This book revives the discussion on public social services and their redesign, with a focus on services relating to care and the social inclusion of vulnerable groups, providing rich information on the changes that occurred in the organisation and supply of public social services over the last thirty years in different European places and service fields. Despite the persisting variety in social service models, three shared trends emerge: public sector disengagement, 'vertical re-scaling' of authority and 'horizontal re-mix' in the supply system. The consequences of such changes are evaluated from different perspectives – governance, social and territorial cohesion, labour market, gender – and are eventually deemed 'disruptive' in both economic and social terms. The policy implications of the restructuring are also explored.
The politics of public policy is a vibrant research area increasingly at the forefront of intellectual innovations in the discipline. We argue that political scientists are best positioned to undertake research on the politics of public policy when they possess expertise in particular policy areas. Policy expertise positions scholars to conduct theoretically innovative work and to ensure that empirical research reflects the reality they aim to analyze. It also confers important practical advantages, such as access to a significant number of academic positions and major sources of research funding not otherwise available to political scientists. Perhaps most importantly, scholars with policy expertise are equipped to defend the value of political science degrees and research in the public sphere.
ABSTRACTThe politics of public policy is a vibrant research area increasingly at the forefront of intellectual innovations in the discipline. We argue that political scientists are best positioned to undertake research on the politics of public policy when they possess expertise in particular policy areas. Policy expertise positions scholars to conduct theoretically innovative work and to ensure that empirical research reflects the reality they aim to analyze. It also confers important practical advantages, such as access to a significant number of academic positions and major sources of research funding not otherwise available to political scientists. Perhaps most importantly, scholars with policy expertise are equipped to defend the value of political science degrees and research in the public sphere.
This paper seeks to synthesize some of the main conclusions a of those who have thought about or studied the uses and limitations of social science research for public policy. The paper is designed to provide some background for a discussion of social science and public policy by government officials, social scientists, and others who are interested in policy research. We deal with the following factors which appear to have influenced the utilization of social science research results: (1) the validity of the scientific approach to social questions, (2) the individual researcher and policy maker and their attitudes toward each other, (3) the communication between researcher and policy maker, (4) the type of research conducted, (5) the type of research organizations involved, (6) the motivation for the research effort, and (7) the nature of the topic being studied. ; Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources
Abstract: This article argues that while the provision of social assistance is an accepted reality in Canada it is supported by a multiplicity of contrary arguments in the context of scarce resources. As such, it must be the prerogative of elected leaders to balance the direction and resourcing of its provision with competing policy goals. However, this does not imply a political carte blanche with regard to policy development. In addition to any judicial check on policy-making, public servants have an obligation to ensure that the elected decision-makers are adequately informed about the rights issues involved as well as the various policy options available. Moreover, public servants must ensure that all normative and potentially rights abrogating decisions are made openly, transparently and subject to the scrutiny of a public that has the tools and means to understand and analyse information and to express itself accordingly in the political arena.
In 13 semi-structured, face-to-face interviews at a social service organization, workers were asked to discuss the problems and challenges that made their day-to-day jobs difficult. Most workers identified problems and challenges at the client-level, while secondarily discussing organizational and societal challenges. The findings in the research speak to Michael Lipsky's 'Street-Level Bureaucracy' in that the people that administer social policy on a day-to-day basis with their clients identify the most difficulties in carrying out their organizational objectives of changing their clients not husbanding material resources.
Javne su politike, kao višedimenzionalan i izrazito kompleksan fenomen, nužno multidisciplinaran predmet istraživanja. Cilj je rada istražiti što je specifično politološko znanje o javnim politikama, odnosno koji je jedinstveni doprinos politologa izučavanju i upravljanju javnim politikama u svrhe profiliranja te mlade politološke discipline u Jugoistočnoj Europi. Rad je nastao kao rezultat pregleda temeljnih udžbenika javnih politika u svijetu i regiji, te literature o metodologiji i pristupima istraživanju u društvenim znanostima i politologiji. Kreće se od određivanja što su javne politike i što je politički aspekt javnih politika. Propituju se pristupi istraživanju javnih politika (policy studije). Zatim se identificiraju vrste profesionalne uporabe tih istraživanja (policy analize). Ključna je pretpostavka kako je politologija prvenstveno kompetentna za analizu aktera stvaranja politika. Osnovni je nalaz da temelj profesionalnog profiliranja politologa u javnim politikama, s obzirom da jedini rabe istraživačku perspektivu usmjerenu na aktere, reprezentativnost i legitimnost stvaranja politika, može biti jedan oblik participatorne policy analize. ; Public policies, as a multi-dimensional and highly complex phenomenon, necessarily make a multidisciplinary research subject. The aim of this paper is to examine what is specific political science knowledge about public policy, and what is the unique contribution of political scientists to policy research and governance to enhance consolidating this young discipline in Southeastern Europe. This paper is a result of a review of policy textbooks in Southeastern Europe and worldwide, and literature on approaches and methodologies in social sciences and political science. It starts with determining public polices and their political aspect. Then it explores approaches of policy studies. Finally, it identifies types of professional policy research or policy analysis. The key assumption is that political science is primarily competent to analyze policy actors. The main finding of the paper is that the basis of political scientist professionalization in policy research, given that they are best in actor-centered research, and issues of representativeness and legitimacy of policy-making, can be a form of participatory policy analysis.
Issues Around Aligning Theory, Research and Practice in Social Work Education provides a reflection on social work education with a slant towards an Afrocentric approach, aiming to facilitate strong reflective thinking and to address local realities about social work education on the African continent as well as in broader global contexts. This volume focuses on issues around aligning theory, research and practice in social work education. A significant contribution is made here to the scholarly understanding of opportunities to sustain the academic discourse on social work education. Social work as a profession and a social science discipline is dynamic, and it ought to meet the challenges of the realities of the societies in which it serves, given the history of the changing society of South Africa from apartheid to democracy. Over the years, social work education and training has undergone tremendous curricular changes with the enactment of the White Paper for Social Welfare and the national review, respectively, by the South African Council for Social Services Professions (SACSSP) and the Council on Higher Education (CHE) for the re-accreditation of all Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) programmes in South Africa fulfilling the prescripts of the Higher Education Act (No. 101 of 1997, as amended) and Social Service Professions Act (No. 110 of 1978). It is worth mentioning that the curricular changes will also continue with the current reviewing of Social Service Professions Act (No. 110 of 1978), as amended, which is underway in South Africa. This book is really ground-breaking! The Afrocentric perspective on social work practice contributes to the current discourse on decolonisation of social work teaching and practice. From a methodological perspective, the book is premised on multi-, inter- and trans-disciplining in social sciences. It covers aspects of social work education and practice through research (narrative, qualitative, African methodology, secondary data analysis, etc.), engendering values and ethics, report writing, supervision in fieldwork as well as exchange programmes and international service-learning, addressing a number of concepts such as cultural competency, cultural awareness and sensitivity are addressed.
Access to justice for all, regardless of the ability to pay, has been a core democratic value. But this basic human right has come under threat through wider processes of restructuring, with an increasingly market-led approach to the provision of welfare. Professionals and volunteers in Law Centres in Britain are struggling to provide legal advice and access to welfare rights to disadvantaged communities. Drawing upon original research, this unique study explores how strategies to safeguard these vital services might be developed in ways that strengthen rather than undermine the basic ethics and principles of public service provision. The book explores how such strategies might strengthen the position of those who provide, as well as those who need, public services, and ways to empower communities to work more effectively with professionals and progressive organisations in the pursuit of rights and social justice agendas more widely.
This chapter endeavors to develop an attempt at characterizing the social service system in Europe, serving three areas that we understand to be present in different system models but with different logics. The first has to do with the different denominations and ways of defining social services in each country. The second refers to the logic that legitimizes it, referring to its objects and purposes, as well as the type of needs and population groups that are targeted. The third area addresses issues of governance, the way it structures its devices and the relationships it establishes between the different levels of government and the main actors (the third sector, families, and the market). Having established this characterization (following this logic), we arrive at the Spanish case, trying to analyze its current model from legislative transformations that it has developed as well as trends and processes that the system has been generating as a result of the socioeconomic crisis, which have led to the modification of its profiles and demands. Finally, we take a rudimentary approach to the different challenges that we claim the Spanish Public System of Social Services must cope with in the current context.
Based on the theoretical and empirical studies carried out in eight countries (Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, the Ukraine, and Denmark), tendencies of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the region are presented. Similarities and differences in training of managerial personnel, ethics of activities of organizations, fostering of corporate social responsibility in the government policy, corporate involvement and expectations, communication with stakeholders, and in other aspects are highlighted. In spite of the different tendencies of political and social development, corporate social responsibility formed in the countries of the region and some common problematic tendencies are highlighted.
This groundbreaking book brings together perspectives from political philosophy and comparative social policy to discuss generational justice. Contributing new insights about the preconditions for designing sustainable, inclusive policies for all of society, the authors expose the possibilities of supporting egalitarian principles in an aging society through balanced generational welfare contracts.
In recent years, the reflection on the social role the healthcare company plays has led public opinion, management scholars and the healthcare system themselves to place the concept of ethics at the centre of their attention. Throughout the decades, the doctrine has taken notable steps forward in the definition of the particular version of ethics, that is, business ethics, while at the same time, quite a few healthcare system have begun to equip themselves with instruments for defining and measuring their ethical behaviour (e.g. ethical codes, customer satisfaction tools, complaint handling). Today, in fact, many healthcare systems are fully aware that it is in their best interest to manage their ethics as much as their economy and that it is wrong to consider the commitment of social responsibility within the government only as a purely moral concern (and therefore, in some ways, optional). Today, the healthcare system is given a new role by the society, which stands side by side with the by now "institutional" role of producing goods and services while creating welfare: it thus becomes an organism that must behave more responsible in satisfying human values. It becomes a cell that works in a synergetic manner within the larger macroeconomic system.
pt.I. Control of public-service corporations: The possibilities and limitations of municipal control. [By] L. S. Rowe.--Financial control: Capitalization, methods of accounting and taxation. [By] B. S. Coler.--Difficulties of control as illustrated in the history of gas companies. [By] J. H. Gray.--Regulation of cost and quality of service as illustrated by street railway companies. [By] F. W. Speirs.--pt.II. Influence of corporations on political life. [By] W. Lindsay.--pt.III. Combination of capital as a factor in industrial progress: industrials as investments for small capital. [By] J. B. Dill.--The evolution of mercantile business. [By] J. Wanamaker.--The interest of labor in the economies of railroad consolidation. [By] W. H. Baldwin, jr.--pt.IV. The future of protection: The industrial ascendancy of the United States. [By] N. W. Aldrich.--The tariff policy of our new possessions. [By] R. P. Porter.--The next steps in tariff reform. [By] C. R. Miller.--Report of the academy committee on meetings. ; Mode of access: Internet.
