Social and Public Policy > Public Policy
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How and why do civil society actors change their modes of activism and strategies under the condition of shrinking civil society space in authoritarian states? Previous studies have tended to juxtapose participatory activism, associated with broader mobilisation, and transactional activism, based on coalition building and professionalised civil society organisations. Using the illustrative example of the environmental social movement organisation RazDel’niy Sbor (‘Separate Collection’) in Saint Petersburg, we demonstrate how the strategic repertoire of civil society organisations changes from participatory to transactional activism over time. The study takes a dynamic outlook on strategies and explores how transactional activism and professionalisation are built on the previous successful participatory phase. Furthermore, the study expands our understanding of the participatory mode of activism that is interpreted in an innovative and safe way to avoid repression in the authoritarian political context of modern Russia.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many leaders claimed that their public health policy decisions were ‘following the science’; however, the literature on evidence-based policy problematises the idea that this is a realistic or desirable form of governance. This article examines why leaders make such claims using blame avoidance theory. Based on a qualitative content analysis of two national newspapers in each of Australia, Canada and the UK, we gathered and focused on unique moments when leaders claimed to ‘follow the science’ in the first six months of the pandemic. We applied Hood’s theory to identify the types of blame avoidance strategies used for issues such as mass event cancellation, border closures, face masks, and in-person learning. Politicians most commonly used ‘follow the science’ to deflect blame onto processes and people. When leaders’ claims to ‘follow the science’ confuse the public as to who chooses and who should be held accountable for those decisions, this slogan risks undermining trust in science, scientific advisors, and, at its most extreme, representative government. This article addresses a gap in the literature on blame avoidance and the relationship between scientific evidence and public policy by demonstrating how governments’ claims to ‘follow the science’ mitigated blame by abdicating responsibility, thus risking undermining the use of scientific advice in policymaking.
A popular explanation for governments’ persistent enthusiasm for evidence-based policymaking (EBPM) is its expected capacity to solve policy conflict. However, research is divided on whether or not EBPM actually has a positive impact on conflict. On the one hand, EBPM is said to introduce a set of principles that helps overcome political differences. Simultaneously, EBPM has been criticised for narrowing the space for democratic debate, fuelling the very conflict it is trying to prevent. This article explores how EBPM structures policy conflict by studying the example of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) in policy processes through reconstructive interviews and ethnographic observations. It argues that, although EBPM channels conflict in a way that prompts engagement from stakeholders, it also escalates conflict by misrepresenting the nature of policy processes. As such, the findings suggest that managing process participants’ expectations about what evidence is and can do is key in fostering productive policy conflict.
Few commentators believe the UK government’s policy framework for achieving its target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net zero by 2050 is sufficient. There is a strong case for a carbon or energy tax, but from a social policy perspective such taxes raise distributive concerns. Yet, as this chapter shows, taxation of carbon already exists in the UK in a range of fiscal instruments that affect the cost/price of GHG emissions. These have emerged uncoordinated with little concerted analysis of their distributive impact or the adequacy of benefit payments that mitigate impact. The chapter shows existing UK carbon taxation to be highly regressive with mitigation efforts wholly insufficient, particularly with respect to the lowest-income decile households. What is required, it is suggested, is a re-consideration of domestic energy taxation encompassing the development of fully worked through compensatory mechanisms, including universal services delivering basic needs.
With tax issues high on the political agenda, this broad-based edited collection fills a significant gap in both the tax and social policy literatures. Bringing together disparate debates and based on a wealth of research, it provides a detailed analysis of how tax and social policy interact with each other and the role of taxation as an instrument of social policy influencing redistribution and behaviour.
The book’s 15 chapters guide readers through the key interactions and the challenges posed by the complex interplay of tax and social policies across the main policy domains. Together, they consider the full range of fiscal resources, including much that has remained part of the hidden wiring of taxation. Wealth, consumption, environmental and income taxes are examined, as is the impact of local and indirect as well as direct taxes on individuals, families, communities and societal wellbeing. Each chapter also considers how analyses might be combined and policy options developed for more effective delivery and impact. Individually and conjointly, they raise searching questions about the ways that taxes influence behaviour and how taxation might be used to work in tandem with social policies to tackle structural inequalities.
With its interrogation of existing sources as well as new research, it is essential reading for both social policy and tax analysts and will stimulate debate, policymaking and further research.
The tax system is not simply about raising revenues; it is also about distributing favours and picking winners. Many of the ‘penalties’ but also rewards of the tax system over the past few decades have been distributed disproportionately to big business, coinciding with increases in other types of corporate welfare. This chapter focuses on the issue of corporate taxation, but it also looks at how tax shares and tax benefits are distributed unevenly, not just between citizens and corporations but also between different types of business.
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the social policy implications and politics of employment-related taxes with respect to both paid employment and self-employment. Taxes levied on paid employment, including both income tax and National Insurance contributions, represent a major source of revenue for the British state, comprising more than 40 per cent of the overall tax revenue of the UK government – well ahead of value added tax, corporation tax and any other remaining sources of revenue – while also serving as a key tool for redistribution. As revenue-raising mechanisms, they also pose fundamental questions around fairness, justice and effectiveness, both in comparison to other types of taxation and when differences in tax regimes depending on employment status are considered.
Tax and welfare are both aspects of fiscal policy, yet a failure to treat them as such has hindered attempts to promote either economic prosperity or fairness. Over the decades, governments have experimented with integrating the two systems – negative income tax on the Right and more progressive forms of tax credit on the Left – but neither has made a significant impact on overall inequality. Campaigns for radical schemes such as Basic Income have again been generating both enthusiasm and criticism in recent years. Has the public appetite for such schemes changed as a result of the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and, very lately, the emergence of a more right-wing turn by the latest Conservative governments? The chapter concludes with a call for greater transparency, analysis and public debate.
Fiscal welfare and tax expenditures are tax reliefs created by governments to run public policies through taxation rather than through public spending programmes. Yet their impact on individuals, the economy and broader society is still remarkably neglected. Left hidden, if not secret, they are not scrutinised and analysed along with direct public spending. As the chapter shows, their UK scale is considerable, greater than in most countries, and the costed policy-motivated reliefs alone probably exceed 8 per cent of gross domestic product.
After introducing the concepts and their definitions, the available UK evidence that HMRC has at last begun to reveal is considered. While many more tax reliefs are now being costed, there is very little analysis, especially of their distributive and behavioural impact. Yet most income tax reliefs and many others are means-enhancing and confer greater benefits on those liable to higher rates of tax: this is in marked comparison to social security, which has become increasingly means-tested for those of working age. Failure to take account in policymaking of this reinforcement of inequality in society and other behavioural consequences serves to undermine, if not sabotage, public spending objectives with considerable political as well as social impact. In addition, the benefits of tax reliefs to employers and institutions such as pension funds, building and other industries have received little scrutiny. Possible policies to achieve greater transparency, accountability, equality and fairness are considered.
This chapter outlines how attention has moved since the 1980s from challenging gender inequality within taxation itself to examining how the tax system works to increase or decrease a variety of gender inequalities in society. After a brief look at independent taxation, the defining gender issue when Taxation and Social Policy was published in 1980, the chapter introduces Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB), a movement to democratise and make budgets more gender sensitive. The main principles of the GRB approach are outlined, including why gender responsiveness across a range of inequalities should be the aim rather than gender blindness, and its application examined both internationally and through its specific focus within the UK. These GRB principles are then discussed by applying them successively to the societal functions of tax and some specific UK taxes.
