Nick Ellison

Social Media and Local Government: Citizenship, Consumption and Democracy

This article seeks to assess and understand the role played by new forms of internet-based communication in UK local governance. Drawing on a survey of all English local authorities the article examines the utilisation of social media before going on to ask what potential these media might hold for the enhancement of local participation. Amidst contemporary debates about the nature of local governance, not least those prompted by the recent preoccupation with the Big Society, Web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook and Twitter afford new opportunities for online interaction that could contribute to the reinvigoration of the local public sphere. In particular these platforms could encourage forms of participation that would bridge the divide that has emerged in recent years between residents as consumers of local services and residents as citizens, or local democratic actors.

Sorting Places Out? Towards a social politics of neighbourhood informatization

This paper examines some of the possible consequences of the introduction of online Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for the social politics of neighbourhoods and the public sphere more generally. Summarizing a number of recent theorizations of neighbourhood informatization, the article provides examples of online GIS in the UK and considers some of the possible implications of the use of such technologies for contemporary debates about citizenship in the context of processes of ‘splintering urbanism’. Arguing that social citizenship is best understood in terms of varying forms of ‘proactive’ or ‘defensive’ engagement, the paper explores the relationship between virtual decision making about neighbourhood choice and the impact of aggregated virtual decisions ‘on the ground’, before going on to consider how differentiated forms of engagement are producing new forms of social exclusion in changing urban spaces.

Beyond universalism and particularism: rethinking contemporary welfare theory

Current debates about the respective merits of universalist and particularist approaches to welfare suggest that contemporary welfare theory has reached an impasse. Following an examination of recent attempts to discuss the respective merits of universalist and particularist claims, this article argues that, in an increasingly pluralist social and political environment characterized by shifting identities and solidarities, we need to embrace ‘difference’ more forthrightly if allocations of social goods and services are to be judged legitimate by service users and providers alike. To this end, and in an effort to push beyond the universalist–particularist divide, we need to take greater account of ‘postmodern’ understandings of contemporary social politics, not because these should be accepted entirely, but because it is important to claim their utility for decentralized, ‘deliberative’ conceptions of social politics. Deliberative processes, particularly where accompanied by a ‘politics of presence’ can better legitimate particularist patterns of resource distribution, paradoxically fostering greater social inclusion, in a rapidly changing world.

Developments in British social policy

Introduction N.Ellison & C.Pierson - PART ONE: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON WELFARE THEORY - Introduction - Theory in British Social Policy C.Pierson - The Changing Politics of Social Policy N.Ellison - New Conceptions of Citizenship R.Lister - Social Policy and Human Need M.Hewitt - Social Welfare and Associative Democracy P.Hirst - PART TWO: BRITISH SOCIAL POLICY IN THE 1990s - Introduction - Employment Policy N.Whiteside - Income Maintenance A.McKay - Health Policy S.Nettleton - Education Policy S.J.Ball - The Personal Social Services M.Langan - Housing Policy P.Malpass - PART THREE: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN BRITISH SOCIAL POLICY - Introduction - Social Policy and Social Movements: Race and Social Policy J.Solomos - Social Policy and Social Movements: Gender and Social Policy G.Pascall - Social Policy and Social Movements: Ecology and Social Policy J.Barry - Changing Dimensions of Poverty D.Piachaud - British Social Policy in the European Context L.Cram - Consumerism and the Future of Social Policy M.Cahill - Conclusion N.Ellison & C.Pierson - Bibliography - Index

Creating ‘Opportunity for All’? New Labour, New Localism and the Opportunity Society

Since coming to office, New Labour has made much of a ‘public philosophy’ that stresses the importance of equal access to opportunities. This article does not so much criticise this fairly modest understanding of social justice as ask whether the kind of social policies that New Labour has devised are capable of delivering ‘opportunity for all’. The suggestion is that, because ‘targeted’ policies – Labour’s local regeneration initiatives are the example taken here – face intrinsic difficulties as vehicles for social inclusion and thus greater equality of access to opportunity, they need to be supported by a wider commitment to distributive justice.

New Spaces of (Dis)engagement? Social Politics, Urban Technologies and the Rezoning of the City

This paper discusses the changing nature of urban space and urban technologies, using various conceptions of engagement in social politics to illuminate contemporary understandings of cultural change and social exclusion and the role of housing within this. The progressive reorganisation of urban space, which is at least partly a result of global economic changes, is producing complex forms of social politics organised around newly emerging varieties and scales of engagement and disengagement. These are cross-cut by a number of cultural themes that play out differently in different spaces. Thus ‘fear’ is universally significant, but perceived ‘differentially’ according to space, culture and socio-economic status. ‘Excitement’ is also an important theme, though more for some groups than others. The capacity to use resources—material, cultural, technological—and particularly the reflexive utilisation of these resources, also affects the nature of social politics and the specific nature of proactive and defensive (dis)engagement. The paper argues that the social scientific analysis of housing would do well to take cognisance of these debates if it is to continue to produce nuanced analyses able to take account of the socio-spatial, cultural and political realities of informational capitalism.

DEVELOPING POLITICAL CONVERSATIONS

This paper reports on a survey of social media use by English local authorities. The survey indicates that English local authorities currently do not engage with social media in any substantive manner. However, as the paper argues, this lack of attention to forms of communication afforded by Web 2.0 risks missing an important avenue of ‘citizen engagement’, understood neither in the relatively straightforward terms of one-way ‘e-democracy’, such as e-petitions, nor in the Habermasian sense of rational democratic deliberation, but the more flexible manner of open-ended ‘conversations’ about local political issues. As the paper makes clear, academic enquiry has largely neglected this apparently mundane use of social media – certainly as it relates to specifically political participation – so some ‘interactive snapshots’ of this embryonic form of political communication are examined as a way of providing ‘prefigurative examples’ of its potential. By way of conclusion, it is suggested that the development of civic or political conversations across local government chimes with the emergent liquid modern environment, supporting, but not replacing, the ‘fixed’, or at least less ‘agile’, institutions of representative democracy.

‘Away with the fairies?’ Disability within primary‐age children's literature

This article outlines the findings of a new study that explores the portrayal of disability within a sample of the primary‐age childrens literature most readily available to UK schools. The kind of literature to which children are exposed is likely to influence their general perceptions of social life. How disability is handled by authors is therefore important from the standpoint of disability equality. Findings suggest that whilst there are some good examples of inclusive literature ‘out there’, discriminatory language and/or negative stereotypes about disability continue to be present in a range of more contemporary childrens books. Clearly, more still needs to be done to ensure that schools and teachers are provided with information relating to the best examples of inclusion literature and efforts must continue to be made to inform authors, publishers and illustrators about how to approach the issue of disability.

Proactive and Defensive Engagement: Social Citizenship in a Changing Public Sphere

Arguing that the nature of citizenship is changing as a result of the progressive fragmentation of the public sphere in late modern societies, this article suggests that contemporary citizenship is best understood as a series of ‘temporary solidarities’ contained within a social politics characterised by ‘defensive’ or ‘proactive’ forms of engagement. Beginning with a theoretical discussion which explores some of the reasons for the fragmentation of the public realm as well as its possible impact on citizenship and the conduct of social politics, the article subsequently considers a number of examples of defensive and proactive engagement in the general area of welfare. The article then moves on to examine the implications of a theory of citizenship as defensive and/or proactive engagement for contemporary understandings of social divisions, before concluding with a brief consideration of how this approach of citizenship might also contribute to a more detailed understanding of social inclusion and exclusion.

Citizenship, space and time Engagement, identity and belonging in a connected world

This article examines changing modalities of citizenship in a fast-moving, informationalized and connected world. The argument here is that, in an increasingly globalized economic, social and cultural environment, forms and practices of citizenship inevitably – and increasingly – fragment across space and time. While this tendency for citizenship to ‘shape-shift’ politically and socially is not new – and indeed while the spatial fragmentation of belonging has been frequently commented upon, particularly in relation to the claimed decline of the bordered nation-state – the dimension of time in relationship to citizenship has been rather less well explored. By examining the interplay of space and time in contemporary citizenship, understood here in terms of civic and political engagement, identity and belonging, it becomes possible to understand how citizenship practices operate differentially according to degrees of spatial embeddedness, on the one hand, and degrees of temporal ‘thickness’, on the other.