‘Every Town Should Have One’: Emergency Food Banking in the UK

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
HANNAH LAMBIE-MUMFORD
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Big Society ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach

AbstractThis article charts the rise of one of the UK's most high profile forms of food banks: the Trussell Trust Foodbank franchise. Employing empirical data it seeks to embed the phenomenon of the growth of Foodbanks within a social policy research context. In the first instance, the role of recent and on-going shifts in the social policy context are examined, notably the importance of welfare diversification under previous Labour governments (1997–2010) and the current public spending cuts, welfare restructuring and Big Society rhetoric of the Conservative−Liberal Democrat Coalition government. The paper goes on to explore the nature of Foodbanks as emergency initiatives, providing relief and alleviation for the ‘symptoms’ of food insecurity and poverty. Data are presented which demonstrate some of the ways in which the Foodbank model and those who run the projects navigate the tension between addressing symptoms rather than ‘root causes’ of poverty and food insecurity. In the face of the simultaneous growth in emergency food initiatives and significant upheavals in social policy and welfare provision, the article culminates with an argument for social policy research and practice to harness and prioritise the human rights-based approach to food experiences.

scholarly journals The Business-Social Policy Nexus: Corporate Power and Corporate Inputs into Social Policy

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEVIN FARNSWORTH ◽  
CHRIS HOLDEN
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Fiscal Policies ◽  
Corporate Power ◽  
National Competitiveness ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Business Influence ◽  
The Welfare State

It is increasingly impossible to understand and explain the shape and delivery of contemporary social policy unless we consider the role of business. Several factors have been at work here. First, many of the changes in social policy introduced since the 1970s have been in response either to business demands or more general concerns about national competitiveness and the needs of business. Second, globalisation has increased corporate power within states, leading to transformations in social and fiscal policies. Third, business has been incorporated into the management of many areas of the welfare state by governments keen to control expenditure and introduce private sector values into services. Fourth, welfare services, from hospitals to schools, have been increasingly opened up to private markets. Despite all this, the issues of business influence and involvement in social policy has been neglected in the literature. This article seeks to place corporate power and influence centre-stage by outlining and critically reflecting on the place of business within contemporary welfare states, with a particular focus on the UK. Business, it argues, is increasingly important to welfare outcomes and needs to be taken into account more fully within the social policy literature.

Doing space and star power: Foucault, exclusion–inclusion and the spatial history of social policy

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-68
Author(s):  
Chris Philo
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Pivot Point ◽  
Star Power ◽  
Spatial History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Space Distance

This chapter discusses Michel Foucault, the celebrated French intellectual, as a spatial historian of social policy: as someone who, in critical and scholarly veins, consistently probed ideas and practices constitutive of an envisaged ‘right ordering of the social’, particularly but not exclusively in settings from the past of Western Europe. Taking his early-1970s lecture course on The Punitive Society as a pivot-point, the chapter explores a key transition in Foucault’s thinking about the role of space in such an ordering of the social: a shift from seeing space (distance, barrier, boundary) primarily as a tool for excluding troublesome populations (abandonment, banishment, segregation) to seeing space (arrangements, distributions, relations) as additionally a tool for including such populations (reforming, rehabilitation, reintegration). Identifying this transition helps to sharpen understanding of the different ways in which a spatialising of social policy research can proceed.

scholarly journals Review Article: Household Finances Under Pressure: What is the Role of Social Policy?

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey Appleyard
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Housing Wealth ◽  
Household Finances ◽  
Financial Exclusion ◽  
The Social ◽  
Household Assets

Within the context of the 2007 financial crisis and the (ongoing) financial crisis for many households and consumers, this review article explores the key debates in the social policy literature surrounding household accumulation of assets and debts. The first section contextualises emerging debates surrounding inequalities, financial exclusion and the need for greater financial citizenship within the post financial crisis era. The second section of the article considers household assets and debts, whilst the third section explores housing wealth and mortgage arrears. The fourth section examines recent research on how households manage their money. The final section of the article concludes by exploring the potential pathways for social policy research in relation to broader debates within the social sciences on household finances, assets and debts.

scholarly journals Assessing the Past and Future Development of EU and UK Social Policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Hantrais
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Reciprocal Influence ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
The Social ◽  
Subsidiarity Principle ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
The Uk

This article examines both the place of the social dimension in past and on-going debates about the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union and the reciprocal influence of EU and UK institutions on developments in the social policy field. It explores fluctuations in the relationship between economic and social policy, the divisiveness within, between and across political parties, the role of key policy actors in shaping the social agenda, and the failure of attempts to harmonise social welfare systems as enlargement intensified their diversity. We argue that, although difficult to predict, the implications of Brexit for future social policy in the UK and EU may not be so far-reaching as in some other policy areas, due largely to the maintenance of unanimous voting and the subsidiarity principle in many social domains, combined with the shift towards soft law and the widespread resistance of member states to tighter social integration.

scholarly journals Solidarity with disabled people in times of crisis: A comparative analysis of Italy and the UK

2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092199450
Author(s):  
Nicola Maggini ◽  
Tom Montgomery ◽  
Simone Baglioni
Keyword(s):  
Social Trust ◽  
Important Determinant ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Disabled People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religious Piety ◽  
Active Nature ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk

Against the background of crisis and cuts, citizens can express solidarity with groups in various ways. Using novel survey data this article explores the attitudes and behaviours of citizens in their expressions of solidarity with disabled people and in doing so illuminates the differences and similarities across two European contexts: Italy and the UK. The findings reveal pools of solidarity with disabled people across both countries that have on the one hand similar foundations such as the social embeddedness and social trust of citizens, while on the other hand contain some differences, such as the more direct and active nature of solidarity in Italy compared to the UK and the role of religiosity as an important determinant, particularly in Italy. Across both countries the role of ‘deservingness’ was key to understanding solidarity, and the study’s conclusions raise questions about a solidarity embedded by a degree of paternalism and even religious piety.

scholarly journals Migration infrastructures and the production of migrants’ irregularity in Japan and the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nando Sigona ◽  
Jotaro Kato ◽  
Irina Kuznetsova
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Legal Violence ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Access And Quality ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe article examines the migration infrastructures and pathways through which migrants move into, through and out of irregular status in Japan and the UK and how these infrastructures uniquely shape their migrant experiences of irregularity at key stages of their migration projects.Our analysis brings together two bodies of migration scholarship, namely critical work on the social and legal production of illegality and the impact of legal violence on the lives of immigrants with precarious legal status, and on the role of migration infrastructures in shaping mobility pathways.Drawing upon in-depth qualitative interviews with irregular and precarious migrants in Japan and the UK collected over a ten-year period, this article develops a three-pronged analysis of the infrastructures of irregularity, focusing on infrastructures of entry, settlement and exit, casting a comparative light on the mechanisms that produce precarious and expendable migrant lives in relation to access to labour and labour conditions, access and quality of housing and law enforcement, and how migrants adapt, cope, resist or eventually are overpowered by them.

Party-Political and Socio-Economic Сonsequences of Elections to the German Bundestag

2021 ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
V.B. Belov
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
The Face ◽  
German Bundestag ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Further Development

The article examines the results of the last Bundestag elections. They marked the end of the Angela Merkel era and reflected the continuation of difficult party-political and socio-economic processes in the informal leader of the European Union. The main attention of the research focuses on the peculiarities of the election campaign of the leading parties and of the search for ways of further development of Germany in the face of urgent economic and political challenges. These challenges include the impact of the coronavirus crisis, the impact of the energy and digital transition to a climate-neutral economy, and the complex international situation. Based on original sources, the author analyzes the causes of the SPD victory and the CDU/CSU bloc defeat, the results of the negotiations of the Social Democrats with the Greens and Liberals, the content of the coalition agreement from the point of view of the prospects for the development of domestic and foreign policy and the economy of Russia's main partner in the west of the Eurasian continent. The conclusion is made about the absence of breakthrough ideas, the consistent continuation of the course started by the previous government for a carbon-free economy and the strengthening of the role of Germany in Europe and the world. For this course, conflicts and problems in achieving the set goals will be immanent due to the compromising nature of the coalition agreements.

THE ROLE OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (11) ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Irina N. Mysliaeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Liberal Ideology

The article examines the causes and directions of transformation of the social functions of the state. The role of liberal ideology in changing the forms and methods of state social policy in the context of globalization is determined. The interrelation between specific measures of social support of the population and the interests of large transnational capital in modern society is revealed.

Thinking about Religious Welfare and Rethinking Social Policy in the British Context

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rana Jawad
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Ways Of Being

The role of religion in social welfare provision, and more broadly in shaping the development of state social policy in the UK, has become an issue of increasing prominence in the last decade raising both new challenges and opportunities. This article brings together new and existing research in the field of religion and social action/welfare in the British context to present a preliminary discussion of how and why religion, as a source of social identity and moral values, matters for social policy. The key argument is that religious welfare provision goes beyond the mixed economy of welfare paradigm and has the capacity to challenge the Utilitarian underpinnings of mainstream social policy thinking by giving more relative importance to ethical issues such as self-knowledge and morality, in addition to the more conventional concepts of wellbeing or happiness. The article proposes the concept of ways of being in order to bring together these moral ideational factors that underpin social welfare.

Social Policy Review 32

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
British Society ◽  
Family Welfare ◽  
Youth Justice ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk ◽  
International Social ◽  
The Welfare State

This book presents an up-to-date and diverse review of the best in social policy scholarship over the past year. The book considers current issues and critical debates in the UK and the international social policy field. It contains vital research on race in social policy higher education and analyses how welfare states and policies address the economic and social hardship of young people. The chapters consider the impacts of austerity on the welfare state, homelessness, libraries and other social policy areas. The book begins by asking what are the pressing racial inequalities in contemporary British society and to what extent is social policy as a discipline equipped to analyse and respond to them. It then discusses the key analysis and messages from the Social Policy Association (SPA) race audit, looking at the challenges facing the discipline, and moves on to examine the experience and views of young British Muslim women in Sunderland. Attention is given to the ‘othering’ of migrants, family welfare resources on young people's transition to economic independence, youths' labour market trajectories in Sweden, innaccessibility to community youth justice in England and Wales, benefits entitlement of different UK families, and the book concludes with the final chapters focussing on the impacts of austerity.

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