Kirk Mann

Agency, Modernity and Social Policy

The focus of this article is upon the recent revival of interest in human agency within both sociological and social policy debates. There is a striking resonance between the increasing attention paid to individual behaviour within normative debates about welfare and the concern of some sociologists with the moral and ethical dilemmas that confront the individual in contemporary society. These two sets of arguments are not compatible. Indeed the analyses they present are contradictory. Moralists such as Etzioni, Field and Mead share a belief in the need to restructure welfare in ways that encourage and reward responsible behaviour. In contrast, sociologists such as Bauman, Beck and Giddens suggest that such endeavours could prove to be both futile and dangerous. Attempts to address issues of agency face formidable obstacles and arouse genuine fears that they will serve to endorse a punitive and atavistic individualism. It is these fears, however, which have constrained and confined the debate about welfare in the post-war years. The revival of agency creates opportunities for a social science which is more sensitive to the activities of poor people whilst reflecting more fully the difference and diversity which characterises contemporary British society.

Three Steps to Heaven? Tensions in the Management of Welfare: Retirement Pensions and Active Consumers

This article explores some of the emerging tensions in the management of welfare in Britain. The success of Labours proposals for welfare reform, particularly retirement pensions, hinges on their ability to promote the idea of the consumer citizen and to undermine traditional ideas of citizenship rights. However, managing this transition – including the presentation of ideas and the management of consumers – has not been straightforward. While the Government presents retirement as a matter of lifestyle choice, welfare ‘consumers’ are demanding more of their providers and are regularly disgruntled with the response. Simultaneously, pension providers are expressing reservations about their ability to manage aggrieved consumers. Furthermore, they believe pension fund management has been politicised, and their scope for discretion reduced by regulation, while technical and scientific developments in terms of portfolio management and risk assessment have changed the working practices of those in the pension industry. These tensions between consumers, providers and legislators may generate further dissatisfaction with the balance of rights and responsibilities being hotly contested.

‘Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’: Backlash and the gender politics of the underclass debate

This article is concerned with an aspect of the ‘underclass debate’ which has, thus far, been largely neglected by British social scientists—its gender politics. It examines the discourse that links lone mothers, juvenile crime, and the fiscal crisis of the Welfare State, tracing the development of the discourse, in its various forms, through 1993. The article argues that a high degree of consensus developed, uniting politicians and commentators in hostility to never married mothers. It is suggested that this discourse can be understood as part of a wider backlash against feminism, and that it locks into the restructuring of the Welfare State.

Remembering and Rethinking the Social Divisions of Welfare: 50 Years On

This article revisits Titmusss essay on the Social Divisions of Welfare (SDW) and reflects on its continuing relevance. Titmuss first presented the SDW in an Eleanor Rathbone Memorial lecture at Birmingham University in 1955, but it is best known from his Essays on the Welfare State published in 1958. Titmuss challenged the stereotype of ‘welfare’ as simply public welfare dependency and illustrated the different elements of the SDW. Some limitations of Titmusss approach are identified, notably in relation to how he saw dependency arising, and revisions offered. The article provides a number of examples from the UK but also highlights some significant parallels with the SDW in the USA and Australia, the so-called ‘liberal welfare regimes’ (Esping-Andersen, 1990). Finally, it is claimed that 50 years on we need to be reminded of the insights and analytical potential of Titmusss essay.

Activation, Retirement Planning and Restraining the ‘Third Age’

This paper considers activation policies in relation to older workers in a number of OECD countries. It explores four interpretations of ‘activation’ in respect of pension planning and retirement policies. However, activation policies need to be carefully evaluated. Labour market demands and a political language that stresses the ‘pension crisis’ and the ‘dependency ratio’ have to be considered in relation to established rights. Thus whilst governments may seek to promote a model of welfare based on the ‘consumer citizen’, in which retirement choices are made by reflexive individuals, the constraints on choice need to be highlighted. These constraints are likely to be unevenly distributed with some social groups experiencing longer working lives, less choice, with more compulsion and with conditions attached to any pension rights they may claim.

Lamppost modernism: traditional and critical social policy?

This article considers aspects of the recent debate over the relationship of social policy to accounts of postmodernity. It will be argued that the treatment of welfare and social policy by some observers of postmoder nity/post-traditional society has been inadequate, neglecting scepticism and critique from within social policy. Despite some serious reservations regarding the treatment of welfare in their accounts, it will be suggested that there are features of a postmodern analysis that are significant for a critical social policy. The article concludes by suggesting that dialogue needs to be promoted, but it is not simply a case of social policy listening to social theorists. They would do well to be a little more reflexive and a little more attentive to debates from within social policy.

The making of a claiming class: the neglect of agency in analyses of the welfare state

This paper criticises the emerging marxist school within social administra tion for leaning too heavily upon structuralism and ignoring the activity of the working class in the development of the welfare state. It is argued that we need to focus upon the actual making of welfare in a socio-historical context and the considerabte impact that a divided working class has had on thisprocm. As an example the nineteenth century development of the Poor Law and friendly societies are examined in relation to the labour aristocracy and the undeserving poor. The paper argues that the neglect of agency and of intra-class divisions may blaker marxism to important contemporary developmentsin the social division for welfare.

Critical Reflections on the ‘Underclass’ and Poverty

The underclass debate touches on a range of issues that are central to debates over exclusion, poverty and social divisions. Although the underclass debate has frequently hinged on the behaviour and morality of the poor this has rarely been addressed head on by critics. This chapter will not replay the main themes from this debate but will focus instead on how critics of the idea that an underclass is forming have struggled to address the question of agency.

Transforming employer responsibilities: the privatisation of occupational pensions

This article examines the role of employers in providing retirement pensions in three countries that are often characterised as “liberal/Anglo” welfare regimes; the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. It will be suggested that despite some similarities, with a drift away from public welfare rights and industrial/collective rights occurring in all three, there are some differences in how this has been managed. It is suggested that welfare retrenchment and a retreat from collective rights, in both the public and industrial/occupational arenas, is not primarily about public expenditures but rather about shifting the balance of individual, state and employer rights and responsibilities.

Book reviews : The British Marxist Historians Harvey J Kaye Polity Press 1984, £6.95 pbk, £19.50 hbk

The editors’ reminder that national policies are discreet political products is thus demonstrated well in Britain’s particular political struggles -especially over the last few years of the Thatcher Government, which have seen an accentuation of existing trends towards the marginalisation of the poor. But this is not to say that we should not use a material in books such as this to point out that similarly developed economies with broadly similar public expenditure priorities (which all the EEC countries are) can and do do more. The editors hope the book will stimulate such pressure and outline five suggestions for improvement in Britain, based upon European experience, on the final page. Whether these can or will be taken up, however, is a political question which the book is unable to answer. There is no discussion in it of political struggle or political possibilities, and in this sense it sits firmly within the traditional Fabian social policy school. Implicitly, of course, the editors do want change, Townsend’s hints about the need to tackle the distribution and not only the redistribution of wealth are clear enough; but the book does not really address the question of how change has come about in the past or might do in the future. Of course this is asking for something which the book is not, and is not in that sense a criticism of it. However, as a largely academic study of comparative policies, and in places a pretty dense study at that, it does raise the question of what might be, and I, for one, would like to see that taken further in comparative study.