The institutional paralysis of Continental European social policy has become common wisdom in comparative welfare state research. The article seeks to challenge the all too simplistic picture of an inherently immovable and inflexible ‘conservative’ world of welfare capitalism. In confronting ‘path dependence’ theory with the concept of ‘path creation’, it is argued that there are – typically inconspicuous or even hidden – paths out of ‘path dependence’ precisely in those welfare states that most obviously embody the institutional heritage of what may be called the ‘European Social Model’. The fundamental ambivalence of Continental European welfare state institutions opens a permanent window of opportunity for ‘institutional entrepreneurs’ pursuing welfare state change. A short account of the recent transformation of social insurance institutions in Germany is presented as a first illustration of this thesis.

This paper explores the recent plethora of commitments by government to include children in social policy decision making in the UK. The participation of children is located in the tensions between children perceived as competent and/or incompetent that underlies the ambiguities of children's participation. The paper examines the ways participation, power and empowerment can be used in the context of children. The paper looks at children’s civic engagement and suggests that the participation of children is difficult with the ways representative governments operate in a liberal democracy today, but ends with some suggested ways forward.

With growing concern that social policies should reflect consumer choice, how is consumer choice expressed? Will consumer choice be the same in all forums? Analysis of incentive structures in different decision-making processes suggests that different facets of consumerism assume greater relevance in different forums. Policies approved often differ systematically from policies prescribed because approval is expressed in collective decision-making processes. Predicted policy responses prove sensitive to the way in which choice is registered. If consumers are empowered, choice will be sensitive to the forum in which they are empowered.

This article explores the implications of expanding content in undergraduate Social Policy. Although the problem of curriculum content is not unique to Social Policy, particular features exacerbate the issue. These include the relationship of the subject to other disciplines, and to wider political and social issues. Dominance of content is argued to limit the aims of teaching, squeezing out skills development. It also restricts the methods employed. Content dominance also contributes to the development of a deficit model of students. The article is based on data drawn from semi-structured interviews with 46 lecturers working in universities across the UK.

The concern of this article is with the current debate about the reform of local taxation in the UK. In particular, the article examines the consideration given to issues of equity in the policy debate that has taken place through the government's ‘Balance of Funding Review’. It is argued that while the outcome of the reform process remains to be seen, the current debate indicates that decisions regarding local tax will serve as an illuminating example of the extent, and limits, of New Labour policy on tax and inequality more generally.

Civil renewal is an emerging policy priority for the UK government, aiming to build stronger, more cohesive communities and to encourage individual citizens to be active members of such communities. The promotion of social capital and trust relationships is central to this approach. Strategies to improve community safety and reduce crime and disorder are closely related to the drive for civil renewal, with the two sets of policies seen as mutually supportive. This article shows, however, that many community safety initiatives are founded on relationships of suspicion between citizens. This generates a dynamic of exclusion that is likely to undermine attempts at civil renewal.

The provision and financing of long-term care (LTC) in Spain has only recently become a policy concern. However, welfare policy reforms show the need to anticipate the effects of a transition from the traditional ‘family-based’ model of care (78 per cent of Spanish elders who are disabled are treated by their own families) to a modern ‘community-based’ model. This paper examines the current models of providing and funding long-term care in Spain and on the basis of the empirical evidence evaluates the prospects for the future organisation and funding of the system.

A major problem for voluntary organisations service providers under contract has been their independence in regard to both the relatively narrow issue of the terms and conditions of service provision, and the broader issue about the part voluntary organisations might play in policy shaping and democratic renewal. I examine the way in which New Labour has developed its ‘partnership’ approach to the voluntary sector since 1998. I argue that better terms and conditions have been secured for voluntary organisations providing services, and that large and umbrella organisations now have more impact on the implementation of central government policy. However, the more equal partnership required for a policy-shaping role in the sense of agenda-setting is likely to remain elusive, while at the local level there are tensions between the idea of voluntary organisations as agents of ‘civil renewal’ and as service providers.

The concept of ‘underclass’ evokes a multiplicity of attitudes and beliefs about its meaning, existence, causation and, therefore, its resolution. This paper draws upon the philosophy of the social sciences to explicate the contending philosophical perspectives on the ‘underclass's’ causation and resolution by reference to a taxonomy of methodologies, so enabling the articulation of each methodology's analytical strengths and weaknesses when used to investigate the ‘underclass’. The conclusion drawn is that policy analysts must be critically reflective before they seek to describe, explain, understand, judge and address ‘underclass’-related problems and issues by drawing upon any theories and methods grounded in anyone of these contending methodological families.

This paper considers work the authors have done with community projects to explore the meaning and usefulness of social capital. It sets out the model of social capital developed from this work, which has enabled the discussion and application of social capital to move from academia into local neighbourhoods and communities. It goes on to consider the relationship between social capital and social policy, and concludes that, whilst it is hard to ascertain whether social policy can directly develop social capital, it is however possible for policy to create environments which either allow for the enhancement of social capital, or harm it.

As the number of forced migrants entering Britain has risen, increasingly restrictive immigration and asylum policy has been introduced. Simultaneously, successive governments have sought to limit the welfare entitlements of forced migrants. Drawing on two sets of semi-structured qualitative interviews, with migrants and key respondents providing welfare services, this paper considers the adequacy of welfare provisions in relation to the financial and housing needs of four different groups of forced migrants i.e. refugees, asylum seekers, those with humanitarian protection status and failed asylum seekers/‘overstayers’. There is strong evidence to suggest that statutory provisions are failing to meet the basic financial and housing needs of many forced migrants.

In 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was passed in the US, ushering in a series of reforms to the cash assistance programme previously available to poor families. ‘Welfare reform’ included a number of efforts to encourage work among unemployed single parents. More important, the law extended the government's interest in regulating social behaviours such as marriage and reproduction. This paper reviews states' efforts at developing programmes that encourage marriage and discourage child-bearing, then offers a review of the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these approaches to date. Implications for the future of welfare reform are provided.

Many commentaries on social policy in the UK assume that policy as developed in England applies to the constituent countries of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, the advent of political devolution in the last five years is slowly being reflected in the literature. This paper takes education policy in Northern Ireland and discusses recent policy developments in the light of the 1998 Belfast Agreement. The Agreement, it is suggested, is providing a framework which promotes equality, human rights and inclusion in policy making. Some early indications of this are discussed and some of the resultant policy dilemmas are assessed. The paper concludes that accounts of policy development in the UK, which ignore the multi-level policy-making contexts created by devolution, do a disservice to the subject.

The current agricultural policy instrument of direct payments to farmers is also very much a form of social policy. This applies particularly for agricultural systems based on small family farms. Taking Switzerland as an example, the main weaknesses of the present system are outlined. A quantitative analysis reveals massive income differences among Swiss farmers, with the richest receiving more direct payments than the poorest. Potential improvements to the agricultural policy system are suggested by explicitly redefining direct payments as a social policy instrument.

This article examines changing patterns of money management in the UK and elsewhere and argues that couples are becoming more individualised in their finances. It draws on quantitative and qualitative data and considers some of the implications of individualisation, in particular in terms of paying for children and childcare. The conclusion is that independent management of money may give both partners a sense of autonomy and personal freedom – so long as their incomes are broadly equivalent. However, if the woman's income drops, for example when children are born, while her outgoings increase, because she is expected to pay the costs of children, the situation may change. Individualisation in money management can then be a route to inequality, so long as women's earnings are lower than men's and women are responsible for paying for children and childcare.

The nature of welfare regimes has been an ongoing debate within the comparative social policy literature since the publication of Esping-Andersen's ‘Three Worlds of Welfare’ (1990). This article draws upon recent developments within this debate, most notably Kasza's assertions about the ‘illusory nature’ of welfare regimes, to highlight the health care discrepancy. It argues that health care provision has been a notable omission from the wider regimes literature and one which, if included in the form of a health care decommodification typology, can give credence to Kasza's perspective by highlighting the diverse internal arrangements of welfare states and welfare state regimes.

In an article published in Prospect magazine, later reproduced in The Guardian, Goodhart (2004a) identifies a link between a decline in support for welfare and growing ethnic diversity. We argue that his analysis is flawed in terms of his comparative analysis, his definition of welfare, his ahistorical approach and his implicit conceptual framework of ethnic diversity. While he appears to conceal his political objectives behind the language of the third way, we maintain that it is time to wrest political language and activity away from those who claim to operate only on the basis of commonsense and a ‘what works’ philosophy.

Discovering a theory of change for health promotion in small- and medium-sized enterprises highlights important lessons about how successful workplace health interventions work and the conditions conducive to positive outcomes for ‘hard to reach groups’. In the evaluation of targeted health promotion initiatives carried out by the Workwell project in Sandwell, a theory of change has emerged that indicates the need for a sensitive understanding of the contexts of interventions and the importance of developing mechanisms appropriate to local conditions and stakeholder expectations.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, discussions of social justice in the social science literature focused largely on social class. The implicit assumption of much of the literature was that a more just society would be achieved through the reduction of inequalities in the distribution of economic and social resources. Since then, there has been a growing focus on plural aspects of social justice. Many writers now distinguish between distributive, cultural and associational aspects of social justice. However, the different implications of these facets of social justice for different groups, and potential tensions between them, have rarely been adequately recognised. Given New Labour's focus on social justice, and its belief that attaining greater social justice is compatible with achieving greater efficiency in the public sector, there is a need to examine more closely the understandings of social justice underpinning a range of policy initiatives.

The UK's national population structure, in line with most Western societies, is ageing rapidly. The combination of falling fertility and increasing longevity is having an impact on family structures and resultant relationships, with the emergence of long vertical multi-generational families replacing the former laterally extended family forms. This is occurring at a time when UK government policy is placing increasing reliance on families to provide health and social care and support for the growing number of frail older people. While there has been extensive research on family care within the majority white population, there is less understanding of the elder family care provision for the UK's growing older ethnic population. This paper discusses the changing demographics, new government policy on promoting independent living and its implications for family care provision, and reviews our current understanding of family care and support for older people within the UK’s varied ethnic minority families.