Postmodern Welfare: Reconstructing an Emancipatory Project - Softcover

Leonard, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803976100 ISBN 13: 9780803976108

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1997

Synopsis

Peter Leonard provides an accessible analysis of debates about the crisis of the welfare state under the contemporary conditions of postmodern scepticism and the triumphs of global market capitalism. In the last two decades Western governments have sought to replace the post-war welfare compact with neo-conservative individualism. The prospects for the Left look bleak. At the same time, postmodern critique raises profound questions about the validity of a mass politics of emancipation based on the universal values of justice, reason and progress. From a critical perspective founded in Marxism and feminism, Leonard uses elements of postmodern deconstruction to consider how we might now re-think the present and future of welfare. He draws the reader into a dialogue about the implications for reconstructing welfare: of changes in ideas about the individual subject; the context of culture and racism; the organization of welfare; the nature of 'the new economy'; and the possibilities of a politics of resistance. Postmodern Welfare will be required reading for students and teachers in the social sciences and professions concerned with social policy and the welfare state, and for anyone interested in postmodern theory and the social and political prospects facing Western societies.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Leonard, Professor at the School of Social Work at McGill University, Canada, and was previously Professor of Applied Social Sciences, University of Warwick, UK. He has written extensively on social theory and social welfare, and is the author of five books, including Social Work Practice Under Capitalism (with Paul Corrig, Macmillan, 1978); and Personality and Ideology (Macmillan, 1984).

Edition details

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0803976100
• ISBN 13: 9780803976108
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208