A policy process approach to the poor laws

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha A. Shave
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Approach ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social

This chapter provides a detailed thematic analysis of the historiographical shifts in the study of the poor laws. It starts with an examination of how an emphasis by historians on the lives and experiences of the poor grew from the ‘history from below’ approach over the last 50 years. Recent analyses of the experiences of the poor have claimed we have paid too much attention to the administration of the poor laws. It questions what we mean by administration, and argues that knowledge of how pauper policies worked is actually pivotal to our knowledge of the poor laws, especially if we are to understand how individuals, including the poor, could influence pauper policies. Then, using a ‘policy process’ model developed in the social sciences, it presents an analysis of what we already understand, and what has remained ill-understood, about the poor laws. The focus is on several themes: policy-making, policy implementation and policy development and change. The main themes which arise from this analysis are explored in the rest of this book.

Conclusion: reform and innovation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha A. Shave
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Process Approach ◽  
National Legislation ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Reform And Innovation

The first half of this chapter examines the implications of these findings for our understandings of several areas of the poor laws: local ideas and policy transfer, national legislation and policy-making. The second half of the conclusion focuses on the influences upon the development of the poor laws. It examines the role of stakeholders and key actors, each with distinct roles in the policy process across both the old and New Poor Law eras. The chapter finishes by discussing more broadly how the policy process approach can be applied to understand reform and innovation in the broader field of social and public policy.

Introduction: pauper policies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha A. Shave
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Process Approach ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Welfare Receipt ◽  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
History Of

The opening chapter explains the book’s purpose, to understand the practice of the poor laws in England. It provides a history of the main poor laws, paying particular attention to the period 1780 to 1850. The introduction will explain why this research does not follow the direction of recent research about individuals’ experiences of welfare receipt, instead making the case for the rethinking and repositioning of the importance of relief administration. The book unpicks the dynamism of pauper policies: how they emerged, were taken up, implemented and developed in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This is achieved using a ‘policy process’ approach developed by social scientists, which allows for an understanding of the dynamism of policy, as well as for the identification and examination distinct parts of the policy process. The chapter then introduces the context of the research, southern England, an area of varied employment opportunities but immense poverty in the late eighteenth century. The introduction finishes with descriptions of the remaining chapters, guiding the reader through the book.

War Widows and Welfare Queens

2019 ◽  
pp. 584-605
Author(s):  
Brittany Pearl Battle
Keyword(s):  
Policy Development ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Deserving Poor ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Undeserving Poor

This chapter examines the sociocognitive dimensions of cultural categorizations of deservingness. The social issue of poverty has been a persistent source of debate in the American system of policy development, influenced by conceptual distinctions between the “haves” and “have-nots,” “working moms” and “unemployed dads,” and the “deserving poor” and the “undeserving poor.” Although there is a wealth of literature discussing the ideological underpinnings of stratification systems, these discussions often focus on categorical distinctions between the poor and the nonpoor, with much less discussion of distinctions made among the poor. Moreover, while scholars of culture and policy have long referenced the importance of cultural categories of worthiness in policy development, the theoretical significance of these distinctions has been largely understudied. I expand the discourse on the relationship between cultural representations of worth and social welfare policy by exploring how these categories are conceptualized. Drawing on analytical tools from a sociology of perception framework, I create a model that examines deservingness along continuums of morality and eligibility to highlight the taken-for-granted cultural subtleties that shape perceptions of the poor. I focus on social filters created by norms of poverty, welfare, and the family to explore how the deserving are differentiated from the undeserving.

“The Idea of Rights”: Tocqueville on The Social Question

2017 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 649-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianna Englert
Keyword(s):  
Political Rights ◽  
Class Division ◽  
Social Question ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Private Charity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Novel Theory ◽  
Policy Solutions

AbstractTocqueville's writings on pauperism have gained renewed attention in the last decade. Scholars study hisMemoir on Pauperism(1835) to contextualize his thought in the nineteenth century, to question the extent of his liberalism, or to locate his policy solutions on a spectrum from private charity to state welfare. Yet Tocqueville's response to pauperism must be interpreted in light of “the social question,” or the problem of how to alleviate not only the material ills of poverty, but also the phenomenon of social exclusion that accompanied it. His discussion of the social question, I argue, illuminates his particular theory of rights and their possibilities. His thoughts on the poor laws culminate in a novel theory of the educative potential of property rights. This theory of rights prompts us to revisit his position on extending political rights and on the role of political participation in overcoming class division.

Delivery Structures and Policy Development in Post-Devolution Scotland

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Parry
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Employment Outcomes ◽  
New Labour ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Annual Reports

The policy process in the devolved Scottish system reconciles the Scottish themes of delivering social policy from the centre, through channels of advice and professional direction, and the New Labour theme of broad social policy strategies aiming at better service delivery and employment outcomes. Beneath the surface issues there is a trend to re-structure some services. The Scottish Executive's strategy Social Justice, set out in annual reports, relates devolved and non-devolved responsibilities in a way that has implications for the structure of Executive departments and the policy-making demands made upon civil servants. The research reported here uses interviews with officials to explore the structures of policy making in the Executive within a context of expectations about ministerial and official roles inherited from the previous administrative devolution.

scholarly journals The Participation and its Patterns in Policy Process: The Korean Case in an Age of Authoritarianism and Modernization

1990 ◽  
Vol 5 (0) ◽  
pp. 45-51
Author(s):  
Hae-Kyun Ahn
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political System ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
Legitimacy Crisis

In the modern society, it is a critical criteria who and how to participate in policy process. In order to determine whether a political system is a real democratic one or not, we must examine that who participate and that the participating mechanism is in the order. In the days of modernization and industrialization, Korea has suffered from legitimacy crisis and from mal-function of political participation. So, to analyze Korean society, we have first to analyze its policy process and policy participation. First, let me begin with the concept of policy process and participation. The concept of policy process is very dynamic one which includes all the stages of policy formation, policy-making, policy implementation and evaluation. Dynamic and diverse as it is, no agreed views can be found as to the minor stages of policy process.

scholarly journals The Convention to Combat Desertification and the Role of Innovative Policy-Making Discourses: The Case of Burkina Faso

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Bruyninckx
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Agenda 21 ◽  
The Impact

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification is a mix of traditional regime elements with a set of innovations. These innovative elements can be interpreted as emanations of policy discourses that have been gaining in importance since the introduction and the fairly broad acceptance of sustainable development and Agenda 21 as guiding conceptual frameworks. In this article I first elaborate on three of those discourses: the participatory, the decentralization and the local knowledge discourses. In a second part, I will look at Burkina Faso as an example of UNCCD policy implementation at the national and the local level (Yatenga region). It will become clear that although changes are visible in policy-making dynamics, major difficulties and obstacles remain. The CCD undeniably has an impact at the national level of policy-making. It has provided support for decentralization, for more participatory processes of policy-making and for the inclusion of local knowledge in the policy process. At the more decentralized level the impact is less clear and more difficult to distinguish.

The Functions of Progressionals in Gerontology in Policy Making: A Case History from Massachusetts

1975 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-73
Author(s):  
Louis Lowy
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Task Force ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Advisory Body ◽  
The Past ◽  
Expert Power ◽  
To Receive

This paper describes and assesses the functions which a Professional Task Force Committee has performed as an advisory body to the State Unit on Aging in Massachusetts, the Executive Office of Elder Affairs, and how this committee has aided in its development in the past 2 years. As such it illustrates the kind of contributions which professionals in gerontology can make in policy-making for the elderly. This experience in Massachusetts has demonstrated that a body of professionals linked together through an appropriate structure, can shape and effect policies that a State Unit on Aging eventually promulgates. The expert can and should make his expertise available in policy analysis, policy development, and in policy implementation. But, at the same time, the expert must recognize that, like everybody else, he needs a corrective; otherwise expert power will be guiding too much the direction of a State Unit on Aging (or any other government department) and this may not always be in the interest of those who are going to receive services and to be the beneficiaries of social programs.

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