Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction -- The broadening and deepening of welfare conditionality -- Conditionality, austerity and public opinion -- Conditionality and social control -- This book -- 2 The context for conditionality -- Targeting -- Generosity -- Entitlement -- Concluding comments -- 3 The techniques of conditionality -- Behavioural requirements -- Monitoring and verification -- Sanctions -- Incentives -- Concluding comments -- 4 The subjects of conditionality -- Unemployed people -- Tackling an underclass? The Anglosphere debate -- A need to activate? The European debate -- Targeting young people -- Expanding the reach to sick and disabled people -- Low-income families with children -- Social tenants -- Homeless people -- Enforcement -- Conditionality and coercion -- Persuasion -- Concluding comments -- 5 The impacts of conditionality -- Behavioural assumptions -- The challenge from behavioural economics -- More fundamental challenges -- Finding a middle ground -- Effectiveness -- Unintended, spill-over and scar effects -- Costs -- Alternatives -- Concluding comments -- 6 The ethics of conditionality -- Conditionality as an ethical 'problem' -- Rights -- Utilitarianism -- Contractualism -- Communitarianism -- Paternalism -- Social justice -- Concluding comments -- 7 Conclusions -- Putting conditionality in the spotlight -- Putting conditionality to the test -- Putting conditionality in context -- Bibliography -- Index

Welfare conditionality has become an idea of global significance in recent years. A 'hot topic' in North America, Australia, and across Europe, it has been linked to austerity politics, and the rise of foodbanks and destitution. In the Global South, where publicly funded welfare protection systems are often absent, conditional approaches have become a key tool employed by organisations pursuing human development goals. The essence of welfare conditionality lies in requirements for people to behave in prescribed ways in order to access cash benefits or other welfare support. These conditions are typically enforced through benefit 'sanctions' of various kinds, reflecting a new vision of 'welfare', focused more on promoting 'pro-social' behaviour than on protecting people against classic 'social risks' like unemployment. This new book in Routledge's Key Ideas series charts the rise of behavioural conditionality in welfare systems across the globe, its appeal to politicians of Right and Left, and its application to a growing range of social problems. Crucially it explores why, in the context of widespread use of conditional approaches as well as apparently strong public support, both the efficacy and the ethics of welfare conditionality remain so controversial. As such, Welfare Conditionality is essential reading for students, researchers, and commentators in social and public policy, as well as those designing and implementing welfare policies. --

The rhetoric and practice of localism has attracted significant support within both political and academic circles in the UK in recent years. However, it is the contention of this article that there are, or should be, limits to localism as applied to the basic citizenship rights of vulnerable people. Drawing on a ten-year, mixed-methods study, we use the example of sharply rising homelessness in England to illustrate our argument that localist policymaking has an intrinsic tendency to disadvantage socially marginalised groups. While we acknowledge the central role played by austerity in driving up homelessness over the past decade, we advance the case that the post-2010 localist agenda of successive UK governments has also had an independent and malign effect. At the very least, we seek to demonstrate that localism cannot be viewed as a taken-for-granted progressive model, with centralism (that is, the consistent implementation of a policy across a whole country) also perfectly defensible on progressive grounds in relevant circumstances.

AbstractHomelessness services and policy have historically tended to be organised by an explicitly conditional logic, wherein people experiencing homelessness must prove their "housing readiness" before accessing settled housing. This model has been robustly challenged in recent decades by "housing‐led" approaches that ostensibly eschew conditionality and prioritise the rapid rehousing of people experiencing homelessness. Various countries now include housing‐led approaches in the national policy frameworks, including Australia, which overhauled its approach to homelessness in 2008, and Scotland, where a housing‐led approach is supported by a legal right to housing for homeless households. Notwithstanding this policy shift, conditionality remains an enduring feature of responses to homelessness in both jurisdictions. This paper sheds light on this phenomenon by comparing the Australian experience with that of Scotland. We demonstrate how conditionality remains a feature of both jurisdictions; however, there is greater effort in Scotland to identify and minimise conditionality, whereas in Australia it is able to persist relatively unchallenged. We conclude with some reflections on what Australia can learn from Scotland's relative success, highlighting the importance of a national‐level policy framework and an adequate affordable housing supply.