Brutal Youth: Colin MacInnes and the Architecture of the Welfare State

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-39
Author(s):  
Simon Lee
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Racial Conflict ◽  
British Fiction ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
The Way

Colin MacInnes’ London trilogy is known for its prominent focus—unusual in British fiction of the time—on class and racial conflict in mid-century London. Comprised of City of Spades (1957), Absolute Beginners (1959), and Mr Love and Justice (1960), the trilogy plots the complicated enactment of the new welfare-state’s reconstruction strategies from the post-war resurgence of slum clearance, to the forced evictions of suburban migration, to the development and erection of alienating council flats. In doing so, MacInnes offers a distinctive take on Londoners’ responses to these strategies, demonstrating the way mindful urban planning was shouldered aside by quixotic and hurried resolutions. As part of a vibrant wave of mid-century British writing sensitive to issues of class, race, and gender, MacInnes’ fiction scrutinized postwar urban displacement as it happened and without any of the benefit of hindsight. This article, then, highlights the distinctively nuanced perspectives that socially-attuned and classconscious literature can offer in terms of understanding the tangible impact of space on social stratification.

scholarly journals ISLAM AND MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN NORWAY

2019 ◽  
pp. 225-240
Author(s):  
Leirvik Oddbjørn
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Trust Building ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Majority Population ◽  
Close Observation ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
The Way

In this paper the author describes and analyzes central features of Islam and Muslim-Christian relations in Norway. By close observation of the tension between interreligious solidarity and aggressive identity politics, the author highlights some central features of the trust-building Christian-Muslim dialogue in Norway. He also notes how anti-Islamic sentiments in part of the majority population are reflected in radicalization among some Muslim youths. However, the situation in general is described in more optimistic terms. He also identifies two examples showing that the majority of the Muslim population seem to endorse strong values evident in society in general– such as the welfare state and gender equality. Finally, the author poses the question pertaining to the way in which Christians and Muslims may adopt a unified stance against extremism.

Visions of Post-independence India in Arne Sucksdorff’s Documentaries

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil Stjernholm
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
National Cinema ◽  
Indian Village ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
The Way

This article studies two post-war documentary films set in India, Indian Village (1951) and The Wind and the River (1953), directed by the celebrated Swedish filmmaker Arne Sucksdorff. While many scholars have studied these films in relation to Sucksdorff’s biography and Swedish national cinema, less emphasis has been placed on these Indian documentaries in relation to other international documentary work that took place in India during the post-independence period. The excursion to India took place on commission from the Swedish Cooperative Union and Wholesale Society and therefore the films are studied in relation to Charles R. Acland and Haidee Wasson’s notion of “useful cinema.” In doing so, this article emphasizes the didactic ideas behind the production of sponsored film and the way in which ideas of the welfare state were projected onto post-independence India. Reading these documentaries against the grain, this article also addresses the question of how these films affected the authorial discourse surrounding Arne Sucksdorff and conversely what impact his films had among critics and filmmakers in India.

Gender, Race, and Class in the Local Welfare State: Moving beyond Regulation Theory in Analysing the Transition from Fordism

1995 ◽  
Vol 27 (10) ◽  
pp. 1539-1554 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Bakshi ◽  
M Goodwin ◽  
J Painter ◽  
A Southern
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Social Regulation ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
French School ◽  
And Gender ◽  
British State ◽  
The Welfare State

In this paper we attempt to provide a conceptual framework which can help inform our analysis and understanding of current transformations taking place within the welfare state. We argue that the French school of regulationist literature, though able to provide a broad frame of reference for analysing contemporary shifts in economy and society, needs to be supplemented by an analysis which focuses on the racialised and gendered character of the welfare state. In the paper the ways in which the ‘universal’ welfare state has operated to exclude minorities and marginalised groups are charted, and we argue that in practice the Fordist mode of social regulation (MSR) operating in Britain generated a hierarchy of oppression. This hierarchy was constituted through the relations of class, race, and gender, and we show how these are currently being redefined as the British state seeks to mediate the crisis tendencies inherent in the Fordist MSR.

The emergence of the idea of ‘the welfare state’ in British political discourse

2021 ◽  
pp. 095269512110344
Author(s):  
David Garland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Core ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Subsequent Integration ◽  
The Welfare State

This article traces the emergence of the term welfare state in British political discourse and describes competing efforts to define its meaning. It presents a genealogy of the concept's emergence and its subsequent integration into various political scripts, tracing the struggles that sought to name, define, and narrate what welfare state would be taken to mean. It shows that the concept emerged only after the core programmes to which it referred had already been enacted into law and that the referents and meaning of the concept were never generally agreed upon – not even at the moment of its formation in the late 1940s. During the 1950s, the welfare state concept was being framed in three distinct senses: (a) the welfare state as a set of social security programmes; (b) the welfare state as a socio-economic system; and (c) the welfare state as a new kind of state. Each of these usages was deployed by opposing political actors – though with different scope, meaning, value, and implication. The article argues that the welfare state concept did not operate as a representation reflecting a separate, already-constituted reality. Rather, the use of the concept in the political and economic arguments of the period – and in later disputes about the nature of the Labour government's post-war achievements – was always thoroughly rhetorical and constitutive, its users aiming to shape the transformations and outcomes that they claimed merely to describe.

Existential Crisis of the Japanese American Woman: A Study of Post War Japanese American Fiction

Ensemble ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-56
Author(s):  
Nitusmita Bhattacharyya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
American Woman ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Native Community ◽  
American Women ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Existential Crisis ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Post War

The Japanese American women, during the Second World War, suffered from subjugation at different levels of their existence. They had been subjected to marginalization based on their sexual identity within their native community. They were further made to experience discrimination on the basis of their racial status while living as a member of the Japanese diaspora in the United States during the War. The objectification and marginalization of the women had led them to the realization of their existence as a non -entity within and outside their community. However, the internment of Japanese Americans followed by the declaration of Executive Order 9066 by President Roosevelt and the consequent experience of living behind the barbed wire fences left them to struggle with questions raised on their claim to existence and their identity within a space where race and gender contested each other. In my research paper, I have made a humble attempt at studying the existential crisis of the Japanese American women in America during the War.

The Covenant Paradox

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Sniderman ◽  
Michael Bang Petersen ◽  
Rune Slothuus ◽  
Rune Stubager
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Temporal Logic ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Evaluative Judgments ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
The Way

This chapter presents a theory of the covenant paradox, i.e., the moral covenant underpinning the welfare state that simultaneously promotes equal treatment for (some) immigrants and provides a platform for discrimination against (other) immigrants. It first discusses under what conditions and why the moral premises of the welfare state favor the equal treatment of immigrants. It then considers under what conditions and why the very same moral premises open the door to discrimination against immigrants. It shows that the key to these contradictory outcomes is the temporal logic of evaluative judgments. Prospective judgments of benefits and obligations favor equal treatment. Retrospective judgments, again of benefits and obligations, pave the way for discriminatory treatment.

Welfare and the State

2000 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 105-120
Author(s):  
Melanie Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Moral Worth ◽  
The State ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Welfare State

Once upon a time, there was a consensus in this country that the welfare state was the jewel in the crown of the post-war settlement. It was a national badge of moral worth. It was held to embody certain virtues that people told themselves were the hallmark of a civilised society: altruism, equity, dignity, fellowship. It defined Britain as a co-operative exercise which bound us together into a cohesive society. Or so we told ourselves.

scholarly journals MPs' Attitudes to Welfare: A New Consensus?

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
HUGH BOCHEL ◽  
ANDREW DEFTY
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
New Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Mixed Economy ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Welfare State

The post-war ‘consensus’ on welfare was based largely in the perceived agreement of leading politicians of Conservative and Labour parties on the role of the mixed economy and the welfare state. However, from the late 1970s economic and demographic pressures and ideological challenges, particularly from the New Right, led to cuts in spending on welfare, increased private involvement and an emphasis on more individualistic and selectivist approaches to provision. Recently some scholars have begun to discuss the emergence of a ‘new liberal consensus’ around welfare provision. Drawing upon interviews with 10 per cent of the House of Commons, this article examines the extent to which a new political consensus upon welfare can be identified. In addition to analysing responses to questions on welfare issues, it considers the extent to which MPs themselves believe there to be some degree of consensus in approaches to welfare. It also considers whether any consensus exists merely in the political language used in relation to welfare issues, or whether there is a more substantive convergence.

Resignation at the Treasury: the Social Services Committee and the Failure to Reform the Welfare State, 1955–57

1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Constructive Development ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
Main Protagonist ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
Welfare Expenditure

ABSTRACTBetween 1955–7 welfare expenditure in Britain came under serious attack. The main protagonist was the Treasury and its chosen implement a five-year review of the social services, to be presided over by a ministerial Social Services Committee. The attack rebounded, for the Committee provided the opportunity for the consolidation of the defence of welfare expenditure and for a frontal attack on Treasury assumptions. This neglected episode in Conservative government social policy places in historical context the early defeat of monetarism (with Thorneycroft's resignation in 1958) and provides the background to the establishment of the Plowden Committee and of the Public Expenditure Survey Committee. It also raises questions about the degree of post-war consensus and the failure to make the constructive development of the welfare state an objective of ‘conviction’ politics.

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