Nina Holm Vohnsen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526101341
- eISBN:
- 9781526128539
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526101341.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
The absurdity of bureaucracy offers an ethnographic portrayal of an attempt to make and implement evidence-based policy set in the Danish labour market system in 2009. It departs from the author’s ...
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The absurdity of bureaucracy offers an ethnographic portrayal of an attempt to make and implement evidence-based policy set in the Danish labour market system in 2009. It departs from the author’s puzzlement that the civil servants she met during her research would maintain a double stance towards their work; they were convinced they were in the process of constantly improving the welfare system while at the same time they found the outcome of their decisions and the system they constructed in the process deeply absurd. The main protagonist of the book is the randomized controlled trial Active – Back Sooner which was a central component of the Danish Government’s Action Plan on Sickness Benefit meant to reduce to the cost of sickness benefit and to secure the ‘active labour force’. It is the continuous planning and disintegration of this effort and the myriad of decisions made in relation to it that is the primary object of empirical portraiture and theoretical discussion. Based on 12 months of participant observation and ethnographic interviewing in the Danish Ministry of Employment and one of the implementing municipalities the book documents how rejected reasons and alleyways of action return to haunt the decision-makers (be they caseworkers, the government administration, or politicians) creating an absurd world of contradictions and dilemmas. The book documents how ‘going wrong’ is built into the very nature of decision-making and suggests that the analysis of absurdity is central to any understanding of how policy develops and how implementation works.Less
The absurdity of bureaucracy offers an ethnographic portrayal of an attempt to make and implement evidence-based policy set in the Danish labour market system in 2009. It departs from the author’s puzzlement that the civil servants she met during her research would maintain a double stance towards their work; they were convinced they were in the process of constantly improving the welfare system while at the same time they found the outcome of their decisions and the system they constructed in the process deeply absurd. The main protagonist of the book is the randomized controlled trial Active – Back Sooner which was a central component of the Danish Government’s Action Plan on Sickness Benefit meant to reduce to the cost of sickness benefit and to secure the ‘active labour force’. It is the continuous planning and disintegration of this effort and the myriad of decisions made in relation to it that is the primary object of empirical portraiture and theoretical discussion. Based on 12 months of participant observation and ethnographic interviewing in the Danish Ministry of Employment and one of the implementing municipalities the book documents how rejected reasons and alleyways of action return to haunt the decision-makers (be they caseworkers, the government administration, or politicians) creating an absurd world of contradictions and dilemmas. The book documents how ‘going wrong’ is built into the very nature of decision-making and suggests that the analysis of absurdity is central to any understanding of how policy develops and how implementation works.
John O. McGinnis
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151021
- eISBN:
- 9781400845453
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151021.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
Successful democracies throughout history have used the technology of their time to gather information for better governance. Our challenge is no different today, but it is more urgent because the ...
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Successful democracies throughout history have used the technology of their time to gather information for better governance. Our challenge is no different today, but it is more urgent because the accelerating pace of technological change creates potentially enormous dangers as well as benefits. This book shows how to adapt democracy to new information technologies that can enhance political decision making and enable us to navigate the social rapids ahead. This book demonstrates how these new technologies combine to address a problem as old as democracy itself—how to help citizens better evaluate the consequences of their political choices. As society became more complex in the nineteenth century, social planning became a top-down enterprise delegated to experts and bureaucrats. Today, technology increasingly permits information to bubble up from below and filter through more dispersed and competitive sources. The book explains how to use fast-evolving information technologies to more effectively analyze past public policy, bring unprecedented intensity of scrutiny to current policy proposals, and more accurately predict the results of future policy. But he argues that we can do so only if government keeps pace with technological change. For instance, it must revive federalism to permit different jurisdictions to test different policies so that their results can be evaluated, and it must legalize information markets to permit people to bet on what the consequences of a policy will be even before that policy is implemented. This book reveals how we can achieve a democracy that is informed by expertise and social-scientific knowledge while shedding the arrogance and insularity of a technocracy.Less
Successful democracies throughout history have used the technology of their time to gather information for better governance. Our challenge is no different today, but it is more urgent because the accelerating pace of technological change creates potentially enormous dangers as well as benefits. This book shows how to adapt democracy to new information technologies that can enhance political decision making and enable us to navigate the social rapids ahead. This book demonstrates how these new technologies combine to address a problem as old as democracy itself—how to help citizens better evaluate the consequences of their political choices. As society became more complex in the nineteenth century, social planning became a top-down enterprise delegated to experts and bureaucrats. Today, technology increasingly permits information to bubble up from below and filter through more dispersed and competitive sources. The book explains how to use fast-evolving information technologies to more effectively analyze past public policy, bring unprecedented intensity of scrutiny to current policy proposals, and more accurately predict the results of future policy. But he argues that we can do so only if government keeps pace with technological change. For instance, it must revive federalism to permit different jurisdictions to test different policies so that their results can be evaluated, and it must legalize information markets to permit people to bet on what the consequences of a policy will be even before that policy is implemented. This book reveals how we can achieve a democracy that is informed by expertise and social-scientific knowledge while shedding the arrogance and insularity of a technocracy.
Marjorie Mayo, Gerald Koessl, Matthew Scott, and Imogen Slater
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781447311027
- eISBN:
- 9781447311034
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447311027.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
Access to justice for all, regardless of the ability to pay, has been a core democratic value. But this basic human right has come under threat through wider processes of restructuring, with an ...
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Access to justice for all, regardless of the ability to pay, has been a core democratic value. But this basic human right has come under threat through wider processes of restructuring, with an increasingly market-led approach to the provision of welfare. Professionals and volunteers in Law Centres in Britain are struggling to provide legal advice and access to welfare rights to disadvantaged communities. Drawing upon original research, this unique study explores how strategies to safeguard these vital services might be developed in ways that strengthen rather than undermine the basic ethics and principles of public service provision. The book explores how such strategies might strengthen the position of those who provide, as well as those who need, public services, and ways to empower communities to work more effectively with professionals and progressive organisations in the pursuit of rights and social justice agendas more widely.Less
Access to justice for all, regardless of the ability to pay, has been a core democratic value. But this basic human right has come under threat through wider processes of restructuring, with an increasingly market-led approach to the provision of welfare. Professionals and volunteers in Law Centres in Britain are struggling to provide legal advice and access to welfare rights to disadvantaged communities. Drawing upon original research, this unique study explores how strategies to safeguard these vital services might be developed in ways that strengthen rather than undermine the basic ethics and principles of public service provision. The book explores how such strategies might strengthen the position of those who provide, as well as those who need, public services, and ways to empower communities to work more effectively with professionals and progressive organisations in the pursuit of rights and social justice agendas more widely.
David Clapham
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781447306344
- eISBN:
- 9781447311591
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447306344.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
The book explores the objectives, philosophies and outcomes of supported housing for vulnerable people. The exploration is intended to further our understanding of an often-neglected topic in housing ...
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The book explores the objectives, philosophies and outcomes of supported housing for vulnerable people. The exploration is intended to further our understanding of an often-neglected topic in housing research and to stimulate further research in this area. But, the book is also intended to share what is known about supported housing in a way that helps the planning and running of supported housing in the future and so improves the well-being of vulnerable people. The focus of the book is on the impact that supported housing makes on the well-being of those who live in it and whether some forms of supported housing are better at doing this than others. An evaluation framework based on the concept of well-being and the affordances of home and neighbourhood is used to evaluate different supported housing models for older people, homeless people and people with disabilities in Britain and Sweden. The evaluation finds that the forms of supported housing that most increase the well-being of residents are those that enable residents to live in individual self-contained dwellings with full occupancy rights, whilst enabling them to receive appropriate support in these homes. The closer the model of supported housing is to an institution and the more that support is designed to control the behaviour of residents, the less is well-being achieved. The book concludes with recommendations for future policy and practice to support well-being.Less
The book explores the objectives, philosophies and outcomes of supported housing for vulnerable people. The exploration is intended to further our understanding of an often-neglected topic in housing research and to stimulate further research in this area. But, the book is also intended to share what is known about supported housing in a way that helps the planning and running of supported housing in the future and so improves the well-being of vulnerable people. The focus of the book is on the impact that supported housing makes on the well-being of those who live in it and whether some forms of supported housing are better at doing this than others. An evaluation framework based on the concept of well-being and the affordances of home and neighbourhood is used to evaluate different supported housing models for older people, homeless people and people with disabilities in Britain and Sweden. The evaluation finds that the forms of supported housing that most increase the well-being of residents are those that enable residents to live in individual self-contained dwellings with full occupancy rights, whilst enabling them to receive appropriate support in these homes. The closer the model of supported housing is to an institution and the more that support is designed to control the behaviour of residents, the less is well-being achieved. The book concludes with recommendations for future policy and practice to support well-being.
Karen Bell
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781447305941
- eISBN:
- 9781447302933
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447305941.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
Environmental justice aspires to a healthy environment for all, as well as fair and inclusive processes of environmental decision-making. In order to develop successful strategies to achieve this, it ...
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Environmental justice aspires to a healthy environment for all, as well as fair and inclusive processes of environmental decision-making. In order to develop successful strategies to achieve this, it is important to understand the factors that shape environmental justice outcomes. This optimistic, accessible and wide-ranging book contributes to this understanding by assessing the extent of, and reasons for, environmental justice/injustice in seven diverse countries - United States, Republic of Korea (South Korea), United Kingdom, Sweden, China, Bolivia and Cuba. Factors discussed include: race and class discrimination; citizen power; industrialisation processes; political-economic context; and the influence of dominant environmental discourses. In particular, the role of capitalism is critically explored. Based on over a hundred interviews with politicians, experts, activists and citizens of these countries, this is a compelling analysis aimed at all academics, policy-makers and campaigners who are engaged in thinking or action to address the most urgent environmental and social issues of our time.Less
Environmental justice aspires to a healthy environment for all, as well as fair and inclusive processes of environmental decision-making. In order to develop successful strategies to achieve this, it is important to understand the factors that shape environmental justice outcomes. This optimistic, accessible and wide-ranging book contributes to this understanding by assessing the extent of, and reasons for, environmental justice/injustice in seven diverse countries - United States, Republic of Korea (South Korea), United Kingdom, Sweden, China, Bolivia and Cuba. Factors discussed include: race and class discrimination; citizen power; industrialisation processes; political-economic context; and the influence of dominant environmental discourses. In particular, the role of capitalism is critically explored. Based on over a hundred interviews with politicians, experts, activists and citizens of these countries, this is a compelling analysis aimed at all academics, policy-makers and campaigners who are engaged in thinking or action to address the most urgent environmental and social issues of our time.
Adam Seth Levine
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691162966
- eISBN:
- 9781400852130
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691162966.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
Americans today face no shortage of threats to their financial well-being, such as job and retirement insecurity, health care costs, and spiraling college tuition. While one might expect that these ...
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Americans today face no shortage of threats to their financial well-being, such as job and retirement insecurity, health care costs, and spiraling college tuition. While one might expect that these concerns would motivate people to become more politically engaged on the issues, this often doesn't happen, and the resulting inaction carries consequences for political debates and public policy. Moving beyond previously studied barriers to political organization, this book sheds light on the public's inaction over economic insecurities by showing that the rhetoric surrounding these issues is actually self-undermining. By their nature, the very arguments intended to mobilize individuals—asking them to devote money or time to politics—remind citizens of their economic fears and personal constraints, leading to undermobilization and nonparticipation. The book explains why the set of people who become politically active on financial insecurity issues is therefore quite narrow. When money is needed, only those who care about the issues but are not personally affected become involved. When time is needed, participation is limited to those not personally affected or those who are personally affected but outside of the labor force with time to spare. The latter explains why it is relatively easy to mobilize retirees on topics that reflect personal financial concerns, such as Social Security and Medicare. In general, however, when political representation requires a large group to make their case, economic insecurity threats are uniquely disadvantaged. Scrutinizing the foundations of political behavior, the book offers a new perspective on collective participation.Less
Americans today face no shortage of threats to their financial well-being, such as job and retirement insecurity, health care costs, and spiraling college tuition. While one might expect that these concerns would motivate people to become more politically engaged on the issues, this often doesn't happen, and the resulting inaction carries consequences for political debates and public policy. Moving beyond previously studied barriers to political organization, this book sheds light on the public's inaction over economic insecurities by showing that the rhetoric surrounding these issues is actually self-undermining. By their nature, the very arguments intended to mobilize individuals—asking them to devote money or time to politics—remind citizens of their economic fears and personal constraints, leading to undermobilization and nonparticipation. The book explains why the set of people who become politically active on financial insecurity issues is therefore quite narrow. When money is needed, only those who care about the issues but are not personally affected become involved. When time is needed, participation is limited to those not personally affected or those who are personally affected but outside of the labor force with time to spare. The latter explains why it is relatively easy to mobilize retirees on topics that reflect personal financial concerns, such as Social Security and Medicare. In general, however, when political representation requires a large group to make their case, economic insecurity threats are uniquely disadvantaged. Scrutinizing the foundations of political behavior, the book offers a new perspective on collective participation.
Salvatore Babones
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781447336808
- eISBN:
- 9781447336907
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447336808.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
The United States has become the central state of a global world-system. Analogous in structure to China's historical Ming Dynasty tianxia ("all under heaven"), the American Tianxia is centered on ...
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The United States has become the central state of a global world-system. Analogous in structure to China's historical Ming Dynasty tianxia ("all under heaven"), the American Tianxia is centered on the United States but incorporates other countries in proportion to their acceptance of individualistic world-society principles like human rights, democracy, and rule of law. Contrary to declinist narratives, the prominence of the United States in global distinction hierarchies is solidifying, because the externalities generated by membership in global networks ensure that people value access to these networks even when the interests of their countries clash with US interests. In the state-centric world-view of international relations scholars, China is a potential challenger to US unipolarity, but by 2010 the five Anglo-Saxon countries are likely to reach population parity with China, while over the same period hundreds of thousands of elite Chinese are likely to move their families to the United States, primarily through birth tourism. Continued US dominance is based on the incentive structures faced by these and other individuals, not on the vagaries of international relations. The American Tianxia is thus the Hegelian universal and homogeneous state that Francis Fukuyama was looking for but did not find at the end of history. It constitutes a new, millennial world-system that is very stable and likely to last for several centuries.Less
The United States has become the central state of a global world-system. Analogous in structure to China's historical Ming Dynasty tianxia ("all under heaven"), the American Tianxia is centered on the United States but incorporates other countries in proportion to their acceptance of individualistic world-society principles like human rights, democracy, and rule of law. Contrary to declinist narratives, the prominence of the United States in global distinction hierarchies is solidifying, because the externalities generated by membership in global networks ensure that people value access to these networks even when the interests of their countries clash with US interests. In the state-centric world-view of international relations scholars, China is a potential challenger to US unipolarity, but by 2010 the five Anglo-Saxon countries are likely to reach population parity with China, while over the same period hundreds of thousands of elite Chinese are likely to move their families to the United States, primarily through birth tourism. Continued US dominance is based on the incentive structures faced by these and other individuals, not on the vagaries of international relations. The American Tianxia is thus the Hegelian universal and homogeneous state that Francis Fukuyama was looking for but did not find at the end of history. It constitutes a new, millennial world-system that is very stable and likely to last for several centuries.
Daniel Béland and Klaus Petersen
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781447306443
- eISBN:
- 9781447311607
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447306443.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This edited volume offers comparative, historical, and political surveys of the international development of social policy concepts and language and the changing boundaries they entails. The volume ...
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This edited volume offers comparative, historical, and political surveys of the international development of social policy concepts and language and the changing boundaries they entails. The volume features comparative and transnational perspectives on social policy language and key social policy concepts in the OECD (Economic Co-operation and Development). What characterizes social policy language in the individual countries and regions? How does social policy language and concepts travel between countries and what role have international organizations played in that respect? Which are the dominant social policy concepts and how are they contested? How did they become dominant and how does it relate to the institutional legacies of different types of welfare regime? The individual chapters, written by a cross-disciplinary group of leading social policy researchers address these questions and trace the development of concepts such as ‘welfare state’ and ‘social security’. Theoretically, the volume draws on a number of perspectives, including conceptual history and the literature on role of ideas and discourse in public policy.Less
This edited volume offers comparative, historical, and political surveys of the international development of social policy concepts and language and the changing boundaries they entails. The volume features comparative and transnational perspectives on social policy language and key social policy concepts in the OECD (Economic Co-operation and Development). What characterizes social policy language in the individual countries and regions? How does social policy language and concepts travel between countries and what role have international organizations played in that respect? Which are the dominant social policy concepts and how are they contested? How did they become dominant and how does it relate to the institutional legacies of different types of welfare regime? The individual chapters, written by a cross-disciplinary group of leading social policy researchers address these questions and trace the development of concepts such as ‘welfare state’ and ‘social security’. Theoretically, the volume draws on a number of perspectives, including conceptual history and the literature on role of ideas and discourse in public policy.
Chris Miller and Lionel Orchard (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781447312673
- eISBN:
- 9781447312703
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447312673.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
At a time when neoliberal and conservative politics are again in the ascendency and social democracy is waning, Australian public policy re-engages with the values and goals of progressive public ...
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At a time when neoliberal and conservative politics are again in the ascendency and social democracy is waning, Australian public policy re-engages with the values and goals of progressive public policy in Australia and the difficulties faced in re-affirming them. It brings together leading authors to explore economic, environmental, social, cultural, political and Indigenous issues. It examines trends and current policy directions and outlines progressive alternatives that challenge and extend current thinking. While focused on Australia, the contributors offer valuable insights for people in other countries committed to social justice and those engaged in the ongoing contest between neoliberalism and social democracy. This is essential reading for policy practitioners, researchers and students as well as those with an interest in the future of public policy.Less
At a time when neoliberal and conservative politics are again in the ascendency and social democracy is waning, Australian public policy re-engages with the values and goals of progressive public policy in Australia and the difficulties faced in re-affirming them. It brings together leading authors to explore economic, environmental, social, cultural, political and Indigenous issues. It examines trends and current policy directions and outlines progressive alternatives that challenge and extend current thinking. While focused on Australia, the contributors offer valuable insights for people in other countries committed to social justice and those engaged in the ongoing contest between neoliberalism and social democracy. This is essential reading for policy practitioners, researchers and students as well as those with an interest in the future of public policy.
Michael Rush
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719091896
- eISBN:
- 9781781708347
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091896.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
Between ‘two worlds’ of father politics represents the USA and Sweden as two ends on an international continuum in ways of thinking about fatherhood. The ‘two worlds’ model locates the decline of ...
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Between ‘two worlds’ of father politics represents the USA and Sweden as two ends on an international continuum in ways of thinking about fatherhood. The ‘two worlds’ model locates the decline of patriarchal male-breadwinning fatherhood as a core concern of comparative welfare state and gender studies. It offers historical accounts of the development of ‘father-friendly’ parental leave policies in Sweden and child support enforcement policies in the USA. The book brings together, major debates from child development psychology, ethology, sociology, gender studies and comparative social policy. In this way, the book synthesizes a wide breadth of comparative and inter-disciplinary analysis into a new typology or model for interpreting welfare regime approaches to contemporary fatherhood. It provides comparative analysis for students, scholars and social policy makers in the United States and Nordic countries, the UK, Ireland, Japan, China and the European Union. Overall, the book locates concepts of fatherhood, the decline of patriarchy, shared parenting and the de-commodification of parents as critical to ongoing debates about individualisation, internationalisation and the dawn of post-patriarchal welfare arrangements for the 21st century.Less
Between ‘two worlds’ of father politics represents the USA and Sweden as two ends on an international continuum in ways of thinking about fatherhood. The ‘two worlds’ model locates the decline of patriarchal male-breadwinning fatherhood as a core concern of comparative welfare state and gender studies. It offers historical accounts of the development of ‘father-friendly’ parental leave policies in Sweden and child support enforcement policies in the USA. The book brings together, major debates from child development psychology, ethology, sociology, gender studies and comparative social policy. In this way, the book synthesizes a wide breadth of comparative and inter-disciplinary analysis into a new typology or model for interpreting welfare regime approaches to contemporary fatherhood. It provides comparative analysis for students, scholars and social policy makers in the United States and Nordic countries, the UK, Ireland, Japan, China and the European Union. Overall, the book locates concepts of fatherhood, the decline of patriarchy, shared parenting and the de-commodification of parents as critical to ongoing debates about individualisation, internationalisation and the dawn of post-patriarchal welfare arrangements for the 21st century.
1895
1929
1971
1989
42
“A Gentleman and an Officer”
‘A Nation of Beggars’?
The A Priori in Philosophy
A. J. Appasamy and his Reading of Rāmānuja
