‘Virtue’, ‘Citizen Character’ and ‘Social Environment’: Social Theory and Agency in Social Policy since 1830

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN OFFER
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Policy Theory ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
Over Time

This article takes a fresh look at the intellectual context of the poor law in Britain and Ireland from the 1830s to the 1930s, and is focused on the different conceptions over time of the ‘service user’ as agent (drawing on Le Grand) in relation to a fundamental contrast between social theory which is ‘non-idealist’ and ‘idealist’ (drawing on Harris). It first examines the ideas of liberal tories, rather than Benthamites, in remodelling the poor law in England and introducing it to Ireland in the 1830s. Second, it explicitly draws a contrast between idealist and non-idealist social thought, relating it to the idealist nature of both the majority and minority reports on the poor law of 1909 and to the non-idealist thought of Spencer and the earlier discussion. The subsequent dominance of idealist thought in social policy theory and practice is then reviewed, considering Titmuss on agency, the ‘rediscovery’ of informal care in the 1970s as evidence of a shift to the non-idealist perspective that people can act as rational agents for their own well-being, and the resurgent influence of idealist thought on ‘New Labour’. The article concludes that links identified between ideas of agency and types of social theory since the 1830s enhance our understanding of debates today.

scholarly journals Income Redistribution Predicts Greater Life Satisfaction Across Individual, National, and Cultural Characteristics.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Income Redistribution ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Cultural Characteristics ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Strong Hypothesis ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Over Time

The widening income gap between the rich and the poor has important social implications. Governmental-level income redistribution through tax and welfare policies presents an opportunity to reduce income inequality and its negative consequences. The current longitudinal studies examined whether within-region changes in income redistribution over time relate to life satisfaction. Moreover, I examined potential moderators of this relationship to test the strong versus weak hypotheses of income redistribution. The strong hypothesis posits that income redistribution is beneficial to most. The weak hypothesis posits that income redistribution is beneficial to some and damaging to others. Using a nationally representative sample of 57,932 German respondents from 16 German states across 30 years (Study 1) and a sample of 112,876 respondents from 33 countries across 24 years (Study 2), I found that within-state and within-nation changes in income redistribution over time were associated with life satisfaction. The models predicted that a 10% reduction in Gini through income redistribution in Germany increased life satisfaction to the same extent as an 37% increase in annual income (Study 1), and a 5% reduction in Gini through income redistribution increased life satisfaction to the same extent as a 11% increase in GDP (Study 2). These associations were positive across individual, national, and cultural characteristics. Increases in income redistribution predicted greater satisfaction for tax-payers and welfare-receivers, for liberals and conservatives, and for the poor and the rich. These findings support the strong hypothesis of income redistribution and suggest that redistribution policies may play an important role in societal well-being.

Robert Pinker on rethinking approaches to welfare

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Offer
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Welfare Pluralism ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The 1960S

This book examines Robert Pinker's selected works on social policy and welfare pluralism, past and present. Pinker began writing on social policy in the 1960s, undertaking research work on issues such as the development of health care within the poor law. He published books devoted to social policy, including Social Theory and Social Policy (1971) and The Idea of Welfare (1979), along with various articles on complementary topics. Pinker's main concern was to rethink the study of social policy, arguing that ‘theory’ should not be confused with ideology or rhetoric. His ideas were primarily built around such themes as stigma, conditional altruism, access to land and property, giving and receiving, and migration and civil war. In Social Theory and Social Policy, Pinker highlighted the distinction in social life between ‘givers’ and ‘receivers’. He also made explicit the areas of study under the heading of ‘sociology of morals’.

scholarly journals Global Discourses, Regional Framings and Individual Showcasing: Analyzing the World of Education IOs

2021 ◽  
pp. 163-186
Author(s):  
Dennis Niemann ◽  
Kerstin Martens
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
Organizational Field ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Over Time

AbstractEducation is commonly heralded as one of the key policies for fostering future progress and well-being. Hence, education policy can be conceptualized as a social policy as it enables individuals to acquire skills for living an independent and fulfilled life while also providing states with a toolkit to stimulate economic growth and social cohesion. In this chapter, we first map the population of education International Organizations (IOs) to describe the organizational field in which the social policy discourse in the sub-area of education takes place. The assessment of what types of IOs deal with education is summarized in a typology to identify different clusters of IOs and provide accounts of both their characteristics and the different niches they have populated in the organizational field of education policy. Second, the ideas IOs hold regarding education are analyzed and it is shown how the discourse on education has developed over time within the population of IOs.

The Winding Road to the Welfare State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
George R. Boyer
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Welfare Reforms

How did Britain transform itself from a nation of workhouses to one that became a model for the modern welfare state? This book investigates the evolution of living standards and welfare policies in Britain from the 1830s to 1950 and provides insights into how British working-class households coped with economic insecurity. The book examines the retrenchment in Victorian poor relief, the Liberal Welfare Reforms, and the beginnings of the postwar welfare state, and it describes how workers altered spending and saving methods based on changing government policies. From the cutting back of the Poor Law after 1834 to Parliament's abrupt about-face in 1906 with the adoption of the Liberal Welfare Reforms, the book offers new explanations for oscillations in Britain's social policies and how these shaped worker well-being. The Poor Law's increasing stinginess led skilled manual workers to adopt self-help strategies, but this was not a feasible option for low-skilled workers, many of whom continued to rely on the Poor Law into old age. In contrast, the Liberal Welfare Reforms were a major watershed, marking the end of seven decades of declining support for the needy. Concluding with the Beveridge Report and Labour's social policies in the late 1940s, the book shows how the Liberal Welfare Reforms laid the foundations for a national social safety net. A sweeping look at economic pressures after the Industrial Revolution, this book illustrates how British welfare policy waxed and waned over the course of a century.

Disaggregating Homicide: Changing Trends in Subtypes over Time

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (11) ◽  
pp. 1650-1668
Author(s):  
Sara Skott
Keyword(s):  
Classification System ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Statistical Approach ◽  
Relative Increase ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Policy Theory ◽  
Changing Trends ◽  
Multilevel Latent Class Analysis ◽  
Absolute Decrease ◽  
Over Time

Due to the heterogeneity of homicide, certain subtypes of homicide might have remained stable or even increased over time in the overall context of decline. Adding to the research attempting to identify a standardized classification system of homicide, this study used a novel, sophisticated statistical approach (multilevel latent class analysis [MLCA]) and an inductive theoretical stance to identify subtypes of homicide in Scotland and to examine how these types have changed over time. Using variables relating to the victim, offender, and the incident of homicide, four between-level types with three within-level classes of offenders in each type were identified. The findings showed that while all homicide types demonstrated an absolute decrease, domestic homicides had demonstrated a relative increase over time. Implications for policy, theory, and practice are discussed.

Wider medical welfare

2018 ◽  
pp. 186-219
Author(s):  
Steven King
Keyword(s):  
Medical Care ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Clear Sense ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Over Time

This chapter is concerned with a rich vein of poor law spending: on cash allowances, drugs, payments in kind and head such as apprenticeship. In most county communities, cash allowances grew in importance over time, both because it was more convenient for officials to give such allowances and then let the poor buy their own medical care and because the poor increasingly requested such allowances. Nonetheless, there is a clear sense that many officers continued to be active in purchasing drugs, devices, false limbs and food for the sick.

The Care Act 2014

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Burstow
Keyword(s):  
Social Care ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Care And Support ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
The Uk

This chapter examines the significance of Care Act 2014, a piece of legislation that modernises more than six decades of care and support law into a single, clear statute, which takes into account people's needs and what they want to achieve in their lives. Before discussing the main features of the Care Act, the chapter considers the Poor Law and how the Care Act breaks with the Poor Law principle of less eligibility, which persisted in National Assistance Act 1948. The National Assistance Act was the legal framework governing adult social care in England and Wales and replaced the Poor Law. The chapter also describes community-based approaches to social care, how well-being became the new organising principle for the Care Act, and the negative health and wealth impacts of caring. It concludes by analysing the debates about integrating health and social care in the UK.

Rethinking the Debates on the Poor Law in Early Nineteenth-Century England

Utilitas ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Eastwood
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social History ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Statutory Authority ◽  
Post War

One of the more interesting developments in recent historical writing has been a reconsideration of the debates over poor law reform. In the sharply-demarcated world of post-war scholarship, the poor law fell clearly, if somewhat problematically, into the domain of social history. For obvious contemporary reasons, post-war social history devoted a good deal of scholarly energy to constructing a history of social policy. Much of this work was problematized in terms of the then orthodox agenda of the welfare state. The dominant questions concerned modes of assessing entitlements, mechanisms for delivering welfare, and the bureaucratic characteristics of the old and new poor laws. Despite its considerable empirical merits, this kind of social history was inhibited by its methodological and problematic certainties. To a large extent this was a social history which defined itselfagainsttraditional political history, offering a narrative of social policy formation which, whilst not eliminating political processes from its account, tended to marginalize their normative significance. One extreme formulation was Sydney Checkland's ‘socially innocent state’. Here the loss of ‘social innocence’ on the part of the British state is evaluated directly in terms of its willingness to develop the kind of social agenda and administrative machinery characteristic of modern wellfarism. For Checkland in particular, social policy was conceived almost exclusively in terms of state-driven programmes of ‘social improvement’. The old poor law, with its pattern of local management, discretionary administration, and paternalist social vision flatly contracted the statutorily-articulated welfarism which Checkland took to be axiomatic to a coherently-conceived social policy. In terms of statutory authority and administrative machinery, Checkland saw the new poor law as a critical move towards a more coherently-constructed state social policy.

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