Social Policy Analysts Research Articles

The authoritarian challenge: liberal thinking on autocracy and international relations, 1930–45

AbstractThe return of authoritarian great powers, the slowing of the democratic wave, and outright reversion to authoritarian rule pose important questions for international theory. What are the implications of an international system populated with more autocracies? This question was posed by a diverse array of social scientists, public intellectuals, and policy analysts in response to the autocratic wave in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. We show that a series of conversations emanating from quite diverse intellectual priors – from Christian realists to international lawyers and disaffected Marxists – converged on the risks these autocratic regimes posed to democratic regimes and the international order they sought to forge. These risks included unconstrained rulers, an inability to sustain international commitments and political processes that undermined rational deliberation at home and spread disinformation abroad. The reading of this work suggests an under-appreciated strand of liberal international relations theory, and these debates have direct implications for liberal arguments about the democratic peace. Rather than theorizing why democracies avoid war, they underscore the importance of understanding why authoritarian and democratic countries are particularly prone to conflict.

Buying for good: Altruism, ethical consumerism and social policy

AbstractThe extent of altruistic behaviour and its relationship to the market has been a major interest of social policy analysts since the pioneering work of Richard Titmuss. Here we report on empirical research into such behaviour in consumer markets where self‐interest might be expected to dominate but whose participants are increasingly demonstrating more ethical concerns. We discuss three factors that have been hypothesized to affect the extent and depth of altruistic behaviour by individuals in such markets: the degree of personal sacrifice involved in the purchase, the reputation of individuals with their family and friends and individuals' sense of self‐identity. Using an online survey method, we measure consumers' motivations for real purchases in two different ethical consumerism settings: (RED) and Fairtrade. We find evidence to support all three hypotheses and conclude with some of the implications for social policy.

Assistive technology use and unmet need in Canada

Background Around the world, variations and inequities in access to assistive technology (AT) are evident. Development of legislation, policies, and programmes has not kept pace with the increasing demand for AT. Therefore, context-specific needs assessment is required, which can assist in anticipating the accessibility and human support needs of individuals with impairments, and in turn, inform resource allocation and prioritisation of services. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to describe the current use and unmet needs of AT use in community-dwelling Canadians experiencing activity limitation or participation restriction (disability). Data and methods Bootstrapping was used to estimate the prevalence of AT use and unmet needs using data from the 2012 Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD). The total sample size for the CSD was 45,443 individuals. Results Among the estimated 3,775,920 Canadians with a disability (13.7% of the Canadian population), 3,579,580 used some form of AT. Among these individuals, 3,050,750 use glasses or contact lenses and 1,109,060 use bathroom aids. The results of the study showed that the most common unmet need was for hearing aids (0.86% of the total population), followed by bathroom aids (0.36%). Interpretations This study comes at a time when global attention is focussed on research on access to AT. This study using data from the CSD will serve disability and social policy analysts at all levels of government, as well as associations for persons with disabilities and researchers working in the field of disability policy and programmes. Implication for Rehabilitation The current initiatives on assistive technology, including the World Health Organization’s Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology (GATE) project, recognize the substantial gap between the need for and provision of assistive devices. In Canada, for example, as well as in other countries, despite rapid growth in innovation, unmet needs for assistive devices persist and multiple barriers have been reported by individuals in accessing needed assistive devices. A better understanding of the met and unmet needs of assistive technology users can assist in anticipating accessibility and human support needs of individuals with disabilities, and in turn, inform resource allocation and prioritization of services. • The study estimates the prevalence of assistive device use in community dwelling Canadians and describes the unmet needs for assistive devices of Canadians with activity limitation (disability). • This study provides evidence on the use and unmet assistive technology needs for disability and social policy analysts at all levels of government, as well as associations for persons with disabilities and researchers working in the field of disability policy and programmes. • The results of this study can be used for planning and evaluating services, programmes and policies for Canadian adults with disabilities to help enable their full participation in society.

Weathering the Storm: Social Policy and the Great Recession

This review discusses recent challenges to the welfare state arising from the Great Recession (GR). The GR was a significant event for social policy analysts, as it tested the responsiveness of welfare systems in the midst of a recent trend toward austerity politics in advanced economies. Social policy changes were part of the toolkit advanced democracies used to respond to the GR, and the welfare state mitigated the consequences of the GR. However, a stark limitation of the social safety net in the United States was the failure to assist immigrant households. The nexus of immigration and social policy is likely to be a significant controversy as we consider the meaning of social citizenship.

Intercultural household food tensions: a relational dialectics analysis

PurposeRecent global migration trends have led to an increased prevalence, and new patterning, of intercultural family configurations. This paper is about intercultural couples and how they manage tensions associated with change as they settle in their new cultural context. The focus is specifically on the role food plays in navigating these tensions and the effects on the couples’ relational cultures.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative relational–dialectic approach is taken for studying Polish–Irish intercultural couples. Engagement with relevant communities provided multiple points of access to informants.FindingsIntercultural tensions arise as the couples jointly transition, and food consumption represents implicit tensions in the household’s relational culture. Such tensions are sometimes resolved, but sometimes not, leading to enduring tensions. Dialectical movement causes change, which has developmental consequences for the couples’ relational cultures.Research limitations/implicationsThis study shows how the ways that tensions are addressed are fundamental to the formation of a relational family identity.Practical implicationsRecommendations emphasise the importance of understanding how the family relational culture develops in the creation of family food practices. Marketers can look at the ways of supporting the intercultural couple retain tradition, while smoothly navigating their new cultural context. Social policy analysts may reflect on the ways that the couples develop an intercultural identity rooted in each other’s culture, and the range of strategies to demonstrate they can synthesise and successfully negotiate the challenges they face.Originality/valueDealing simultaneously and separately with a variety of dialectical oppositions around food, intercultural couples weave together elements from each other’s cultures and simultaneously facilitate both relational and social change. Within the relationship, stability–change dialectic is experienced and negotiated, while at the relationship’s nexus with the couple’s social ecology, negotiating conventionality–uniqueness dialectic enables them reproduce or depart from societal conventions, and thus facilitate social change.

A Critical Appraisal of the Juvenile Justice System under Cameroon's 2005 Criminal Procedure Code: Emerging Challenges

The objective of this article is to examine the changes introduced by the 2005 Cameroonian Criminal Procedure Code on matters of juvenile justice, considering that before this Code, juvenile justice in Cameroon was governed by extra-national laws. In undertaking this analysis, the article highlights the evolution of the administration of juvenile justice 50 years after independence of Cameroon. It also points out the various difficulties and shortcomings in the treatment of juvenile offenders in Cameroon since the enactment of the new Criminal Procedure Code. The article reveals that the 2005 Code is an amalgamation of all hitherto existing laws in the country that pertained to juvenile justice, and that despite the considerable amount of criticism it has received, the Code is clearly an improvement of the system of juvenile justice in Cameroon, since it represents a balance of the due process rights of young people, the protection of society and the special needs of young offenders. This is so because the drafters of the Code took a broad view of the old laws on juvenile justice. Also a wide range of groups were consulted, including criminal justice professionals, children’s service organisations, victims, parents, young offenders, educators, advocacy groups and social-policy analysts. However, to address the challenges that beset the juvenile justice system of Cameroon, the strategy of the government should be focussed on three areas: the prevention of youth crime, the provision of meaningful consequences for the actions of young people, and the rehabilitation and reintegration of young offenders. Cameroonian law should seek educative solutions rather than to impose prison sentences or other repressive measures on young offenders. Special courts to deal with young offenders should be established outside the regular penal system and should be provided with resources that are adequate for and appropriate to fostering their understanding of juvenile crime.

The Privatization Conundrum in Ghana: Lessons from Golden Tulip Hotel in Accra

Since independence, there have been copious generalizations and general outcry among Ghanaians especially social commentators and policy analysts about the under-development of Ghana. One of the factors that accounted for the slow pace of development of the country is the limited attention paid to the provision of enabling the environment to facilitate the boom of the private sector. Is the private sector not contributing enough to attract the necessary attention of government? Whatever the case may be the crux of this work is that: nurturing the private sector by the government is more likely to contribute largely to the development of Ghana. This work explores the developmental models of Ghanaian governments and the private sector, the rationale for privatization and as its case study, examines the contributions of Golden Tulip, Accra; previously a public enterprise but now ceded to a private venture to test the tentative statement. The work examines whether the contributions of the private sector specifically Golden Tulip to national development is better than when it was under state ownership. Using in-depth interview and secondary data, the measures of improvement in hotel Continental after it has been privatized and rebranded as Golden Tulip include: employment, payment of taxes, financial viability, welfare services among others. The study combines information from both primary and secondary sources. Primary information is obtained from a personal interview conducted by experts in the public and private sectors as well as in academia and focus group discussions. While secondary source data is taken from both published and unpublished scholarly works and articles on the topic. It is found that the development of the private sector should not be seen as an end in itself but as part of the means of promoting a better standard of living, foster development. In addition, when the enabling environment is created it will contribute largely to the development of Ghana. Also, it has been discovered that the private is bedevilled with the following challenges: lack of political commitment to private sector’s development, reluctance of financial institutions to take risks with private sector bodies, inadequate entrepreneurial skills of some private sector operators, bureaucratic practices among the public sector regulators or supervisory bodies, non-accrual of the benefits of the private sector development to micro and small enterprise sector among others. The research finally makes inferences, deductions, conclusions and recommendations necessary for the development of Ghana and for the readership of all and sundry especially the management of Golden Tulip, Accra which may be interested in the subject.

‘Twenty something’: The social policy and practice implications of emerging adulthood

Emerging adulthood has been identified by Arnett (2000) as a new developmental stage that comprises 18-25 years. This period of the life span has characteristic and significant personal challenges, and it also contains New Zealand’s highest proportion of problem behaviours such as hazardous drinking, dangerous driving, loneliness and mental illness. Research on 18-25 year-olds who have overcome difficult upbringings can provide insights on how to respond to other young people whose development is compromised. As a society, it is recommended that we pay more attention to the particular circumstances of emerging adults and that we allocate more social service resources to the members of this age group who are experiencing difficulties. Emerging adulthood, newly identified as a distinct phase of human development, must be an area of key interest for social policy analysts, social work practitioners and social service managers. This phase falls between the ages of 18 and 25 years and between adolescence and young adulthood. Like the categorisation of adolescence before it, emerging adulthood has come about as a consequence of economic progress and increased life expectancy, and it is a regular part of post-industrial societies such as our own (Arnett, 2004). On a simple and evidential level, this new division of the lifespan may explain why young people do not seem to settle down and marry like they used to. In fact, emerging adulthood is associ- ated with an array of defining attributes and included here is a general sense of enhanced wellbeing for the young people themselves. This period is of particular relevance to hu- man service professionals, nonetheless, because it also contains our highest proportion of troubled young people, and since it presents some unique opportunities for intervening in people’s lives in beneficial ways.

Rethinking Risk and Ageing: Extending Working Lives

This paper critically examines the development of recent policy and theoretical issues concerning the ‘extension of working lives’ for older people in the United Kingdom. It grounds its analysis in ideas from the ‘risk society’ thesis (Beck, 1992) to explore how the matrix of population ageing, job and pension changes impinge on the shifting emphasis on increasing the retirement age, coupled with individualising pensions from state provision to a focus on self-responsibility via private provision. This neo-liberal re-positioning of extending work and pension policy has implications for the management of risk for older people in the UK. The paper explores the impact of population ageing on government ideas associated with social policy relating to extending working lives. It concludes with an assessment on the lessons policy makers and social policy analysts can learn from such shifts and the impact on the social construction of age.

Political Peoplehood: The Roles of Values, Interests, and Identities

For more than three decades, Rogers M. Smith has been one of the leading scholars of the role of ideas in American politics, policies, and history. Over time, he has developed the concept of peoples, a category that is much broader and more fluid than legal citizenship, enabling Smith to offer rich new analyses of political communities, governing institutions, public policies, and moral debates. This book gathers Smith's most important writings on peoplehood to build a coherent theoretical and historical account of what peoplehood has meant in American political life, informed by frequent comparisons to other political societies. From the revolutionary-era adoption of individual rights rhetoric to today's battles over the place of immigrants in a rapidly diversifying American society, Smith shows how modern America's growing embrace of overlapping identities is in tension with the providentialism and exceptionalism that continue to make up so much of what many believe it means to be an American. A major work that brings a lifetime of thought to bear on questions that are as urgent now as they have ever been, Political Peoplehood will be essential reading for social scientists, political philosophers, policy analysts, and historians alike.

Investigating the social relations of human service provision

In this article, I reflect on my experiences using institutional ethnography to support socially just policy, practice and organizational change. I focus specifically on three inter-related institutional ethnographic research projects that have informed my approach to working with social workers, shelter workers, lawyers, policy analysts, community organizers, teachers, probation officers and youth to create change. Although strategic collaborations to change institutional practices and knowledge are rife with tensions, I show how institutional ethnography can be used reflexively throughout the collaborative process to create conditions for critical consciousness-raising among participants; inspire reflection and action on the part of human service professionals and inform collective efforts to create systemic change, as well as to guide the research process itself. I conclude by suggesting that institutional ethnographers seeking to influence socially just change need to find ways to balance the demands of academic writing, while being true to the activist origins of this sociological approach.

Changing care? Men and managerialism in the nonprofit sector

Summary The movement of men into care work in the predominantly female voluntary sector appears to be an unintended impact of welfare state contracting-out, managerialism and labour market restructuring. While not uniform, our comparative, international data (New Zealand and Scotland) show that some groups of men in nonprofit care work jobs embraced managerialism and used aspects of it to reshape and advance their work, while others undertook practices exemplifying a ‘caring masculinity’ more similar to practices currently associated with femininised ways of undertaking care activities. Findings Drawing on international comparative data collected as part of a larger study of restructuring in the nonprofit social services, this article suggests analytic clusters of masculinities operating in the voluntary sector and explores how the presence of men in care work may be changing it. The article also shows how hegemonic, masculinist-oriented practices in the workplace appear more amenable to managerialism than the expected feminine self-sacrificing, self-exploiting ethos of this highly gendered, female-majority sector. Applications These findings provide insights into the gendered and changing work in the nonprofit social services sector, and suggest ways the gender order is changing with the influx of male workers. The findings will be of interest to social work managers, supervisors, practitioners, policy analysts, students and educators.

Social Innovation and Social Policy – Promises and Risks

Social innovation (SI) is an increasingly prominent but contested issue in discussions of social policy reform. Although not yet a familiar concept, nor widely understood (least of all by policy makers), it has entered mainstream policy discourses. However whether SI marks a significant departure in either theory or in practice, or merely in rhetoric, remains to be determined. This Review Article, and the Themed Section as a whole, aims to set out some of the questions social policy analysts should ask about SI, and to help clarify whether or not it is a significant development which merits attention. The Review begins by considering some of the reasons for the recent interest shown in SI before clarifying the meaning of the concept and outlining some of the different forms SI has taken. This discussion is followed by a consideration of some of the practical and theoretical questions which SI raises for social policy analysis. The Review concludes that social policy analysts cannot afford to ignore SI, but that the most effective contribution the discipline can make is to apply a critical empirical perspective to test the significance, value and impact of SI.

Literacy education in a changing policy environment: Introduction

Literacy has long been at the heart of discussions about improving the quality and equitable distribution of educational outcomes. The last decade, however, has seen a dramatic redirection of policy effort in this regard. The effects of this policy redirection are playing out now; it may be that new policy emphases may have consequences for how educators think about what matters in literacy, how they can, and should, make judgements about what matters, and how they can, and should, act on those judgements. This issue of the Journal focuses on the changing landscape of policy and practice in literacy education. Educators in many countries have encountered increasingly intensive government moves to centralise and standardise school education. In Australia national testing of literacy and numeracy began relatively recently. The results for individual schools have been publically reported since 2009. Following trialling in 2010 and 2011, most states and sectors are now beginning to implement new Australian curriculum in English, Mathematics, Science and History. These implementations call on teachers to design and implement curriculum that ensures students develop both subject-specific literacies and literacy as a set of generic capabilities. The rationale is provided in these terms: Students become literate as they develop the skills to learn and communicate confidently at school and to become effective individuals, community members, workers and citizens. These skills include listening, reading and viewing, speaking, writing, and creating print, visual and audio materials accurately and purposefully in all learning areas. (http://www. acara.edu.au/verve/_resources/The_Shape_of_the_ Australian_Curriculum_V3.pdf; accessed April 23, 2012) So have these changing policy emphases begun to make any difference in schools, classrooms and families? How do school leaders and classroom teachers take account of these new demands in their everyday work, in the huge variety of sites that comprise Australian school education? How do educators and community members evaluate these initiatives? To what extent do they find the national imperatives stimulating, helpful, annoying, or troublesome? What differences, if any, do these policy shifts make to students and their families? Education policy researchers are increasingly trying to illuminate the ways in which policies play out in actual school communities (Comber, 2012; Kostogriz & Doecke, 2011; Lingard, 2010; Maguire, Hoskins, Ball & Braun, 2011; Nichols & Griffith, 2009; Thrupp & Lupton, 2006). The redirection of effort is not just in school settings or in educational bureaux; social policy analysts, youth sociologists, economists, and educational researchers, especially those working in areas related to educational measurement, are among the groups with a new-found set of conceptual and methodological challenges and opportunities. The level of multi-disciplinary complexity and activity of the field has increased, while not paralleled by an increase in effective inter-disciplinary collaboration. We see the potential of policy interventions to be generative, if not of better teaching and learning, then at the very least of purposeful activity--reminiscent of Foucault's observation, made most forcefully in his History of Sexuality (Foucault, 1978), that the hypothesis that power is exclusively repressive is not supported by close historical analyses of instances of the exercise of power: power also says 'yes'; it creates a focus for purposeful effort, work, jobs, the distribution of money, new ways of conducting public debates, and new techniques and new levels of displays of commitment to assessing the efficacy of public practices. …

Social Policy in Canada – Looking Back, Looking Ahead

This paper discusses recent policy trends, the changing role of the various actors in the system, international comparisons and a range of other social policy topics. The immediate purpose of the paper is to examine the reasons why social policy analysts need to look into the future, and to explore ways of managing the inevitably large risks associated with such future-looking exercises. The underlying purpose, however, is simply to introduce a range of important Canadian social policy topic to students and others who are interested in social policy, but without much previous background in the area ii . The first part of the paper was taken directly from a 1994 presentation i that was intended to provide outside social policy experts (from Latin America in this case) with an overview of the Canadian social policy landscape, particularly of recent trends and possible future directions, mainly from a federal government perspective. At that time, major reform of social security policies was being discussed and I tried to give our visitors some flavour of the background to that reform, with particular emphasis on the

An Analysis of Equity in Redistribution to the Retired and Children over Recent Decades in the OECD and UK

AbstractIn The Pinch, David Willetts (2010: xv) attracted attention by asking whether ‘the boomers have been guilty of a monumental failure to protect the interest of future generations’. This was just the latest contribution to a long running concern of social policy analysts about horizontal equity and generational fairness. Using OECD data from 1980–2007, in the first part of this paper we show that there is no evidence that social expenditure has been shifting in favour of the retired at the expense of children, except perhaps recently in some Nordic countries. For the UK, we have created a time-series using the published articles since 1977 and the micro data sets since 1994/5 from the annual Office for National Statistics analyses of the Effect of Taxes and Benefits on Household Incomes and used it to analyse trends in the redistributive impact of cash benefits, direct and indirect taxes and services on the retired and households with children and across the income distribution. The analysis shows how the relative support for the retired versus children has changed over time, which elements have contributed to the changes and for which part of the income distribution. There has been a small shift in final income in favour of the retired but it was not the result of changes in taxes, benefits or services in kind but rather a change in the original income distribution in favour of the retired.

Changing Social Security to Achieve Long-Term Solvency and Make Other Improvements - Background Factors, Issues, Options

For years those responsible for Social Security and policy analysts have acknowledged that the present statutory framework for determining and financing program benefits is unsustainable. Nonetheless, despite the work of Presidential commissions, countless Congressional hearings, proposals for reform advanced by individuals and groups across the political spectrum, changes to Social Security that would restore its fiscal balance into the foreseeable future have repeatedly been deferred or deflected by the nation’s law-makers. This paper aims to assist analysis of and reflection on the range of options for ensuring Social Security’s future while not adding yet another solvency proposal to the already ample supply. It begins with several background observations. These are followed by a discussion of personal (or private) accounts to which former President George W. Bush gave salience and which continue to be included among the talking points of politicians hostile to Social Security’s fundamental structure. Next the paper reviews the more likely program changes that would (unlike personal accounts) directly address Social Security’s long-term deficit. That section is followed by one sketching possible revisions in the program’s benefit structure designed to achieve ends other than reducing Social Security expenditures. The paper concludes with some observations on the role that framing has played in past debates over Social Security’s future. Finally, there is an appendix explaining the central terms and components of the current program. It is provided for readers who might otherwise be unclear about the meaning or implications of changing Social Security’s Primary Insurance Amount formula or its Full Retirement Age.

A Critical Appraisal of the Juvenile Justice System under Cameroon's 2005 Criminal Procedure Code: Emerging Challenges

The objective of this article is to examine the changes introduced by the 2005 Cameroonian Criminal Procedure Code on matters of juvenile justice, considering that before this Code, juvenile justice in Cameroon was governed by extra-national laws. In undertaking this analysis, the article highlights the evolution of the administration of juvenile justice 50 years after independence of Cameroon. It also points out the various difficulties and shortcomings in the treatment of juvenile offenders in Cameroon since the enactment of the new Criminal Procedure Code. The article reveals that the 2005 Code is an amalgamation of all hitherto existing laws in the country that pertained to juvenile justice, and that despite the considerable amount of criticism it has received, the Code is clearly an improvement of the system of juvenile justice in Cameroon, since it represents a balance of the due process rights of young people, the protection of society and the special needs of young offenders. This is so because the drafters of the Code took a broad view of the old laws on juvenile justice. Also a wide  range of groups were consulted, including criminal justice professionals, children’s service organisations, victims, parents, young offenders, educators, advocacy groups and social-policy analysts. However, to address the challenges that beset the juvenile justice system of Cameroon, the strategy of the government should be focussed on three areas: the prevention of youth crime, the provision of meaningful consequences for the actions of young people, and the rehabilitation and reintegration of young offenders. Cameroonian law should seek educative solutions rather than to impose prison sentences or other repressive measures on young offenders. Special courts to deal with young offenders should be established outside the regular penal system and should be provided with resources that are adequate for and appropriate to fostering their  understanding of juvenile crime.KEYWORDS: Juvenile justice; Criminal Procedure Code; Cameroon

The Human Rights Implications of Contemporary Patterns of Social Control

This article, based on a project of the International Council on Human Rights Policy (ICHRP), explores the human rights implications of contemporary patterns of social control: how laws and policies construct and respond to people, behaviour or status defined as 'undesirable', 'dangerous', criminal or socially problematic. It draws on research across five policy areas: infectious diseases, urban spaces and the poor, policing, migration, and punishment and incarceration, as well as a case study of the Roma in Europe. It points to human rights challenges and ways forward with respect to ideas of crime and criminality, penal sanctions, non-criminal sanctions and 'soft' controls, segregation and exclusion, protection and victims' rights, privatization, surveillance, and policy transfer regimes. At the heart of such a response is the need for a dialogue between human rights advocates, critical social science and social policy analysts, and policy makers. Beginning with an introduction to the 'social control perspective' and its relevance to human rights, the article explores the dominant modes and patterns of social control (and the related challenges and possibilities for human rights advocacy and policy), divided into three broad categories: criminalization and sanctions, segregation, and surveillance. An analysis of underlying forces and contexts, including political economy and global policy transfer regimes is followed by a conclusion that discusses the relevance of human rights principles in monitoring social control, out-lining ways forward for human rights advocacy, including on the specific issue of penalization of people in poverty.

The interaction effects of scheduling control and work–life balance programs on job satisfaction and mental health

Jang SJ, Park R, Zippay A. The interaction effects of scheduling control and work–life balance programs on job satisfaction and mental health Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 135–143 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. The demands of balancing employment and family responsibilities strain the health and welfare of many employees worldwide, and social welfare policy analysts are increasingly attending to the factors that can alleviate such stress. The present study examined associations between the availability of work–life balance programs, employees' authority to arrange their own work hours, job satisfaction, and mental health among 1,293 employees in 50 companies in South Korea. The study is unique in its use of multilevel analysis in examining individual- and company-level variables. The results add to the evidence regarding the positive relationship between the availability of scheduling control and work–life balance policies on the one hand, and job satisfaction and mental wellbeing, on the other.