Analyzing the Ideas and Goals of ISPP

Justifying Social and Public Policy Intervention

• Ideology: Encompasses diverse interpretations of economic, social, and political life, offering descriptions of society and pathways for change. These interpretations are underpinned by different values and beliefs regarding the effects of policy on society, particularly its impact on the most disadvantaged and on the rights of the individual. Ideologies of welfare and policy are dynamic, evolving over time with internal variations (e.g., social liberalism vs. neo-liberalism).

Role of State, Market, Family, Community

• Conceptions of the state and its role in achieving welfare goals vary:

  • Is it a means of alleviating inequality?

  • Is it an obstacle to individual freedom?

  • Is it a means of upholding the capitalist system?

• Conceptions of the market, family, community, and individual also vary, influencing their relationships with the state.

Capitalism and its Consequences

• The industrial revolution and the emancipation of the market led to the expansion of wage labor.

• Urbanization brought social consequences such as dislocation and new employment vulnerabilities.

• Beveridge (1942) identified five ‘giant evils’: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, Idleness.

Historical Champions of Capitalism

• Classic liberals (e.g., Adam Smith) advocated for the ‘invisible hand’ of the market.

• Utilitarians (e.g., Bentham) aimed for the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

• Emphasis on the individual and negative liberty is characteristic of Western thought.

Historical Critics of Capitalism

• Marxism posits that while capitalism may have liberated masses, it also exploits and dehumanizes.

  • Marxism prioritizes societal equality and the redistribution of wealth.

Intervention in the Market

• Classic liberalism asserts that government spending harms liberty and distorts ‘natural’ market functioning.

• Marxism argues that capitalist states inherently disempower the proletariat, although proletarian demand has led to welfarism. Capitalism also needs healthy, educated workers (Offe, 1984).

• The 20th Century saw the emergence of ‘middle way’ thinking (Lister, 2010), including social liberalism, social conservatism, and social democracy.

Social Liberalism

• The goal of social liberalism is to correct the shortcomings of unregulated markets.

• New liberalism posits that national efficiency requires a basic minimum standard of living.

• Social liberalism can be seen as reluctant collectivism.

• Roosevelt advocated for ‘freedom from want.’

• Keynesian economics plays a role in social liberalism.

• The UK Beveridge Plan included full employment, national insurance, family allowances, a universal NHS, social housing, and free/compulsory state schooling.

Social Conservatism

• The goal of social conservatism is to maintain social order in the face of change.

• Paternalistic conservatism emphasizes moral duty and preserving the traditional order.

• Post-absolutist/corporatist conservatism focuses on power brokerage and ‘social partnership.’

• Christian democracy emphasizes social obligation and subsidiarity.

• Bismarckian social protectionism involves state-supervised risk-sharing for labor market insiders.

Socialism and Social Democracy

• Socialism and social democracy aim to ameliorate the injustices of capitalism.

• The Fabians emphasize structural causes of hardship, advocating for socialism by stealth and by the ballot box, with benevolent experts and a neutral state.

• Scandinavian Social Democracy focuses on creating ‘The People’s Home.’

• Socialism and state-led development harness the power of organized labor, emphasizing social planning and state-led economies.

The ‘Three Worlds’ of Welfare Capitalism (Esping-Andersen, 1990)

• The ‘middle way’ drove capitalist welfare state development.

• Differing ideologies produced welfare regimes with varying ‘decommodification’ and redistribution.

  • Liberal/residual regimes (e.g., USA, UK) feature low decommodification and redistribution and are pro-market.

  • Conservative/corporatist regimes (e.g., Germany, France) feature middling decommodification and redistribution and are pro-family.

  • Social democratic regimes (e.g., Sweden, Denmark) feature high decommodification and redistribution and are pro-state.

• Considerations beyond ‘welfare capitalism’ are necessary (Gough & Wood, 2004; Ellison & Haux, 2020).

• East Asian welfare capitalism has also developed (Fleckenstein & Lee, 2017).

Capitalism and Colonialism

• Analysis of Western welfare states:

  • Welfare states are based on (de)commodification of labor.

  • Focus is on economic, market-based relations and the state's role in relation to the market.

  • Focus is on class-based inequalities/stratification.

• Bhambra & Holmwood (2018) argue that these explanations:

  • Ignore colonialism in the development of welfare states.

  • Fail to address the racialized basis of inequalities (and of labor).

• Western European countries were all former colonial and imperial powers.

• Colonialism is related to (not distinct from) market-based capitalism.

• The enclosure of land in European countries created the impetus for the commodification of labor.

• Colonial enclosure displaced indigenous populations from land.

• There was a need for labor in industries of the colonial world, including forced labor.

Historical (and Contemporary) Critics of Colonialism

• Fanon, anti-colonial struggle, and postcolonial thought are important.

• They have had a key influence on national liberation movements in the Global South and political movements within the Global North.

• Colonial administrations created deliberate inequalities, reflected in social protection systems.

Welfare Systems – The Influence of Colonial Relations

• Well-developed indigenous systems of social welfare existed (Midgley 1998).

• Welfare systems in colonial territories were shaped by colonial administrations (e.g., social insurance programs in French colonies and social assistance programs in British colonies), shaping their social security systems today (Schmitt 2020).

• Colonial relations played a central role in generating resources/finance for welfare provision and (unequally) redistributing those resources and access to welfare provision (Bhambra 2022).

• ‘Relations of extraction’ involved taxes/revenues raised in India by the British imperial state being diverted to Britain.

• ‘Relations of redistribution’ involved philanthropists whose income/wealth derived from empire contributing to charitable activities in Britain.

• Imperial revenue and national welfare: post World War I and II, the impetus for expanding the welfare state in Britain was enabled in part through ‘income derived from abroad.’ Payments owed to India and Pakistan post-independence were reduced through various tactics, and remaining colonies were required to tie up funds from their exports to the benefit of the British state.

Welfare State Development and Colonial Relations

• Competing ideologies, goals, and interests existed.

Are Today’s Social and Public Policies Based on Ideologies?

Neoliberalism and its Policy Influences

• Neoliberalism is a theory, ideology, and policy.

• Global economic shocks of the 1970s influenced neoliberalism.

• The ideas of Hayek and Friedman also influenced neoliberalism.

• The Washington Consensus served as a neoliberal policy paradigm, creating a new world economic order.

• Neoliberal policies included deregulation of markets, liberalizing trade and capital, cutting taxes, reigning in public spending, and privatization of public services.

• Structural adjustment and conditional loans were implemented.

• Marketization of welfare occurred.

• The neoliberal ‘social imaginary’ emphasizes entrepreneurship and individual self-reliance.

Neoliberalism and its Policy Influences: Divergent Strategies (Evans & Sewell, 2013)

• North America: Neoliberalism was embedded in policy and politics, e.g., through tax cuts and changes in social provision and workers’ rights.

• Europe: Markets were liberalized, but social democratic welfare persisted (e.g., France).

• Latin America: Democratization and expansion of welfare provisions occurred, with neoliberal economic change but also resistance to those policies (e.g., Brazil, Argentina).

• East Asia: Market logic was present, but with strongly divergent ideological features (e.g. China).

Critical Perspectives in Social and Public Policy

• Critical refinements have been made since the 1970s (Williams, 2016; 2021).

  • Neo-Marxism: Policy is structured in favor of economic elites.

  • Feminism: There has been a rethinking of care, citizenship, work, and the private sphere.

  • Anti-racism and postcolonial theories: There have been moves to decolonize scholarly and policy thinking, with concerns about state policing of migration and exploitation of migrants, the nationalism of welfare states, and institutional racism in public services.

  • Citizen empowerment, voice, participation: There have been critiques of top-down politics and policymaking.

  • Disability awareness: There are implications of ‘social’ and ‘medical’ models of disability.

  • LGBTQ+ recognition: There has been a critiquing of heteronormative and cisnormative social policies and institutions.

  • Intersectionality: There is an understanding of multiple axes of inequality and their inter-relations.

  • Environmentalism: There are concerns about the impacts of growth and consumerism.

Changing Ideas About the 'Social' and the 'Public'

Citizenship Rights

• Marshall (1950) argued that societies evolve over time towards social citizenship.

• Civilization is a ‘three-legged stool’:

  • Civil rights (18th Century)

  • Political rights (19th Century)

  • Social rights (20th Century)

Citizenship vs Human Rights

• The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is premised on the notion that universal human needs and rights exist whether ‘given’ or not.

• Social, economic, and cultural rights are included and were enshrined in international law in 1966.

• Hardship is seen as a rights violation:

  • Poverty violates the right to dignity/social security.

  • Unemployment violates the right to freely chosen work.

  • Homelessness violates the right to shelter/physical security.

  • Ill-health violates the right to healthcare/a safe environment.

Ideas About Social Rights Across Countries

• Citizenship and social rights can be elusive and difficult to apply in low-income countries or countries with high levels of conflict, where state capacity and resources are limited to deliver on rights to state-guaranteed social provision (Davy et al, 2013).

• Many low and middle-income countries have expanded social provision (incl. social security, health, education), underpinned as a constitutional right (Surender, 2019).

• A rights-based approach has been promoted at the international level, including through the human rights agenda.

• Other ideas of the ‘social’ may be more meaningful.

• Rights stem from Western liberal thought that sees individuals as separable from society.

• Ubuntu ethics in southern Africa emphasize the relational aspects of human beings, focusing on our capacity for harmonious communal life (Graness, 2015).

• Informal systems of exchange and reciprocity are still prevalent.

• Even if people rely on their own strategies, this can connect to demands for state responsibility to address social needs (Chigudu, 2019).

Social Rights in Practice

• Social protection systems are evident in national government policy agendas across different regions.

• They are strongly promoted by international organizations through development policy agendas and international funding.

• 1950s: social security aimed to protect workers from social risks (e.g., sickness, unemployment, old age), covering workers in the public sector and the ‘modern’ private sector. Social insurance based (e.g., unemployment benefits) as well as free healthcare assistance were provided, but rural workers and informal workers were left out.

• 1980s: structural adjustment and economic crises occurred.

• 1990s: support for ‘social safety nets’ to provide some minimum assistance to the poor was implemented.

• 2000s: measures were adopted in countries like Brazil, South Africa, and by international organizations, dividing between ‘Social risk management’ vs ‘Social rights for the poor.’ Promotion of social programs that emerged in countries like Brazil, such as conditional cash transfers (e.g., Bolsa Familia), and expansion of social pensions to a range of countries and strengthening of pre-existing pension systems.

• Challenges: In some low-income countries (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa), there are limited programs targeting specific groups and reliant on international funding (e.g., International organizations or bilateral programs) (Merrien 2013).

Social Justice as a Goal of Policy

• Social justice involves the notion that we are morally obliged to pursue fair distributions of benefits and burdens in society.

• Theorists seek to reconcile tensions between liberty and equality (see e.g., Rawls, 1971).

  • Domestic justice: justice emanates from a relationship between citizens or a state (or other community) (e.g., welfare state provisions should be limited to citizens of that state).

  • Global justice: all human beings are subjects of justice; we have moral obligations to all regardless of membership in a given state/community (e.g., a global income tax).

  • Justice can be achieved through redistribution of income and wealth, public provision of services, freedoms and capabilities (Sen, 2009), as well as recognition and representation (Fraser, 2008).

Re-Thinking the Social: Scales of Justice (Fraser, 2008)

• Social justice is multiscalar – we must look beyond just the nation-state in determining to whom we owe moral obligations => global social justice.

• New considerations of ‘benefits and burdens’ include the damage from climate change and consumerism, as well as privilege and disadvantage derived from imperialism and colonialism.

• Questions are raised over migration and the validity of nationhood as a basis for citizenship - ‘membership’ of a community.

• The basis for moral obligations should be our common humanity.

• Towards more truly ‘global’ ideas of justice (Graness, 2014; Okeja, 2017). Global justice debates have largely been an exchange among European and American scholars, deriving from European philosophical and political thought, and there is a need for intercultural, interreligious, and international exchange of ideas that reflect concepts of justice drawn from political and philosophical thought in wider regional contexts.

Example: Global Health Justice as a Policy Goal

• Inequalities in health (health determinants and outcomes) are global matters – huge variation across countries in life expectancy, the burdens of disease, access to clean water, nutrition.

• Health systems of high and low-income countries reflect a maldistribution of the healthcare workforce through international recruitment from poorer to richer countries.

• Intellectual property rights (WTO product patents for pharmaceutical companies) make access to new medicines unaffordable in poorer countries.

• Policy examples:

  • A Health Impact Fund (Pogge, 2008) would reward drugs companies by how much impact they have on curing disease across the world.

  • WTO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel.

  • There is a need to address unequal investments and capabilities of health systems within and across countries (Khosla & Venkatapuram, 2023).

Relevance

• Who are ‘we’ in the goals of social and public policy?

• How are collective systems for human welfare funded and provided?

• Who has access to those provisions and on what basis?

Summary – Key Points

• Justifications for social and public policy interventions and the nature of those policies are shaped by different ideologies. Ideas about welfare systems have been bound up with ideas about the nature and impacts of capitalist and colonial development.

• The ‘golden-age of welfare’ was marked by a consensus around the need for social intervention; neoliberal ideas had significant influence in contesting those ideas and in policy change; the adverse impacts of neoliberal policies in different contexts alongside emerging ‘critical perspectives’ have given