Selling The Welfare State

Originally published in 1988, this book offers the first comprehensive and critical analysis of the privatisation of public housing in Britain. It outlines the historical background to the growth of public housing and the developing political debatea surrounding its disposal. The main emphasis in the book, however, is on the ways in which privatisation in housing links to other key changes in British society. The long trend for British social housing to become a welfare housing sector is related to evidence of growing social polarisation and segregation. Within this overall context, the book explores the uneven spatial and social consequences of the policy.

The 1996 Welfare Reform Act promised to end welfare as we knew it. In Selling Welfare Reform, Frank Ridzi uses rich ethnographic detail to examine how new welfare-to-work policies, time limits, and citizenship documentation radically changed welfare, revealing what really goes on at the front lines of the reformed welfare system. Selling Welfare Reform chronicles how entrepreneurial efforts ranging from front-line caseworkers to high-level administrators set the pace for restructuring a resistant bureaucracy. At the heart of this remarkable institutional transformation is a market-centered approach to human services that re-framed the definition of success to include diversion from the present system, de-emphasis of legal protections and behavioral conditioning of poor parents to accommodate employers. Ridzi draws a compelling portrait of how welfare staff and their clients negotiate the complexities of the low wage labor market in an age of global competition, exposing the realities of how the new "common sense" of poverty is affecting the lives of poor and vulnerable Americans.

Originally published in 1984, Privatisation and the Welfare State brings together a distinguished set of experts on the Welfare State and its main policy areas of health care, housing, education and transport. Each chapter provides some much-needed analysis of privatisation policies in areas where, too often, political rhetoric is allowed to dominate discussion. The book makes a major contribution to the reader’s understanding of the complex issues involved in this controversial area of social policy. As the first systematic evaluation of a broad range of welfare state privatisation proposals, it is essential reading for economists, social administrators, and political scientists.

The Right to Buy has had a massive impact on Housing in the UK for 35 years and in 2015 there were proposals to extend it. But what is the Right to Buy policy, how has it developed and what has its impact been? What evidence is there about the wider and unintended consequences of the policy? How are the proposals to extend the policy in England likely to affect future housing provision and what alternatives are there? In The Right to Buy, Alan Murie provides an authoritative account of the origins, development and impact of the policy across the UK and proposals for its extension in England (and decisions to end it in Scotland and Wales). Presenting up-to-date statistical material the book engages with debates about transfers to private renting, the impact on public expenditure and on the current housing situation, addresses the proposals for new legislation and details the potential impact of these. It is an essential read for anyone interested in this highly topical issue.

First published in 1991, Beyond the Welfare State? has been thoroughly revised and updated for this new edition, which draws on the latest theoretical developments and empirical evidence. It remains the most comprehensive and sophisticated guide to the condition of the welfare state in a time of rapid and sometimes bewildering change. The opening chapters offer a scholarly but accessible review of competing interpretations of the historical and contemporary roles of the welfare state. This evaluation, based on the most recent empirical research, gives full weight to feminist, ecological, and "anti-racist" critiques and also develops a clear account of globalization and its contested impact upon existing welfare regimes. The book constructs a distinctive history of the international growth of welfare states and offers a comprehensive account of recent developments from "crisis" to "structural adjustment." The final chapters bring the story right up to date with an assessment of the important changes effected in the 1990s and the prospects for welfare states in the new millennium.

This 'Very Short Introduction' discusses the necessity of welfare states in modern capitalist societies. Situating social policy in an historical, sociological, and comparative perspective, David Garland brings a new understanding to familiar debates, policies, and institutions.

The welfare state plays a key role in people’s everyday lives in developed societies. At the same time, the welfare state is contested and there are constant discussions on how and to what degree the state should intervene, influence and have an impact on the development of society. Recent years have seen an accelerated transformation of the welfare state in the light of the global financial crisis, demographic change and changes in the perception of the state’s role in relation to social welfare. This raises fundamentally new issues related to social policy and welfare state analysis. This book provides: an introduction to the principles of welfare a conceptual framework necessary for understanding social policy at the macro-level a comparative approach to welfare states globally an overview of new ways to organise and steer welfare states an introduction to welfare state politics and underlying economic framework an account of equality and inequality in modern societies new directions for welfare states The book’s focus on core concepts and the variety of international welfare state regimes and mechanisms for delivering social policy provides a much needed introduction to the rapidly changing concept of welfare for students on social policy, social studies, sociology and politics courses.

A comparative analysis of social policies in Britain and France between 1914 and 1945.