John Offer and Robert Pinker (eds) (2017), Social Policy and Welfare Pluralism: Selected Writings of Robert Pinker, Bristol: Policy Press, £80.00, pp. 352, hbk.

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (03) ◽  
pp. 643-644
Author(s):  
Lutz Leisering
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare Pluralism

The right to welfare

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Pinker
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Welfare Capitalism ◽  
Welfare Pluralism ◽  
The Right ◽  
Right To Welfare ◽  
The Relationship

In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses T.H. Marshall's concern with welfare pluralism, his study of citizenship and welfare, and his contribution to the development of social policy and administration. He begins with an overview of Marshall's achievement in the field of sociology and some of his major works such as Sociology at the Crossroads and Social Policy in the Twentieth Century, along with the essays entitled ‘Value Problems of Welfare-Capitalism’ and ‘Citizenship and Social Class’. Pinker continues by analysing Marshall's thoughts on the relationship between the inequalities of class and the prospective equality of citizenship and his argument that collectivist social services contribute to the maintenance and enhancement of social welfare so long as such interventions do not subvert the operation of the system of competitive markets. Pinker concludes with an assessment of Marshall's views on social and political rights, the problem of poverty, and the concept of ‘democratic-welfare-capitalism’.

Golden Ages and welfare alchemists

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Pinker
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
New Right ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Classical Political Economy ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Welfare Pluralism

In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses the idea of ‘Golden Age’ theories in social policy thought and what he calls ‘welfare alchemists’ whose visions these theories encapsulate. According to Pinker, these grand theories are in reality ideologies and can be collectivist or individualist in origin. Regardless of their origins, however, they fail to address the need for the compromises between values which are reached in pluralist and democratic social contexts. Pinker also provides an overview of the influence of classical political economy and the New Right on British social policies under different Conservative governments and goes on to describe socialism as a repository of Golden Age theorizing, along with the concept of community in relation to welfare pluralism. Finally, he examines the institutions of Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft as well as the traditions of collectivism and individualism, arguing that they should not continue to coexist in democratic societies.

Social Policy and Welfare Pluralism

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
Welfare Pluralism ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
First Time ◽  
Selection Of

This book presents a thematic selection of writings by eminent sociologist Robert Pinker on social policy and welfare pluralism, bringing together for the first time many articles that have either never before been published or are difficult to access today. 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, along with various articles on complementary topics. Pinker's main concern was to rethink the study of social policy. 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. Organized by theme, the articles and chapters in this book cover such key topics as how families and communities act in defining and providing their own welfare, how attitudes to social services differ among users and nonusers, how social and political theories relate to actual policies, stigma and social welfare, the welfare state, and much more. In doing so, the volume brings to the fore the importance and continuing relevance of Pinker's work.

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.

On welfare pluralism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Offer
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
The Third ◽  
Welfare Pluralism ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Uk

One writer has described welfare pluralism as ‘a vital, but relatively neglected, part of social policy’ (Powell, 2007: 2). Pinker, however, did not neglect it. The third section explores some of the key arguments for pluralism in social policy in the UK which Pinker has highlighted since the 1980s. In this section in particular, space considerations have meant that it is a necessity that some of the many interesting essays by Pinker on pluralism have to be summarised here rather than reprinted....

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 Study on the Strategy of Social Policy Integration in the Construction of the Yangtze River Delta City Group

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Xingke Bi ◽  
Kai Yu
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Yangtze River ◽  
Yangtze River Delta ◽  
River Delta ◽  
The Yangtze River ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
Welfare Pluralism ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Yangtze River Delta ◽  
City Group

"The development plan of Yangtze River Delta city group" puts forward to promote the construction of the Yangtze River Delta city group and speed up the optimization and upgrading of the Yangtze River Delta city group. How to achieve social policy integration is the key to the construction of the Yangtze River Delta city group. This paper analyzes the factors that hinder the social policy integration of the Yangtze River Delta city group from employment, social security, health care, education and housing security and other aspects. Then we use the welfare pluralism theory to analyze the obstacles from the government, the society and the family of three subjects, and put forward the corresponding measures to solve the problems.

From gift relationships to quasi-markets: an odyssey along the policy paths of altruism and egoism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Pinker
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Blood Donors ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Blood Products ◽  
Exchange Relationships ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Moral Qualities ◽  
Welfare Pluralism

In this chapter, Robert Pinker explores the conditionality and ‘mix’ of altruism and egoism and provides theoretical and rational rather than ideological or doctrinaire justifications for welfare pluralism. He begins by discussing The Price of Blood, a monograph that reviewed the arguments for and against paying blood donors and developing a role for competitive markets in the sale and purchase of blood products. Pinker challenges Richard Titmuss's analysis of the moral qualities that underpin exchange relationships in his 1970 book The Gift Relationship. He also reflects on his works Social Theory and Social Policy (1971) and The Idea of Welfare (1979) which, together with The Gift Relationship and Julian Le Grand's Motivation, Agency, and Public Policy (2003), illustrate the ways in which the normative debate about the ends and means of social policy and its entire institutional framework has changed.

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