Zoë Irving

Policy reconsidered : meanings, politics and practices

Introduction: policy and its exploration ~ Susan M. Hodgson and Zoe Irving Part one: Meanings: Policy, politics and modernity ~ Richard Jenkins Policy as panacea or aspiration ~ David Phillips The language of policy ~ Margaret Holloway Part two: Politics: Categorising and policy making ~ Jo Britton Policy business and politics ~ Kevin Farnsworth Policy and politicing at the international level ~ Bob Deacon Part three: Methods and practice: Ethics, research and policy ~ Malcolm Cowburn User involvement in policy and research: trends, trials and lessons ~ Lorna Warren and Ruby Chau Is what works the same as what matters? probation and criminal justice policy and practice ~ Marilyn Gregory Policies in practice: translation, intermediaries and welfare reform in southern eastern Europe ~ Paul Stubbs and Noemi Lendvai Conclusion: studying policy, a way forward ~ Susan M. Hodgson and Zoe Irving.

Integrity of practice in lecturers’ accounts of teaching decisions

This article draws on data collected during a funded research project on undergraduate teaching within a single discipline, social policy. Starting from observations drawn from analysis of the interview transcripts, the article develops the concept of ‘integrity of practice’ from the literature on reflective practice and the scholarship of teaching. Integrity of practice enables the lecturer to explain and justify decisions about teaching and learning activities to his or herself, as well as to students, colleagues and institutional and other policy makers. It provides for core stability in times of great changes in higher education and enables innovative practice to be justified and disseminated.

Introduction: Transnational Social Policy

Social policy and the social sciences more generally, have tended to emphasise links, activities and processes occurring ‘within’ nation states to the neglect of those cutting across them. This ‘methodological nationalism’ is increasingly being questioned as transnational processes, be they ‘from above’ or ‘from below’, institutionalised or non-institutionalised, formal or informal, have become more significant over the last half century. The spread of activities, links and ties beyond national borders has become more extensive and the interactions themselves have become more intensive. In the light of these changes, the aim of this themed section is to draw attention to the transnational dimensions of social policy and advance the study of transnationalism in relation to social policy and welfare.

Deciphering the International Monetary Fund’s (IMFs) position on austerity: Incapacity, incoherence and instrumentality:

Back in 2009, at the height of the global financial crisis, the London G20 forum met and declared the Washington consensus dead. What emerged in its place was a contradictory and confusing array of narratives and international policy prescriptions for post-crisis recovery that owed as much to the past as the present. Divisions within and among International Governmental Organisations (IGOs) arose about how best to address the economic challenges, but the dominant solution was ‘austerity’ which became firmly rooted in the policies and discourse of national governments and international organisations alike. While signalling a downward political reconditioning of public welfare expectations, the austerity strategy has itself lacked organisational conviction and coherence. Austerity is, thus, important for identifying the location of social policy in international post-crisis economic discourse. Since the crisis has paradoxically, bolstered economic interests at the expense of political choice, it is also necessary to study the crisis responses advocated by economic organisations as more, rather than less significant in shaping welfare futures. This article draws on evidence from a textual content analysis of International Monetary Fund (IMF) documents over the period 2004–2015 to examine discourse on austerity and social policy. The findings indicate that, while the language of ‘austerity’ and policy prescriptions vary, the IMF’s essential position has been to advocate austerity-like policies throughout the period, leaving its ideational ‘economistic’ position on the purpose of social policy fundamentally unchanged. These findings contrast with others that perceive a shift towards social justice concerns within the organisation, whereas our evidence suggests that the IMF’s position on social policy is one of ambivalence and incoherence.

Curious cases: small island states’ exceptionalism and its contribution to comparative welfare theory

While the size of states and the significance of ‘islandness’ have been of mild interest within the comparative study of politics and economics, the theoretical frameworks that operate within contemporary comparative analyses of welfare and social policy rest upon a largely unremarked assumption that population size does not matter. Explanations of and predictions for the development of welfare relations are undertaken in the belief that it is the ideological essence of welfare states that is important, and this national ‘character’ is established through concentration on the politics of class, sometimes gender, and occasionally ethnicity. However, it is often from the study of the small that important insight is generated and variation in universals can be found. Focusing on exemplars of the smallest national units, Cyprus, Iceland and Jersey, this article explores the significance of size and ‘islandness’ in welfare analysis. The findings of these country case studies expose aspects of the relationship between economics, geo-political strength and weakness, welfare state exceptionalism and hybridity and the social basis of welfare regime types which are less visible when size is not featured as an explanatory variable.

Frances Fox Piven – Plenary Lecture UK Social Policy Association Annual Conference 8th July 2014

As a special feature of this issue, we are pleased to extend to a wider audience, an edited transcript of the plenary lecture* delivered by Professor Frances Fox Piven, at the July 2014 Annual UK Social Policy Association Conference which took place at the University of Sheffield. The lecture spoke to the theme of the conference: ‘Social Policy confronting change: Resistance, Resilience and Radicalism’, taking a global perspective on the social and political transformations wrought by neoliberalism, the particular US experience and the place of protest in contesting change. The lecture provides a conversational insight into themes developed in Frances Fox Piven’s extensive academic writing over the last five decades, which has proved both progressive and provocative in its contribution to the theory and practice of social policy internationally.