Social policy

"The squeezed middle" brings together leading experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn from the US experience of stagnating wages and rising living costs.

This unique book presents a new perspective on citizenship by treating it as a continuing focus of dispute. The authors develop a view of citizenship as always emerging from struggle through an exploration of the entanglements of politics, culture and power that are both embodied and contested in forms and practices of citizenship.

This book focuses on the drive towards increasingly integrated ways of working in children’s services across the UK. The new edition of this bestselling textbook critically examines the potential and reality of closer ‘working together’, asking whether such new ways of working will be able to respond more effectively to the needs of children.

Using core concepts of policy analysis "Understanding the policy process" builds up a full explanation of social policy change that can be applied to any aspect of welfare policy, public and social policy. This second edition of the book updates the first edition for the post-Blair era with international case studies from numerous countries.

An important contribution to topical debates about social work education and the identity of the profession, drawing lessons from the recent history of social work to identify how and why it has lost its privilege and influence.

This unique book is the first to critique the past, present and future welfare state from a participatory perspective. Peter Beresford demonstrate the value of ‘user knowledge’ by challenging orthodox social policy and the limitations of both Fabian and Neo-liberal perspectives drawing on service users ‘ own ideas and experience.

Using case studies from around the world, Transparency and the open society surveys the adoption of transparency globally, providing an essential framework for assessing its likely performance as a policy and the steps that can be taken to make it more effective.

Collates knowledge and examines the role and nature of community groups and activities operating outside of the formal voluntary sector in the UK to develop a coherent understanding about these so-called “below the radar” organisations.

Christopher Deeming and Paul Smyth, together with internationally renowned contributors, illustrate how the merging of ‘social investment’ and ‘inclusive growth and development’ agendas, together with the environmental imperative of ‘sustainability’, is forging an important new social policy framework and shaping a new global development agenda.

Exploring secular and faith-based grassroots social action in Germany and the UK, this book provides new ways of thinking about social and political belonging and about the relations between individual, collective and State responsibility.

Building substantially on the earlier, landmark text, What Works? (Policy Press, 2000), this book brings together key thinkers and researchers to provide a clearly-structured review of the aspirations and contemporary realities of evidence-informed policy and practice.

Leading interdisciplinary scholars focus on the ‘social’ of social policy. This ground-breaking volume tackles pressing ‘social questions’ and critically engages with contested conceptions of ‘the social’ which are increasingly deployed by international institutions and policy makers.