On welfare pluralism

Author(s):  
John Offer

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....

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Brown ◽  
Kathryn Ecclestone ◽  
Nick Emmel

Social injustices, structural and personal crises as well as intensifying stress on some citizens seem increasing preoccupations in contemporary society and social policy. In this context, the concept of vulnerability has come to play a prominent role in academic, governmental and everyday accounts of the human condition. Policy makers and practitioners are now concerned with addressing vulnerability through an expansive range of interventions. As this special issue draws attention to, a vulnerability zeitgeist or ‘spirit of the time’ has been traced in contemporary welfare and disciplinary arrangements (Brown, 2014, 2015), which now informs a range of interventions and approaches to social problems, both in the UK and internationally. As prominent examples, ‘vulnerable’ people are legally entitled to ‘priority need’ in English social housing allocations (Carr and Hunter, 2008), vulnerable victims of crime are seen as requiring special responses in the UK criminal justice system (see Roulstoneet al., 2011; Walkgate, 2011), ‘vulnerable adults’ have designated ‘protections’ under British law (Dunnet al., 2008; Clough, 2014) and vulnerable migrants and refugees are increasingly prioritised within international immigration processes (Peroni and Timmer, 2013). There is a long tradition in the field of social policy of critiquing the implications of particular concepts as mechanisms of governance, from poverty (Townsend, 1979; Lister, 2004) and social exclusion (Levitas, 1998; Young 1999) to risk (Beck, 1992; Kemshall, 2002) and resilience (Ecclestone and Lewis, 2014; Wright, 2016). Yet while vulnerability seems to be one of the latest buzzwords gathering political and cultural momentum, critiques and empirical studies of how it is operationalised in different policy and practice contexts are less well elaborated.


Author(s):  
Vito Breda

En este artículo se analiza la devolution escocesa y la repercusión potencial en España del referéndum consultivo sobre la independencia de Escocia que tendrá lugar en 2014. Este referéndum podría ser percibido como uno de los muchos efectos del reciente resurgimiento nacionalista y su resultado es todavía objeto de especulaciones. Sin embargo, la posibilidad de asistir a la disolución de una de las más antiguas democracias occidentales como resultado de un referéndum es motivo de gran preocupación para los constitucionalistas en España. Se argumentará que el riesgo de un referéndum similar en España es bajo. Los procesos que han impulsado el referéndum sobre la independencia de Escocia son el resultado de un discurso pragmático que se produjo dentro de una historia constitucional específicamente británica. Por ejemplo, tanto las tradiciones constitucionales escocesa como británica consideran a sus parlamentos respectivos como los depositarios del poder constitucional soberano. El artículo se divide en tres partes, precedidas por una introducción y seguidas de una conclusión. La primera parte contiene una discusión metodológica preliminar que explica el elemento distintivo del Sistema de Derecho Público del Reino Unido. La segunda explica las características distintivas de la devolution escocesa. En particular, se aclaran los efectos de tener dos parlamentos (el escocés y el del Reino Unido) que se aferran a dos conceptos diferentes de soberanía legislativa. En la tercera sección se compara el proceso constitucional a seguir para la celebración del referéndum escocés y un pretendido referéndum sobre la secesión de una de las Comunidades Autónomas españolas.This article discusses the Scottish Devolution and the potential repercussion of the 2014 consultative referendum over Scottish independence in Spain. The 2014 referendum might be perceived as one of the many effects of the recent nationalist revival and its result is still a matter of speculations. However, the possibility of seeing the dissolution of one of the oldest western democracies as the result of a referendum is of great concern for constitutional lawyers in Spain. I would argue that a risk of an analogous referendum in Spain is low. The processes that were the proxy for the Scottish referendum over independence are the result of a pragmatic discourse that took place within a distinctively British constitutional history. For instance, both the Scottish and UK constitutional traditions consider their respective parliament the repository of sovereign constitutional power. The article is divided in three parts, preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion. The first part is a preliminary methodological discussion that explains the distinctive element of the UK Public Law System. The second explains the distinctive features of the Scottish Devolution. In particular, I will elucidate the effects of having two parliaments (the Scottish and the UK ) that hold on to two different concepts of legislative sovereignty. The third section compares the constitutional process required for the Scottish referendum and a putative referendum over a region secession in Spanish autonomous regions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Psoinos

This paper explores how refugees in the UK perceive the relation between their experience of migration and their psychosocial health. Autobiographical narrative interviews were carried out with fifteen refugees residing in the UK. The findings reveal a contrast between the negative stereotypes concerning refugees’ psychosocial health and the participants’ own perceptions. Two of the three emerging narratives suggest a more balanced view of refugees’ psychosocial health, since- in contrast to the stereotypes- most participants did not perceive this through the lens of ‘vulnerability’. The third narrative revealed that a hostile social context can negatively shape refugees’ perceptions of their psychosocial health. This runs counter to the stereotype of refugees as being exclusively responsible for their ‘passiveness’ and therefore for the problems they face. 


Author(s):  
Barbara Kellerman

The chapter focuses on how leadership was taught in the distant and recent past. The first section is on five of the greatest leadership teachers ever—Lao-tzu, Confucius, Plato, Plutarch, and Machiavelli—who shared a deep belief in the idea that leadership could be taught and left legacies that included timeless and transcendent literary masterworks. The second section explores how leadership went from being conceived of as a practice reserved only for a select few to one that could be exercised by the many. The ideas of the Enlightenment changed our conception of leadership. Since then, the leadership literature has urged people without power and authority, that is, followers, to understand that they too could be agents of change. The third section turns to leadership and management in business. It was precisely the twentieth-century failure of business schools to make management a profession that gave rise to the twenty-first-century leadership industry.


This volume addresses the relationship between archaeologists and the dead, through the many dimensions of their relationships: in the field (through practical and legal issues), in the lab (through their analysis and interpretation), and in their written, visual and exhibitionary practice--disseminated to a variety of academic and public audiences. Written from a variety of perspectives, its authors address the experience, effect, ethical considerations, and cultural politics of working with mortuary archaeology. Whilst some papers reflect institutional or organizational approaches, others are more personal in their view: creating exciting and frank insights into contemporary issues that have hitherto often remained "unspoken" among the discipline. Reframing funerary archaeologists as "death-workers" of a kind, the contributors reflect on their own experience to provide both guidance and inspiration to future practitioners, arguing strongly that we have a central role to play in engaging the public with themes of mortality and commemoration, through the lens of the past. Spurred by the recent debates in the UK, papers from Scandinavia, Austria, Italy, the US, and the mid-Atlantic, frame these issues within a much wider international context that highlights the importance of cultural and historical context in which this work takes place.


Author(s):  
Paul Brooker ◽  
Margaret Hayward

The Armani high-fashion example illustrates the importance of adaptive rational methods in his founding and developing of an iconic high-fashion firm. Armani adapted stylistically to fashion’s new times in the 1970–80s by creating a new style catering for the career woman. His stylistic adaptation is compared with that of another famous Italian fashion designer, Versace, who instead modernized haute couture fashion and created a succession of glamourous styles. Both leaders exploited the same opportunity but in different ways. The third section compares these leaders’ legacies in the 1990s–2000s and assesses from a long-term perspective how capably they had used adaptive rational methods. The final section shifts the focus from fashion to the cosmetics industry and from Italy to the UK. Anita Roddick used adaptive rational methods to establish The Body Shop corporation in the 1970s–80s. However, she then abandoned rational methods with dire results for her corporation in the 1990s.


1984 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 118-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. H. Scarisbrick ◽  
R. W. Daniels

Oilseed rape is currently the third most important crop in the UK after barley and wheat. Field experiments show that despite the already attractive yields the full potential of the crop has not yet been achieved. However, its future is uncertain in that the area devoted to it within the EEC—representing one-fifth of world production—is strongly influenced by the financial incentives offered. It is suggested that within the Community output should be limited to 3.3m tonnes p.a. for the next five years.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Davie

This article places the British material on religion and social policy in a comparative perspective. In order to do so, it introduces a recently completed project on welfare and religion in eight European societies, entitled ‘Welfare and Religion in a European Perspective’. Theoretically it draws on the work of two key thinkers: Gøsta Esping-Andersen and David Martin. The third section elaborates the argument: all West European societies are faced with the same dilemmas regarding the provision of welfare and all of them are considering alternatives to the state for the effective delivery of services. These alternatives include the churches.


2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN KENYON ◽  
JACKIE RAFFERTY ◽  
GLENN LYONS

This paper reports findings from research into the possibility that mobility-related social exclusion could be affected by an increase in access to virtual mobility – access to opportunities, services and social networks, via the Internet – amongst populations that experience exclusion. Transport is starting to be recognised as a key component of social policy, particularly in light of a number of recent studies, which have highlighted the link between transport and social exclusion, suggesting that low access to mobility can reduce the opportunity to participate in society – a finding with which this research concurs. Following the identification of this causal link, the majority of studies suggest that an increase in access to adequate physical mobility can provide a viable solution to mobility-related aspects of social exclusion.This paper questions the likelihood that increased physical mobility can, by itself, provide a fully viable or sustainable solution to mobility-related aspects of social exclusion. Findings from both a desk study and public consultation suggest that virtual mobility is already fulfilling an accessibility role, both substituting for and supplementing physical mobility, working to alleviate some aspects of mobility-related social exclusion in some sectors of society. The paper incorporates an analysis of the barriers to and problems with an increase in virtual mobility in society, and concludes that virtual mobility could be a valuable tool in both social and transport policy.


Author(s):  
Kent Roach

This chapter examines the distinct operational and ethical challenges that prosecutors face in national security and especially terrorism cases. The second part of this chapter focuses on the operational challenges that prosecutors face. These include demands for specialization that may be difficult to fulfill given the relative rarity of national security prosecutions; the availability of special investigative powers not normally available in other criminal cases; exceptionally broad and complex offenses; and the demands of federalism and international cooperation. The third part examines ethical and normative challenges that run throughout the many operational aspects of the prosecutorial role in national security cases. These include the challenges of ensuring that often exceptional national security laws are enforced in a manner consistent with the rule of law and human rights. There are also challenges of maintaining an appropriate balance between legitimate claims of secrecy and legitimate demands for disclosure and between maintaining prosecutorial independence and discretion while recognizing the whole of government and whole of society effects of the many difficult decisions that prosecutors must make in national security cases.


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