International Encyclopedia of Social Policy

(Note: Introduction is taken from uncorrected proofs. Changes may be made prior to publication.)

The worldwide growth of social policy as an academic discipline has been associated with the rise of, consolidation of, and challenges to the welfare state - though this is a far from a universal descriptor. Yet while this has helped to make 'social policy' a fashionable point of reference it also risks dating the term due to the perceived decline of the welfare state in Western European countries and due to the alternative paths of socioeconomic modernization taken elsewhere around the world. But despite this decline having been exaggerated, and despite some semblance of state welfare visible in almost every nation, it does not mean that all social policies should be interpreted as policies made everywhere and always by and through a welfare state.

Social policies move at such a notoriously rapid pace and across so many disciplines that anyone compiling press clippings, research reports, books and articles, speeches, legislative acts and commentaries, even on a specific area, quickly finds their archive sprawling out of control. The International Encyclopedia of Social Policy clearly articulates the state of this protean field at the early years of the century without necessarily chasing each and every new development immediately prior to the time of publication. Additionally, the few textbooks and references concerned with social policy—a field currently experiencing a global surge in interest and relevance—focus almost exclusively on Europe and the English-speaking world, the rest of the globe being dealt with superficially, if at all. The International Encyclopedia of Social Policy encompasses a far broader range of subjects than have thus far been addressed within a single work without sacrificing in-depth, thoughtful treatment.

There are, admittedly, 'boundary problems' with the subject. Political and academic conventions mean that 'social policy' bears different connotations in different geographical locations. In some countries the term has a distinct history and tradition; elsewhere it is subsumed within others—'public policy' being an obvious alternative. But since there is no net huge enough to capture each and every usage and nuance we have felt able to work according to a particular conception, however partial and centric this is bound to appear. This means that some terms and phrases (whether definitional, conceptual, or empirical) may either be missing, or incorporated within other headings. The sheer logistics of compiling a publication of this size means that we will not have pleased everyone. Similarly, this is not an encyclopedia of international social policy. We have included as many countries as we possibly could and asked all contributors to be as cross-national as their entry and expertise permit, but it would be misleading to imagine that each entry squeezes the entire globe into its confines.

The problem is that the subject resembles a flat or apartment in a haphazard, fluctuating and multidimensional housing block; one that borders at the very least onto politics, sociology, philosophy, law, criminology, economics, social work, public policy and psychology (with other disciplines like cultural studies and anthropology perhaps hovering in the background), each of which contains noisy neighbors who insist that it is they do what social policy claims to do, e.g. as social politics, or political sociology, or whatever. Of course, each subject has its own boundary problems, too, but social policy is even more of a concurrence of multiple and diverse sources. Does anything distinct form out of this confluence?

There are two basic ways of characterizing the subject. One is broadly positivist and scientifically determined. Here, social policy implies the study of how certain sectors—usually education, health, income maintenance and social services—are governed. According to this conception social policy shelters beneath the umbrella of public policy that, itself, adjoins foreign, defense, and economic policies. Another conception is more normative, looking at the desirability and justice of social outcomes (not only those which result from policies) and with how social conditions can be improved when certain normative standards are lacking.

Although, for both approaches, social policy is not limited to the study of government, the role of governance by, of, and through the public sphere is crucial nonetheless. When you get together with others to raise money for a cause then this is not a social policy. But if your cause is deemed to be a charitable endeavor that deserves and receives societal support, e.g. tax breaks, then it becomes a social policy. In other words, social policy is sensitive to the social effects of the market, independent/voluntary and domestic sectors but is also concerned with how and why they coordinate together, forming a public sphere that is the source, medium and object of governance. In almost all but the most libertarian contexts this will then provide the state with an important role as regulator, financier and provider of social policies (allowing for geographical, political and cultural variants in how these are balanced) even when the state itself is not a direct object of study.

So which should we prefer, the positivist or the normative? There are good arguments on both sides. The positivist is uncomfortable with normative criteria since this risks introducing subjective values and endlessly contestable principles into the subject. For instance, what might we assess social outcomes against? Should we define justice as a distributive pattern of benefits and burdens or as the process by which that pattern was attained? Does a 'normative standard' imply a baseline set of holdings or inter-subjective comparisons? Many positivists do not necessarily deny the relevance of these questions but wish to delegate them to other disciplines on the grounds that they are not relevant to how the mechanisms of governance operate. We are all entitled to ask normative questions but not as a matter of scientific investigation.

By contrast, the normativist insists that since we carry norms (customs, values, ideals) around with us and always frame the world in particular ways it is best to incorporate such recognition into our conceptual, methodological and empirical debates. This is not necessarily to invite epistemological relativism where we abandon the notion of objective truth. Instead, it is to insist that because we do not always access objective truth clearly or entirely then interpretative frameworks are unavoidable ways of making sense of what we do access. Norms may therefore make reference to ideologies and discourses, but not necessarily to dogma. That economists tend towards the political right and sociologists towards the left does not eliminate the need and the possibility for communication and, indeed, revision of the boundaries in question.

It is facile to propose some kind of simple middle way synthesis of these alternatives. Social scientists have been wrestling with the above issues since at least the mid-nineteenth century and, with debates spiraling back into the philosophy of social science, there are potentially dozens of 'middle ways' for us to choose from. In practical terms, though, we have here defined social policy as systematic public interventions relating to social needs and problems since this gives a subject distinctness while acknowledging it as a meal composed of a vast assemblage of disciplinary ingredients. (By 'relating' we mean that interventions may be the causes, reflexes or proposed solutions to social needs and problems.) The definition nods in the directions of both positivist approaches (how are interventions governed?) and normative ones (what do we mean by social needs, by social problems and how are the two associated?).

Other disciplines are certainly concerned with 'systematic public interventions'. This is the case with politics, law and economics, for instance; but while each may be directed towards social needs and problems the latter are incidental to all three. Other disciplines are more directly concerned with social needs and problems, e.g. sociology and social psychology, but are less interested in how they might be addressed. This is not true of criminology but in focusing upon crime it is arguably less attuned than social policy to the panoply of needs and harms residing within the social environment.

The two subjects most closely aligned with social policy are social work and public policy. To some extent this is not an issue. As we noted above, conventions change across the world and readers are going to find here the diversity of meanings and usages that contributors have brought with them. That said, for us social work is more an area of 'applied policy' which trains case-workers in the front-line delivery of needs and the micro-management of social problems and so is a 'downstream' approach which aims to catch already damaged families and individuals as they float by. Public policy is concerned largely with the public sector in two senses. Firstly, it encompasses areas which relate to social needs but are not linked explicitly to social problems and norms, e.g. transport, the environment, local authorities, bureaucracy, regional development, etc. Secondly, it is specifically concerned with technical processes, e.g. organization, management and administration. In both instances there are important linkages to social policy, e.g. when transport policy impacts manifestly upon issues of poverty, inequality, or health, but the two are sufficiently distinct. So rather than see social policy as sheltering beneath its bigger sibling's umbrella we regard them as lodging equally within an assembly of what might be called 'policy studies', as sharing the same office though not the same desk.

Of course, in the UK tradition the genesis of social policy as social administration means that the distinctions were once even finer than they are now and it is inevitable that these boundaries will continue to transform. Indeed, we have produced this Encyclopedia in the expectation that this will happen as an inevitable product of the research and scholarship to which we hope to contribute.

How to Use This Book

Social policy is a fluctuating cluster of disciplinary sub-sets that is perhaps less methodologically and theoretically distinct than other subjects but no less rigorous. It borrows, recontextualizes, and returns its bounty in other forms. This is the rationale behind the selection of entries in this Encyclopedia. For while it might not be possible to cast a net over everything, we have sought to be as inclusive as possible without being indiscriminate.

The International Encyclopedia of Social Policy is composed of over 700 signed scholarly essays of 200 to 3000 words in length. Anchoring the work are concise definitions and overviews of core disciplinary categories (i.e. welfare state). More in-depth, conceptual entries deal with theoretical and abstract issues, themes, and perspectives such as gender. The reader will also find a range of empirical entries—quantifiable social phenomena such as unemployment-based in concrete research. And the work is made richer for a thorough selection of biographies of prominent figures and organizations (i.e. UNICEF) and geographical profiles of countries in which social policies are either most developed or distinct.

Researchers will find the encyclopedia's A to Z format easily navigable. Cross-referencing in the form of See Alsos at the end of most entries refer the reader to other related entries. Major articles contain a list of References and Further Reading, including sources used by the writer and editor as well as additional items that may be of interest to the reader. And a thorough, analytical index will instantly open the work up to every reader.

Tony Fitzpatrick
Huck-ju Kwon
Nick Manning
James Midgley
Gillian Pascall