning Pacific Asia and Europe, it steps outside assumptions linking nation to state.
Accessible yet theoretically rich, it explores how to think about nationhood beyond narrow binaries and even broader cosmopolitan ideals. Using cutting-edge critical research, it fundamentally challenges the positive connotations of British patriotism and UK politics’ increasingly shrill anti-immigrant discourse, pointing to how these continue to reproduce vocabularies of belonging that are dependent on ethnonational and racialised categorisations.
With a cross-continental focus, this book offers alternative ways of thinking about togetherness and belonging that are premised on mobility rather than rootedness, thereby providing a constructive agenda for critical nationalism studies.
From anti-immigration agendas that criminalise vulnerable populations, to the punishment of the poor and the governance of parenting, this timely book explores how diverse fields of social policy intersect more deeply than ever with crime control and, in so doing, deploy troubling strategies.
The international context of this book is complemented by the inclusion of specific policy examples across the themes of work and welfare; borders and migration; family policy; homelessness and the reintegration of justice-involved persons.
This book incites the reader to consider how we can reclaim the best of the ‘social’ in social policy for the twenty-first century.
Thinking about climate change can create a paralyzing sense of hopelessness. But what about the idea of a planetary exodus? Are high tech solutions like colonizing other planets just another distraction from taking real action?
This radical book unsettles how we think about taking responsibility for environmental catastrophe.
Going beyond both hopelessness and false hope in his development of a ‘sociology of the very worst’, Hill debunks the idea of a society that centres human beings and calls for us to take responsibility for sustaining a coexistence of animals, plants and minerals bound by one planet.
We would then find the centre of our moral gravity here together on earth.
COVID-19 has transformed the British welfare state. The government has created millions of new beneficiaries, spent tens of billions of pounds it doesn’t have and created a mountain of public debt. And yet, when the crisis has passed, we will be left with all the old problems of welfare and well-being which we have systematically failed to address over the past 50 years.
In this book, Christopher Pierson argues that we need to think quite differently about how we can ensure our collective well-being in the future. To do this, he looks backwards to the welfare state’s origins and development as well as forwards, unearthing some surprising solutions in unexpected places.
The election of Barack Obama in the midst of the 2008 economic downturn brought hope to millions and presented an opportunity for expanding socio-economic rights. But the Obama administration was consistently constrained by the challenges of divided government, and the now threatened Affordable Care Act (‘Obamacare’) remains the stand-out welfare reform of his Presidency.
Using new research, Anne Daguerre examines Obama’s legacy on welfare and antipoverty policies, focusing in particular on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The book provides an up-to-date account of the contemporary politics of poverty and public entitlements in the US, comparing this with the Western European experience and its traditionally strong commitment to social welfare, to assess what lessons can be learned.
The ongoing social crises and moral conflicts evident in global social policy debates are addressed in this timely volume.
Leading interdisciplinary scholars focus on the ‘social’ of social policy, which is increasingly conceived in a globalised form, as new international agreements and global goals engender social struggles. They tackle pressing ‘social questions’, many of which have been exacerbated by COVID-19, including growing inequality, changing world population, ageing societies, migration and intersectional disadvantage.
This ground-breaking volume critically engages with contested conceptions of the social which are increasingly deployed by international institutions and policy makers. Focusing on social sustainability, social cohesion, social justice, social wellbeing and social progress this text is even more crucial as policy makers look to accelerate socially sustainable solutions to the world’s biggest challenges.
