Justice As Welfare

Drawing together leading international experts such as Knut Halvorsen, Robert Y. Shapiro, Stefan Svallfors and Wim van Oorschot, this volume addresses issues of justice and legitimacy in the context of welfare state transformation. The contributors demonstrate that the Western welfare state is not at risk of losing support or encountering fundamental opposition, but does face serious challenges including growing social and ethnic diversity, new social risks, fiscal constraints and contested notions of justice. The volume focuses on four main aspects: attitude formation in cross-national perspective, the just distribution of burdens and benefits, political factors mediating the effects of social attitudes on public policy and challenges to the welfare state stemming from immigration and ethnic diversity. Providing a comparative perspective on the issue, Social Justice, Legitimacy and the Welfare State makes a significant contribution to the literature on the public standing of the welfare state.

Western welfare states are in a period of significant transition. Changes in the nature of work and the family, the growing elderly population, and other developments over the past fifty years have rendered existing welfare policies largely out-of-step with economic and social conditions. While welfare state reform clearly raises important questions about justice and social policy, political philosophers have been slow to address it. Justice, Care, and the Welfare State takes up the important task of developing a theory of justice to guide contemporary welfare state reform. Applying normative political philosophy to public policy issues, it addresses questions such as: What role, if any, should states play in supporting families? Should the state support national health care and, if so, why and in what form? What does society owe to the elderly? What role should welfare states play in supporting disabled people? What obligations does the state have toward the poor? As distinct from many works of political philosophy, Justice, Care, and the Welfare State draws on empirical data about the populations and circumstances of existing Western societies and offers concrete policy advice for reforming welfare policies. Noting that many of the challenges confronting people in post-industrial societies involve issues of care, Engster draws on a public ethics of care to develop his theory of welfare state justice, outlining specific policy proposals in the areas of the family, education, health care, old age pensions and long-term care, disability, and poverty and unemployment. The book offers important insights into how Western welfare states can be reformed in light of recent economic and social changes in order better to promote justice. It should be of interest to political philosophers, welfare state scholars, public policy analysts, and others interested in thinking about contemporary policy reform and justice.

The ?social safety net? created in Canada after World War II faced serious challenges from the early 1980s onwards. Neoliberal economic policies pursued by successive federal and provincial governments left many groups of people ? especially those in precarious work, women, racialized minorities, older individuals and Indigenous communities ? highly vulnerable and seriously under-protected. Social justice and full equality can come about only if systemic barriers such as these are acknowledged and completely eliminated. About This Edition This edition focuses on the transformative social policies and universal programs that are needed to promote personal and social well-being and ensure full equality of opportunity for all. Social workers at home and abroad are committed to building inclusive communities, promoting participatory democracy, fighting racism, and actively addressing the problems of economic sustainability, and climate change. The social work profession provides an excellent opportunity to join with health care professionals and others to bring about the fundamental changes necessary to ensure full inclusion, equity and social justice, and a safer and prosperous future.

"Social justice is a highly contested term, with all political parties now claiming it for their own. Some clarity about the value base of social justice and what it means in practice is therefore essential to make sense of these claims. This book does that most effectively for a range of key forms of welfare provision. In a very readable way, and with substantial illustrative material, it takes the reader from engagement with key theories and concepts of social justice into the world of social welfare and crime control politics, policy and practice, showing what a socially just world might look like. The authors are to be congratulated on an impressive collection of writing." Gary Craig, Professor of Social Justice, University of Hull, UK This book explores ways of defining and enacting social justice in the context of modern social welfare and crime control policies. It examines how the notion of social justice informs experiences and understandings of the social world, why it appeals to so many people as a mobilising ideal for social change and reform, and how it shapes the claims, demands and actions that people take in the pursuit of the 'good society'. The authors employ an interdisciplinary approach to explore the interrelationship between social policy and criminology. With international content and a sustained focus across the book on different kinds of evidence, it helps readers to gauge the role of evidence in social science and policy development. Designed as an interactive teaching text, the book includes a range of student-friendly learning features, such as case studies, activities and questions for discussion, making it ideal for both classroom-based and distance learners. Social Justice is a key text for students in criminology, social policy and social justice.

This groundbreaking book brings together perspectives from political philosophy and comparative social policy to discuss generational justice. Contributing new insights about the preconditions for designing sustainable, inclusive policies for all of society, the authors expose the possibilities of supporting egalitarian principles in an aging society through balanced generational welfare contracts.

Justice as Welfare provides an egalitarian account of distributive justice by rethinking notions of welfare. It first considers possible forms of decentered welfare to promote communal and individual autonomy rather than the bureaucratic, centralized market-oriented control. Next, it uses theoretical resources to rethink the conventional notions of solidarity that support welfare. Drawing on recent work in continental philosophy, Justice as Welfare suggests that welfare requires a notion of social ontology. It provides both an account of the existential context of communal risk sharing and a framework to think about desire, value, and opportunity. Noting present political and economic realities, it suggests that international strategies to control 'flight capital' are necessary to create and maintain egalitarian welfare. Justice as Welfare aims to present a convincing theoretical account of welfare as social justice and to show how this requires the assertion of democratic control over economic and social reproduction at both national and international levels. This philosophically informed argument about egalitarian justice will appeal to anyone researching issues of social welfare, political theory, and applied political philosophy.

Focuses on values and the historical impact of socio-economic structures Understanding Social Welfare: A Search for Social Justice is presented in an organized, comprehensive, and scholarly manner, including social policy concepts. It is accessible to students and helps them acquire the basic tools for understanding, analyzing, and evaluating social welfare policies and programs. This text focuses on the impact of social structure on people's lives, emphasizing the current concerns of diverse client populations and the search for social justice. It places U.S. welfare in philosophical, political, economic, and international contexts, and includes the latest discussion of policy issues related to gay men and lesbians. A better teaching and learning experience This program will provide a better teaching and learning experience--for you and your students. Here's how: Improve Critical Thinking -- Challenges readers to make their own decisions as they encounter policies and programs with enhanced knowledge and analytic skills. Engage Students -- Presents the historical evolution of social welfare and focuses on issues, trends, and conflicts in the context of influential societal developments and values. Explore Current Issues -- Includes the latest discussion of policy issues related to gay men and lesbians. Support Instructors -- An Instructor's Manual and Test Bank, Computerized Test Bank (MyTest), Blackboard Test Item File, and PowerPoint presentations are included in the outstanding supplements package.