Alcohol, Politics and Social Policy

1986 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Baggott
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Alcohol Misuse ◽  
Lifestyle Factors ◽  
Present Form ◽  
Alcohol Policy ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
Alcohol Issue ◽  
Powerful Interest

ABSTRACTThe growing awareness of the importance of lifestyle factors in the prevention of ill-health has stimulated a number of policy studies. But of the main causes of preventable ill-health alcohol misuse has been comparatively neglected, in spite of the fact that it also has wider implications for a range of other social problems. This article attempts to fill this gap by charting the development of alcohol policy and the alcohol issue over the last three decades. The main intention is to explain why the policy has taken its present form. At the same time it sheds some light on why a more comprehensive alcohol policy has been rejected by successive UK governments. As a framework, three potential explanations for this rejection are outlined: opposition by powerful interest groups; the hostility of voters and politicians; and opposition by government bureaucracies. The analysis thus provides an opportunity to test the relevance of these theories in an area of policy which has wide implications for social welfare.

Robert Pinker, the Idea of Welfare and the Study of Social Policy: On Unitarism and Pluralism

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-634
Author(s):  
JOHN OFFER
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Welfare Pluralism ◽  
Richard Titmuss

AbstractThis article reappraises the distinction upon which Robert Pinker has insisted since the 1970s between the heuristic and the normative dimensions of concepts and theories associated with ‘welfare’ in social policy studies, a distinction prompted by, for instance, the writings of Richard Titmuss. It discusses Pinker's differentiation of forms of study which seek to account for the likenesses and unlikenesses within and between the welfare systems of different countries from forms of study aiming to establish moral criteria by which one system of welfare can be deemed superior to another. In particular, it highlights his emphasis on the need for social policy as a subject to attend to: (a) the reality of everyday ideas of social welfare and ‘faring well’ in general; (b) how everyday ideas of ‘faring well’ are exhibited in what he has called ‘conditional altruism’, whether exercised within families, towards strangers or across nations; (c) the practices undertaken by individuals and families to attain freedom and security as well as to meet those of their needs commonly taken within social policy studies to be the components of ‘welfare’; (d) the difficulties, moral, political, social and economic, associated with Titmussian welfare unitarism, in contrast to welfare pluralism. The article thus provides a review of aspects of Pinker's many published papers as well as his influential Social Theory and Social Policy and The Idea of Welfare.

scholarly journals Beijing's Policies for Managing Han and Ethnic-Minority Chinese Communities Abroad

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 183-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
James To
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Cooperative Groups ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Past ◽  
Vast Network ◽  
Powerful Interest

The overseas Chinese (OC) form a vast network of powerful interest groups and important political actors capable of shaping the future of China from abroad by transmitting values back to their ancestral homeland (Tu 1991). While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) welcomes and actively seeks to foster relations with the OC in order to advance China's national interests, some cohorts may be hostile to the regime. In accordance with their distinct demographic and ethnic profiles, the CCP's qiaowu ([Formula: see text], OC affairs) infrastructure serves to entice, co-opt, or isolate various OC groupings. This article summarises the policies for managing different subsets of OC over the past three decades, and argues that through qiaowu, the CCP has successfully unified cooperative groups for China's benefit, while preventing discordant ones from eroding its grip on power.

Public Spending and Social Policy: The United Kingdom 1950–1977

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Gould ◽  
Barbara Roweth
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
International Study ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Individual

ABSTRACTThis article, in which we examine developments in public expenditure on social policy in relation to total public spending in the United Kingdom (UK) in the period after the Second World War, is part of a larger international study on developments in social welfare spending on which we are currently engaged.In Section 1 we briefly sketch in the theoretical background to the study of public expenditure growth in general and social welfare spending in particular. We shall not in this article attempt to evaluate the validity of the competing hypotheses – this exercise is in hand as part of the international study, and we shall report the findings at a later date. Section 2 examines the growth of public expenditure in the UK at the aggregate level. In Section 3 we analyse public expenditure at the individual programme level and in Section 4 we summarize the conclusions.

Social Work and Social Welfare: The Organization of Philanthropic Resources in Britain, 1900–1914

1977 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Social System ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
The State ◽  
Charity Organization ◽  
Transitional Era

Late Victorian and Edwardian social reform has been studied in recent years in order to clarify that important transitional era when new state resources were being called upon to help redress the most glaring abuses which comprised the condition-of-England question. Most of these studies have emphasized the politics of social policy and have also subsumed the tangled and competitive world of philanthropy. But philanthropists were prominent in the politics and practice of social welfare. In his study of Edwardian social policy, Bentley Gilbert distinguishes three organizations as characteristic of “scientific social reform”: settlements (inspired by Canon Samuel Barnett), the Fabians, and the Charity Organization Society. His analysis of each concluded that “professionally-minded social work,” as represented by the C.O.S., least typified the transition from old to new attitudes about social policy. David Owen's examination of English philanthropy supports Gilbert's conclusions concerning the C.O.S., and less detailed surveys of social policy also cite that agency as representative of a philosophic individualism which rejected the policies necessary for reform. All agree that the charitable community called attention to many defects in the British social system, but they leave readers with the impression that it generally opposed state sponsored remedies for those ills.It is the concern of this essay to show that the “professionally-minded” world of Edwardian philanthropy was, like the state, developing new agencies and reorganizing its resources to help meet the massive and diverse welfare needs of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals Silent Non-Exit and Broken Voice. Early Postcommunist Social Policies as Protest-Preempting Strategies

Südosteuropa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-174
Author(s):  
Pieter Vanhuysse
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
Distributive Conflict

Abstract This essay contributes to the development of an analytical political sociology examination of postcommunist policy pathways and applies such an analysis in a reinterpretation of the social policy pathways taken by Hungary and Poland. During the critical historical juncture of the early 1990s, governments in these new democracies used social policies to proactively create new labor market outsiders (rather than merely accommodate or deal with existing outsiders) in an effort to stifle disruptive repertoires of political voice. Microcollective action theory helps to elucidate how the break-up of hitherto relatively homogeneous clusters of threatened workers into newly competing interest groups shaped the nature of distributive conflict in the formative first decade of these new democracies. In this light, we see how the analytical political sociology of postcommunist social policy can advance and modify current, predominantly Western-oriented theories of insider/outsider conflict and welfare retrenchment policy, and can inform future debates about emerging social policy biases in Eastern Europe.

Local Policy Discretion in Social Welfare: Explaining Subnational Variations in China's De Facto Urban Poverty Line

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Yu Guo ◽  
Alex Jingwei He ◽  
Fei Wang
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
The Social ◽  
Developmental Policies ◽  
Policy Arena

Abstract How do subnational agents exercise policy discretion in the social welfare sphere? To what extent do they do so as a result of various bureaucratic and fiscal incentives? The literature has documented several explanatory frameworks in the context of China that predominantly focus on the realm of developmental policies. Owing to the salient characteristics of the social policy arena, local adaptation of centrally designed policies may operate on distinctive logics. This study synthesizes the recent scholarship on subnational social policymaking and explains the significant interregional disparities in China's de facto urban poverty line – the eligibility standard of the urban minimum livelihood guarantee scheme, or dibao. Five research hypotheses are formulated for empirical examination: fiscal power effect, population effect, fiscal dependency effect, province effect and neighbour effect. Quantitative analysis of provincial-level panel data largely endorses the hypotheses. The remarkable subnational variations in dibao standards are explained by a salient constellation of fiscal and political factors that are embedded within the country's complex intergovernmental relations and fiscal arrangements. Both a race-to-the-top and a race-to-the-bottom may be fostered by distinctive mechanisms. The unique role of provincial governments as intermediary agents within China's political apparatus is illuminated in the social policy arena.

Firepower

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Lacombe
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Mass Shootings ◽  
National Rifle Association ◽  
Powerful Interest ◽  
Active Base

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is one of the most powerful interest groups in America, and has consistently managed to defeat or weaken proposed gun regulations — even despite widespread public support for stricter laws and the prevalence of mass shootings and gun-related deaths. This book provides an unprecedented look at how this controversial organization built its political power and deploys it on behalf of its pro-gun agenda. Taking readers from the 1930s to the age of Donald Trump, the book traces how the NRA's immense influence on national politics arises from its ability to shape the political outlooks and actions of its followers. The book draws on nearly a century of archival records and surveys to show how the organization has fashioned a distinct worldview around gun ownership and has used it to mobilize its supporters. It reveals how the NRA's cultivation of a large, unified, and active base has enabled it to build a resilient alliance with the Republican Party, and examines why the NRA and its members formed an important constituency that helped fuel Trump's unlikely political rise. The book sheds vital new light on how the NRA has grown powerful by mobilizing average Americans, and how it uses its GOP alliance to advance its objectives and shape the national agenda.

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