Perspectives on Welfare - Softcover

Deacon, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0335231373 ISBN 13: 9780335231379

Publisher: Open University Press, 2002

Synopsis

"Of the several discussions of the American poverty theorists I have read, this is easily the best. Anyone interested in that debate should begin here."
- Professor Lawrence M. Mead, New York University

"...a compelling guide to the ideas that have shaped and seek to re-shape welfare provision. This is a student text that teachers will want to read first."
- Professor Robert Walker, University of Nottingham

• How do welfare benefits and services shape the attitudes, behaviour and character of claimants? Should entitlement be dependent upon good behaviour?
• What are the major intellectual influences upon current welfare reforms in the UK and the US?
• Is it possible to reform welfare in ways which tackle both social inequality and welfare dependency?

This lucid and engaging book provides an introduction to the current debates about the future direction of welfare reform on both sides of the Atlantic. The first part outlines a range of different perspectives on welfare, and shows how each of these perspectives rests upon a different assumption about the role and purpose of welfare policy and a different understanding of human nature and motivation. Some of these perspectives see the primary role of welfare as to reduce inequalities, while others see the central objective as the reduction of welfare dependency. The second part shows how the current debates in Britain and the United States are informed by these perspectives, and argues that debates about inequality and dependency are not mutually exclusive but address different dimensions of the same problem. In all, this illuminating and forward-looking text is essential reading for courses in social policy, health, and social welfare, as well as those with a political and wider interest in welfare reform.

About this title

Review:

"...the book succeeds in shifting the analysis of welfare into the twenty-first century by offering well-focussed discussions of the moral debates of the new social policy and the prescriptive ways in which governments now seek to achieve compliance to their new designs." - Martin Hewitt (Social Policy & Administration 2003-01-01)

About the Author:

Alan Deacon is Professor of Social Policy and a member of the ESRC Research Group on Care, Values and the Future of Welfare at the University of Leeds. He has written widely on the debate about welfare reform in Britain and the United States and is a former editor of the Journal of Social Policy. He is Chair of the Social Policy Association 2001-2004.

About this edition

• Publisher: Open University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0335231373
• ISBN 13: 9780335231379
• Binding: Paperback