Mick Carpenter

The capabilities approach and critical social policy: Lessons from the majority world?

The capabilities approach (CA) most closely associated with the thinner and thicker versions of Sen and Nussbaum has the potential to provide a paradigm shift for critical social policy, encompassing but also transcending some of the limitations associated with the Marshallian social citizenship approach. The article argues, however, that it cannot simply be imported from the majority world, rather there is a need to bear in mind the critical literature that developed around it. This is generally discussed and then critically applied to case studies of CA in the developed capitalist world, particularly the Equalities Review conducted for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

‘It’s a small world’: mental health policy under welfare capitalism since 1945

Much sociological theorising about community care in mental health universalises from Anglo-American contexts. So do assessments of policy shifts towards deinstitutionalisation, whose tendency towards negativity largely reflects the downsized mental health care systems that have emerged in welfare regimes, strongly influenced by neoliberal political ideology. Drawing on the framework of Esping-Anderson (1990), the article seeks to theorise from a wider range of welfare regimes, including Sweden and Italy, where political influences on policy provide more support for a degree of optimism. It also seeks to demonstrate in outline the advantages of analysing global influences on mental health policy under welfare capitalism, as key factors shaping policy throughout the whole post-1945 period.

A Third Wave, Not a Third Way? New Labour, Human Rights and Mental Health in Historical Context

This historically situated, UK-based review of New Labour’s human rights and mental health policy following the 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA) and 2007 Mental Health Act (MHA), draws on Klug’s identification of three waves of human rights. These occurred around the American and French Revolutions, after World War II, and following the collapse of state communism in 1989, and the article assesses impacts on mental health policy up to and including the New Labour era. It critiques current equality and rights frameworks in mental health and indicates how they might be brought into closer alignment with third wave principles.

Reviews : The Unmasking of Medicine Ian Kennedy George Allen and Unwin 1981, £8.00

1. Mainstream social administration/policy books the reviewer will be asked to suggest what a critical social policy might have to say about the topic/area the text covers as well as criticising the content, 2. Books not regarded as being traditional concerns of social policy but which are integral to the development of a critical social policy. The precise areas to be covered will presumably be a matter of some controversy and part of a continuing debate in the journal. Obvious candidates, though, are political strategy; ecology; ciime/deviance; imperialism; novels, 3. Books that are consciously trying to contribute to the development of a critical social policy, 4. Pamphlets/books/guides to legislation, etc by local tenants, community, anti-cuts, womens, trade union etc groups on general questions of welfare. The journal will be dependent on the producers of these alternative publications either to send in copies, or their own short reviews explaining content; place where it can be obtained, etc, 5. Government and semi-official publications and documents on welfare matters produced by other agencies/institutions. 6. Review articles on the areas above covering a number of different publications.