Countering terrorism and radicalisation: Securitising social policy?

In recent years a heated debate has been taking place (and is still going on) whether the development of social (security) policies influences the general economic growth in a positive or negative way. Whereas Korpi (1985) finds a positive relationship and Rothschild (1982, 580) concludes, “that there are at the present no signs that Welfare State activities have by themselves net harmful effects on economic efficiency or economic growth”, Bernholz (1982, 584) asks, “can modern Western democracies survive with an expanding system of social welfare?” In his latest study (1985) Bernholz is quite sceptical in his answer, where he is in line with most other studies. They all reach more or less the same conclusion that, due to the rapid increase of social expenditures after the Second World War, welfare state activities have at least reached an absolute maxium or have even passed their limits so that the negative consequences (e.g. like rising disincentives to work, a low savings rate, increasing shadow activities), outbalance the benefits1. That social expenditures have increased quite drastically over the last 25 years in most Western democracies (see Table 1) should impress any observer. But to conclude from these developments that one should simply reduce state activities and the negative consequences will diminish may be quite misleading2. Before suggestions are proposed, e.g. to cut drastically social expenditures, it should be considered that “social policy has become an essential element in the political economy of all modern industrial states” (Rothschild 1982, 579). Therefore, first a positive analysis of the political institutions should be made in which social policies take place and which set the frame where the most important actors (voters/taxpayers, government, interest groups) operate3. When we know how voters/taxpayers and important interest groups will react to government policy proposals, we are able to evaluate how successful changes in social policies can be achieved.

Social housing for socially vulnerable segments of the population is a significant component of governmental social policy, as it is directly linked to demographic and migration processes, socially vulnerable groups and people with special needs, poverty alleviation, social integration, and community development. The study conducts a bibliometric analysis (using VOSviewer tools) of the scientific literature on social housing policy and management. The study filtered more than 6,000 research papers indexed in the Scopus database from 1983 to 2024. The purpose was to structure the global scientific knowledge on governmental management of social housing as an element of the state’s social policy, focusing on the following directions. The first is the evolution of scientific thought. The analysis revealed a rapid growth in scientific interest starting from 1991; the earliest articles were published in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and the United States, while scholars from Spain, Mexico, and Italy joined after 2020. The second is the complexity or conversely – concentration of research networks. The top five countries by the number of works are the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, and the United States; the most powerful research schools are in the Netherlands, Australia, and the United Kingdom; the most extensive scientific connections are held by the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France. The third is the content-thematic orientation of the research. The paper identified the predominance of works from social sciences; social housing issues are most frequently studied in connection with public health and inequality issues.

This paper reviews the articles of Lithuanian authors on social policy topic and assesses if the asset-based policy topic was ever explored. It briefly analyses the efficiency of current social security policy in Lithuania and social-economical state of inhabitants. It states that in order to reduce poverty and inequality, current social policy should be reformed, and the current income support (or income security) policy should be replaced by the asset-based policy which stresses the development of skills, knowledge and capabilities, promotes savings, investments and building of assets and gives everyone a possibility to become a capital owner. The paper presents results of a representative survey which was aimed to explore Lithuanian inhabitants’ opinion towards the new form of social policy: asset-based policy. It uncovers that vast majority of Lithuania's inhabitants would agree to the implementation of the asset-based policy, based on children's savings accounts.

Social security systems provide financial support during unemployment, illness, disability, and old age, evolving from informal, community-based support to structured, state-regulated schemes. A review was utilized in methodology covering publications from 2013 to 2023 aimed at identifying current social security schemes, challenges, and policy effectiveness and is guided by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Different search engines and databases including JSTOR, Google Scholar, and the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). The search involves the use of key search strings such as social security, social policy, health insurance, social protection, policy formulation, and implementation. A total of 114 publications were obtained, and due to selection criteria, a total of 25 relevant articles remained and were included in the study. The findings reveal that Tanzania's social security system comprises various schemes like the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and the Public Service Social Security Fund (PSSSF) which offer diverse benefits. However, challenges such as limited coverage, particularly in the informal sector, governance issues, and financial sustainability hinder their effectiveness. Despite these challenges, social security policies have positively impacted society in different ways such as poverty alleviation and healthcare access. Recommendations include expanding coverage, enhancing governance, increasing public awareness, leveraging technology, strengthening institutional capacity, ensuring financial sustainability, and fostering international partnerships. The study highlights the need for comprehensive reforms in Tanzania’s social security system to enhance coverage, governance, and sustainability, thereby ensuring greater social protection for all citizens particularly those in the informal sector, rural and remote areas.

In the final chapter of a book dealing with so many fundamental aspects of social administration, there is no need for me to define or defend it as a subject of academic study, or to be over-worried about its boundaries. While we would all agree that ‘The quality of our understanding of current problems depends largely on the broadness of our frame of reference’, we have also had demonstrated to us that understanding of the many different ways in which social policies are being, or could be, implemented depends on our willingness and ability to subject these ways to much more detailed analysis. But whether we are principally concerned with the frame of reference or the practical possibilities of different forms of administration, we are now confident enough in the core, the main focus, of our studies in social policy and administration to welcome the important contribution to be made to almost any aspect of them, by political scientists, economists, sociologists, lawyers and others.

Despite allegations of political disengagement and apathy on the part of the young, the last ten years have witnessed a considerable degree of political activity by young people – much of it led by students or directed at changes to the higher education system. Such activity has been evident across the globe. Nevertheless, to date, no book has brought together contributions from a wide variety of national contexts to explore such trends in a rigorous manner. Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives offers a unique contribution to the disciplines of education, sociology, social policy, politics and youth studies. It provides the first book-length analysis of student politics within contemporary higher education comprising contributions from a variety of different countries and addressing questions such as: •What roles do students’ unions play in politics today? •How successful are students in bringing about change? •In what ways are students engaged in politics and protest in contemporary society? •How does such engagement differ by national context? Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives explores a number of common themes, including: the focus and nature of student politics and protest; whether students are engaging in fundamentally new forms of political activity; the characteristics of politically engaged students; the extent to which such activity can be considered to be ‘globalised’; and societal responses to political activity on the part of students. Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives does not seek to develop a coherent argument across all its chapters but, instead, illustrate the variety of empirical foci, theoretical resources and substantive arguments that are being made in relation to student politics and protest. International in scope, with all chapters dealing with recent developments concerning student politics and protest, this book will be an invaluable guide for Higher Education professionals, masters and postgraduate students in education, sociology, social policy, politics and youth studies.

Most Latin American countries have extensive social policies which absorb high levels of state spending. Despite this, Latin America continues to suffer from high levels of inequality in terms of income and access to basic services. This article explores this apparent paradox. It focuses on three aspects of social policy in the region: patterns of resource allocation, the distribution of welfare entitlements and differing capacities to take advantage of these entitlements. It applies this framework to study the distributional effects of education, health and social security policies, paying particular attention to recent changes and developments. The article shows that these three factors combine in various ways to benefit higher‐income groups and exclude the poor. Recent changes have marginally improved provision for low‐income groups, but the fundamentally inegalitarian nature of social policy in the region remains largely unchanged and unchallenged.

BackgroundHealth inequalities can be tackled with appropriate health and social policies, involving all community groups and governments, from local to global. The objective of this study was to carry out a scoping review on social and health policies or interventions to tackle health inequalities in European cities published in scientific journals.MethodsScoping review. The search was done in “PubMed” and the “Sociological s” database and was limited to articles published between 1995 and 2011. The inclusion criteria were: interventions had to take place in European cities and they had to state the reduction of health inequalities among their objectives.ResultsA total of 54 papers were included, of which 35.2% used an experimental design, and 74.1% were carried out in the United Kingdom. The whole city was the setting in 27.8% of them and 44.4% were based on promoting healthy behaviours. Adults and children were the most frequent target population and half of the interventions had a universal approach and the other half a selective one. Half of the interventions were evaluated and showed positive results.ConclusionsAlthough health behaviours are not the main determinants of health inequalities, the majority of the selected documents were based on evaluations of interventions focusing on them.

In the domain of social protection and social policy, a conventional way of trying to document “Europeanization” has always been to track European English policy discourses at the EU level and in the nations of Europe. Notions that crystallize the normative orientations promoted in the forums of political communication and in the policy communities are numerous. All of them are crafted in English and travel across national forums of political communication and national scientific forums. The present paper selects two such notions, i.e. “activation” and “flexicurity” and carefully studies the locus of their inventions and the travels across many countries and many forums – national and transnational. The precise documentation is based on participation in numerous forums, field studies in Denmark, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy over a long period (1997-2008). The findings are all relevant for this period, i. e. prior to the upheaval of social policies at the EU level and in the member states provoked by the financial and economic crisis. They have in common to identify the dissemination of a standard discourse and the resilience of national substantive choices and roles of actors of social protection and labour market policies. Because the paper is written with hindsight, taking stock of the late 1990s and early 2000s, a de facto comparison unexpectedly becomes feasible with the crisis period (2008-2014). The counterfactual is easy to design: a powerful Europeanization of systems of social protection and labour markets has happened in this second period, via the highly constrained implementation of structural reform and budget cuts programmes deemed to satisfy macroeconomic and macrofiscal orientations decided at the EU level, especially within the Eurozone, and especially in the Southern member states. Whereas the Europeanization of discourse and social policy concepts remained superficial in 1997-2008, actual and hard Europeanization really bit deeply since the crisis into national arrangements, even affecting international and European labour law.

Journal Article Inflation and Priorities: Social Policy and Public Expenditure, 1975 Get access Inflation and Priorities: Social Policy and Public Expenditure, 1975. Edited by R. KLEIN. (London: Centre for Studies in Social Policy, 1975. Pp. 193. £350.) T. Wilson T. Wilson University of Glasgow Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 86, Issue 342, 1 June 1976, Pages 389–391, https://doi.org/10.2307/2230775 Published: 01 June 1976

Rudolf Klein and Phoebe Hall, Caring for Quality in the Caring Services: Options for Future Policy, published for the Centre for Studies in Social Policy by the Bedford Square Press of the National Council of Social Service, London, 1974, Doughty Street Paper No. 2.47 pp. 50p. - Volume 5 Issue 2

This article examines the relationship between social security policies and the trend toward greater equality in family life. The declining birth rate and increasing labour‐force participation of women, among other factors, have altered the traditional division of labour in family life on which many social security policies were originally predicated. As the traditional guidelines dissolve, two schools of feminist thought suggest alternative ways that husbands and wives should divide their labour to fulfil domestic responsibilities. These perspectives on gender equality in family life are analysed in terms of their implications for social security policies. The merits of these approaches to policy are assessed in light of their impact on social choice, independence, self‐realization, and family stability.

This chapter examines the development of social policies for women in Europe with particular reference to the four countries of Britain, Germany, Spain and Sweden. In Chapter 3 we discussed the differing patterns of women’s labour market participation and noted how these patterns were in part shaped by the social policies adopted in each country, especially those which encouraged or discouraged the reconciliation of paid work and family life. Chapter 6 discusses poverty and social exclusion in Europe and there we also examine how women’s access to material and other resources is affected by social security policies and access to paid employment. This chapter, in contrast, focuses on the historical developments of social policies for women and the underlying assumptions of the ‘normal expectations’ of women’s roles within each society. The chapter first considers the theoretical debates on the comparative study of welfare states and gender. This section examines recent feminist critiques of mainstream social policy and discusses a number of concepts and policy dimensions which are useful for the comparative analysis of how women fare in different welfare states. The second section focuses on the development of social policies for women in the four case-study countries.

Among the long-term factors in developing the country’s economy and its regions is the development of human capital . However , the country’s human capital has a different level of physical and mental development . In this regard , the study of social policy is most relevant to improve the demographic situation in the country . The article considers the main tasks of the demographic development of Kazakhstan in recent years in connection with the level of social policy development . The issue of the effectiveness of social policy is particularly important for Kazakhstan, which is associated with the inevitability of population aging and the rapid increase in the burden on the ablebodied population , as well as a decrease in the number of young people and the number of women at the peak of fertility . This entails a decrease in the population in the future . The purpose of this article is to develop social policy mechanisms to improve the demographic situation in the country . The development of social infrastructure — education , healthcare , culture , sports , and other similar systems — could improve the demographic situation in Kazakhstan. The research method is a systematic and integrated approach that can develop recommendations in social policy to increase the population . The results of the study cover recommendations for social services and the development of social infrastructure . The theoretical significance of the study lies in the use of this material in textbooks , and the practical significance lies in the use of recommendations by authorities .

Preparing for Tomorrow's Social Policy Agenda