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Social Work and the Quality of Life Politics - A Critical Assessment
Abstract
The feature of this paper is a critical assessment of the current discourses about quality of life (QoL) and their implications for Social Work. At first it pictures some major historical backgrounds of the discussion on the improvement of life quality as an aim of societal development. In particular three crucial shifts in the politics of QoL - its 'individualisation', its 'informalisation' and its 'culturalisation' - and their implications for Social Work are critically examined theoretically and empirically referring to the results of an own community-study. The paper concludes with an alternative suggestion reflecting the idea of an 'autonomy-based' approach of democratic equality.
... From a social work perspective, studies that presented the residents' "voice" were exceptionally difficult to find and most of the studies focused on demographic and illness attributes and other measures as opposed to the narrative of what influenced QOL. Although subjective wellbeing is the measurement of QOL, the real aim is for the individual's QOL to be better, bearing in mind that at times their individual point of reference might be from a very low base (Landhauser & Ziegler, 2005). To this end, Connell et al. (2012) found in their qualitative systematic review, the major domains seen as important by people with SMI were "well-being and ill-being; control, autonomy and choice; self-perception; belonging; activity; and hope and hopelessness" (p. ...
... 15). As Landhauser and Ziegler (2005) concluded, the point of QOL is the realisation of autonomy and democracy, and therefore social workers can contribute to an understanding of QOL to reflect real freedom and thus personal and social autonomy of people: "The real freedom we're concerned with is not only the freedom to purchase or consume. It is the freedom to live as one might like to live" (Van Parijs, 1997, p. 30). ...
For people with severe mental illness (SMI), housing type based on the level of professional input and support is an important factor in maintaining health. Housing impacts on quality of life (QOL); however, studies have not comprehensively explained the relationship between the types of housing and QOL. This scoping review investigates the relationship between the quality of life of people living with severe mental illness, housing, and objective sense of autonomy. Nine online databases were searched for studies published from 2000 onwards that identified research studies of adults with severe mental illness living in a variety of housing types. Fourteen studies met the eligibility criteria. The findings show that supported housing that offered access to trained staff led to a higher QOL and in turn an increase in autonomy. Allowing residents to choose their preferred type of housing also increased their QOL. Nonsupported group housing allowed for the development of friendships, which in turn had a positive impact on QOL, but there was little evidence to support this model. Despite this, social isolation and victimisation were areas of concern. This review adds to the body of evidence against transinstitutionalisation and emphasises the need for ongoing psychosocial interventions and support for people living with SMI in community settings.
IMPLICATIONS
• Different housing options for residents living with severe mental illness can impact their quality of life.
• Policymakers and practitioners need to consider the impact of the level of support and sense of autonomy on the quality of life of residents living in supported and nonsupported housing.
• Social work can contribute professional expertise in developing a policy or framework to improve quality of life in society.
... Chances of success or failure are internalized and then transformed into individual aspirations or expectations; these are then in turn externalized in action that tends to reproduce the objective structure of life chances. " In deprived situations any 'subjective' self-evaluation in terms of satisfaction, desire fulfilment or happiness may thus be potentially cynical or at least point to directions susceptible to mistakes (see Landhäußer and Ziegler 2005). This is, inter alia, because the social positions of individuals and groups may be considered as a kind of social matrix within which, as Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 471) puts it " interactions of everyday life, the social order is progressively inscribed in people's minds. ...
... In deprived situations any 'subjective' self-evaluation in terms of satisfaction, desire fulfilment or happiness may thus be potentially cynical or at least point to directions susceptible to mistakes (see Landhäußer and Ziegler 2005). This is, inter alia, because the social positions of individuals and groups may be considered as a kind of social matrix within which, as Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 471) puts it " interactions of everyday life, the social order is progressively inscribed in people's minds. ...
This paper provides an outline about the basic ideas of the capability approach. It will be argued that the capability approach is able to provide an appropriate approach in order to evaluate educational and social human services. As an egalitarian approach to social justice, the capability approach has particular strengths when issues concerning the actual life-conduct of tangible human beings come to the fore. In particular educational aspects of welfare and well-being might thus be well grounded on the Aristotelian reasoning of the capability approach. The paper focuses on the potentially fruitful relations of the capability approach and the philosophy and practice of ‘just’ education referring to the idea of the autonomy of life-practice.
... First, the study aims to compare the democratic consumer capitalist case of London with the non-democratic consumer capitalist case of Hong Kong. This distinction allows one to begin to address the question whether the democratic consumer capitalist case of London will somehow better reflect the politics of unsustainability than its non-democratic counterpart given differences in their articulated legitimacy-governing (Landhauber and Ziegler, 2005)? The underpinning logic of this approach is that whereas democratically elected governments need to secure lasting electoral support (democratic legitimacy) for policy measures that impose major burdens on their electorates primarily for the benefit of future generations (Blühdorn, 2011), non-democratic ones can pursue more authoritarian paths (Beeson, 2010). ...
This paper explores the prevailing urban transformations of Hong Kong and London in the light of a policy shift from sustainable development preoccupation to carbon control management. The paper utilises Blühdorn's politics of unsustainability thesis to assess the magnitude of the two cities' urban transformations employing the theorised concepts of ‘known unsustainability,’ ‘commitment to blessed way of life,’ and ‘the discourse of opportunity’ as key analytical guides. Although it is accepted that both economies have re-orientated their prevailing urban planning trajectories in a sustainable development and, increasingly, carbon control direction the key question remains whether the proposed measures for mitigation are radical enough to avert the predicted crisis. Employing a rich empirical analysis of official documents and statistics the paper offers a broad overview which lends qualified support to the central tenets of Blühdorn's thesis across a compelling timeframe of investigation.
... Disputes concerning the issues of indicator selection, definition and weighting, for example, are all renowned for being irreconcilable in the QOL (Akranavičiūtė and Ruževičius, 2007) domain. However, by limiting the scope of the QOL concept to some collective 'public-based' understanding (Leitmann, 1999), the term is able to be theorised in terms of its facilitation of legitimating governing, what Landhauber and Ziegler (2005) refer to as normative 'social-cultural-political issues'. ...
In contrast to London's image as a global city and its position as the most affluent region in Europe, the formally established empirical evidence assembled in this paper suggests that spatial inequality in the capital is a key economic and social problem that is unlikely to be resolved by the prevailing localism doctrine of the big society'. Isolated from an initial and non-discriminate England-wide clustering analysis of 73 Audit Commission-defined quality of life indicators, the results of our study reveal that pivotal to London's prevailing quality of life distribution is the influence of deprivation, health and educational inequalities, all of which are masked at a pure inner' and outer' London comparison, capable only of distinguishing the city's borough-level transport and community safety diversity. The policy implications of our study are duly considered and several methodological insights are advanced for future research.
... The apparent demotion of income and material issues by the wellbeing agenda has led some commentators, such as Landhauber and Ziegler (2005), to suggest that this is dangerous for marginal groups because it is part of a conceptual (re-)orientation by government, in which poverty and inequality are no longer regarded as prime targets or objects of policy. Instead, the emergent politics (of wellbeing) revolves around personal, often psychological, development or, as the NEF report states, 'positive and happy people are more likely to overcome their problems' (2004: 3). ...
A wellbeing agenda has emerged in government that seeks to promote a ‘politics of happiness’, in which citizens are, as the New Economics Foundation put it, ‘happy, healthy, capable and engaged’ (2004: 2). This article explores the wellbeing agenda in the UK, and its implications for disabled people. We argue that it is unlikely, in its present form, to contribute to the development of social theoretical, or more politically progressive, analysis and understanding of disablement in society. This is because of the emphasis on biologism, personality and character traits, and a policy prognosis that revolves around self-help and therapy, or individuated actions and (self) responsibilities.
The aim of the dissertation is to reveal the construction of social work quality in providing services for people in social risk, and to analyze the dominating cultures of social work quality that ensure the quality assurance in organizations. The object of research - perception and construction of social work quality in the intersubjectiveness.
The dissertation presents an ethno-methodological explanation of the quality of social work when knowledge of a particular social phenomenon is created in interaction. While creating a knowledge about quality is important to understand knowledge that is generated in organizations, that is, good practice, macro-level knowledge of social policy makers, as well as the knowledge of clients and researchers. In this dissertation three sources of knowledge were analyzed: employee, client and researcher. Using constructivist methodology of grounded theory, the author researched the construction of quality among social workers and clients and also uses her personal observations. The study revealed that the quality of social work emerged in three-dimensional space, constructed by (1) micro (individual), meso (organization) and macro (national) quality levels, (2) quality culture and (2) social workers' professional roles. The grounded theory created by author reveals features of framed and liberated social work quality cultures, the distribution of different professional roles within them, and the influence of these elements on client empowerment.
Warming and Fahnøe offers, through the introduction of the sensitizing concept of lived citizenship and a socio-spatial perspective, a much needed renewal of the rights and strength-based approach to social work practice and research towards an almost anthropological understanding of the social situation of vulnerable groups. Indeed, they show how the concept of lived citizenship, and four supporting concepts (disciplinary versus inclusive identity shaping; intimate citizenship; space; and community governance) enables the contextualized analyses of the complexities of social work as a social space of meaning and power as (re-)producing practices through which clients experience and negotiate rights, responsibilities, participation, identity and belonging, and thereby of dynamics of inclusion and exclusion related to social work.
The diagnosis of a fundamental malfunction of the welfare-state arrangements in the light of global modernization requirements is often taken to be an unshakable truth in the current sociopolitical discourse (see Maaser 2006). It constitutes the background for a new model of the regulation of state welfare production. The welfare state, formerly active provider of benefits, relocates to a new arrangement of the social, leading to a reassessment of strategies for the activation of a “responsibilization” toward legally granted benefits (on the concept of welfare production, see Oelkers 2011). The social intervention state intervening in the life conduct of the individual, simultaneously being both normative and caring in many aspects, is supposed to be replaced by a postwelfare steering state stressing individual initiative and responsibility, turning individuals into the base of an altered practice of steering the social: a “government from a distance, willing to be the coxswain, but letting others do the rowing” (Lindenberg 2002, p. 78, translated).
Das vorliegende Paper versucht zur Theoriebildung in Public Health beizutragen. Zu diesem Zweck wird der Capability-Approach (CA), wie er maßgeblich von Amartya Sen und Martha Nussbaum entwickelt wurde, im Lichte unterschiedlicher Public Health-Diskussionskontexte eingebettet. Das Paper beginnt mit dem Nachweis der unhintergehbaren Normativität der Disziplin Public Health. Auf dieser Folie wird dann der CA eingeführt und entlang konkurrierender Ansätze aus dem Bereich der politischen Theorie konturiert. Im Anschluss daran wird in einem eigenen Kapitel aus der Perspektive des CA die für anwendungsorientierte Wissenschaften wie Public Health zentrale Problematik des Paternalismus und möglicher Maßstäbe diskutiert, bevor dann der CA für das Themenfeld Gesundheit spezifisch aufbereitet wird. Im folgenden Kapitel wird dann eine Analyse von Gesundheitszielen aus der Perspektive des CA versucht. Das Paper endet mit offenen Forschungsfragen und einigen Schlussfolgerungen. -- Our paper aims in contributing to the theory of public health. Therefore we discuss intensively the Capability-Approach (CA) - based on the writings of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum - on the background of different Public Health-topics. In the first chapter we argue that Public Health is inescapably grounded on a normative fundament. Based on that argument we introduce the CA, especially with regard to the serious problem of paternalism in Public Health. Furthermore, we analyze the discussion about health targets on the basis of the theory of CA. We end with a few open research questions and conclusions.
Ever since the United Kingdom published its second sustainable development strategy in 1999, the legitimacy-governing construct of quality of life has been refashioned in the English policy context to accommodate a novel intergenerational dimension. This paper examines the magnitude of this sustainability transformation by examining the operationalisation and reported outcomes of formally established sustainable quality of life data in conjunction with commensurate quality of life information compiled twenty years previously, amongst 63 matched city locations. Conceptually, we find that although the sustainable quality of life data is comparatively more sophisticated in its environmental connotation it has not managed to reconcile this effort with the social and economic domains of sustainability, tending instead to neutralise the distributive, class-based tenor of its predecessor. Empirically, meanwhile, we find that whereas Northern-based city locations perform comparatively worse on the sustainable quality of life rankings Southern ones do much better. We also find that while the lowest scoring localities tend to be afflicted by similar types of quality of life deficiencies the top ones shine on a diverse range of issues.
, räumlich fi- xierte Spaltungs- und Segregationsprozesse würden, so die Diagnose, eine Potenzierung von Benachteiligung induzieren. Ungünstige Bedingungen im Stadtteil würden sich (zu- sätzlich) benachteiligend auf marginalisierte Bewohner/innen auswirken. Vor diesem Hin- tergrund werden gezielte, gebietsspezifische Interventionsmaßnahmen entwickelt, um eine "soziale Abwärtsspirale" zu stoppen, die nicht zuletzt in ungleichen Erziehungs- und Bil- dungschancen von Kindern und Jugendlichen zum Ausdruck kommt. Die Macht- und Lebensführungsmittel, die sich menschliche Akteure/innen lernend an- eignen, lassen sich als "kulturelles Kapital" (Bourdieu) beschreiben. Dies bezeichnet die Gesamtheit von Fähigkeiten, Fertigkeiten, Ge- wohnheiten und Stilen, die in einem Prozess verinnerlicht werden, der in hohem Maße durch soziale Herkunft und soziokulturell unterschied- liche Erfahrungsmuster geprägt ist. Dabei lässt sich zwischen schulischem ("capital scolaire")
„if the economy is up, why is America down?“ This question, which was recently raised in an article of the Harvard Business Review demonstrates quite clearly, that looking at the economy and economic indicators only is not enough to get a comprehensive view of the state of a nation. We certainly need information on the ecconomy, but we also need additional information on the social situation and social development as it is provided by social indicators.
In my following presentation I am going to talk about 5 topics: first, the historical background and main objectives of social indicators research, second, some principles and approaches; third, social reporting as an important application, and in the two final sections I am going to look first backwards on what has been achieved so far and then ahead in order to identify some future tasks.
This is a report of the results of a survey of citizen beliefs and attitudes about public services and the quality of life in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada in the summer of 1997. Information is provided about the perceived frequency with which various services were used, the perceived satisfaction and value for tax dollars spent on the services as well as on levels of government officials generally, preferences for the provision of more or fewer services and for spending relatively more or less revenue on different services, views about user-fees, and views about smoke-free public places and the likely impact of bylaw changes on people's behaviour. Using such information, we examined correlations among perceived satisfaction, perceived value for money, use, spending preferences and demand, and, using multiple regression analysis, explained 66% of the variance in life satisfaction scores, 57% of the variance in satisfaction with the quality of life scores and 37% of the variance in happiness scores. Applying LISREL 8.14, it was shown that a model in which our three global indicators were explained by 13 domain indicators was superior to a model in which the latter indicators were explained by the former, i.e., a Bottom-Up model was superior to a Top-Down model. A simple linear model was also used to explain 32%, 20% and 19%, respectively, of the variance in satisfaction with municipal, provincial and federal government officials.
Die Etablierung der Sozialindikatorenforschung und der damit eng verbundenen Sozialbe¬richterstattung als ein eigenständiger Zweig der Sozialwissenschaften in den 1960er Jahren stand in einem engen Zusammenhang mit der Propagierung von neuen Zielen der gesell¬schaftlichen Entwicklung als Resultat von Prozessen des Struktur- und Wertewandels, wie sie mit dem Übergang von der industriellen zur postindustriellen Gesellschaft einhergingen. Neben dem allgemeinen Anliegen, das methodische Instrumentarium und die Datengrund¬lagen für ein kontinuierliches Monitoring gesellschaftlicher Entwicklungen zu verbessern, verfolgt sie bis heute zwei spezifischere Zielsetzungen: die Dauerbeobachtung des sozialen Wandels sowie die Messung und Analyse von Wohlfahrt und Lebensqualität. Die Dauerbe¬obachtung des sozialen Wandels zielt ganz allgemein darauf ab, gesellschaftliche Struktur-veränderungen und Modernisierungsprozesse mit geeigneten Indikatoren zu verfolgen und in ihren Konsequenzen zu analysieren. Im Einzelnen geht es u. a. darum, gesellschaftliche Trends zu identifizieren und möglichst zu erklären sowie Zusammenhänge zwischen ver¬schiedenen Entwicklungstendenzen zu analysieren. Die von der internationa¬len Forschergruppe Comparative Charting of Social Change veröffentlichten Bände zu Re¬cent Social Trends sind ein Beispiel für aktuelle Beiträge, die in dieser ursprünglich von William Ogburn begründeten Tradition der empirischen Beobachtung des sozialen Wandels stehen
In this article, we investigate whether and, if so, to what extent, people's notions of solidarity and their choices of justice principles are related to the type of welfare state regime they live under, as well as to individual socio-demographic and ideological factors. We analyse data from the International Social Survey Program 1996 and the European Values Study 1999, which together cover preferences of citizens from 20 welfare states. Hypotheses pertaining to people's notions of solidarity and preferences for justice principles in the different welfare state regimes are derived from the work of Esping-Andersen and his critics, as well as from sociological and social-psychological theories of solidarity and distributive justice. We find important, although not decisive, evidence for the thesis that the actual state of affairs with respect to the welfare state regime under which citizens live determines their views about which level of solidarity should be achieved and which justice principles should be emphasized. However, differences found are often not very pronounced, and we argue that this is a consequence of the fact that values of solidarity and justice are matters of priority to all welfare states. Taking into account the differences which exist between welfare state regimes, we also find important differences between individuals and social groups in their preferred level of solidarity and in their choice of justice principles.
The terms well-being and welfare are Often bracketed together, especially well-being and state welfare. The level of well-being is believed to be higher in welfare states, and its distribution more equitable. This theory is tested here in a comparative study of 41 nations from 1980 to 1990. The size of state welfare is measured by social security expenditures. The well-being of citizens is measured in terms of the degree to which they lead healthy and happy lives.
Contrary to expectation, there appears to be no link between the size of the welfare state and the level of well-being within it. In countries with generous social security schemes, people are not healthier or happier than in equally affluent countries where the state is less open-handed. Increases or reductions in social security expenditure are not related to a rise or fall in the level of health and happiness either.
There also appears to be no connection between the size of state welfare and equality in well-being among citizens of the state. In countries where social security expenditure is high, the dispersion of health and happiness is not smaller than in equally prosperous countries with less social insurance spending. Again, increases and reductions in social security expenditure are not linked with equality in health and happiness among citizens.
This counterintuitive result raises five questions: (1) Is this really true? (2) If so, what could explain this lack of effect? (3) Why is it so difficult to believe this result? (4) How should this information affect social policy? (5) What can we learn from further research?
The social, as a plane of thought and action, has been central to political thought and political programmes since the mid-nineteenth century. This paper argues that, while themes of society and concerns with social cohesion and social justice are still significant in political argument, the social is no longer a key zone, traget and objective of strategies of government. The rise of the language of globalization indicates that economic relations are no longer easily understood as organized across a single bounded national economy. Community has become a new spatialization of government: heterogeneous, plural, linking individuals, families and others into contesting cultrual assemblies of identities and allegiances. Divisions among the subjects of government are coded in new ways; neither included nor excluded are governed as social citizens. Non-political strategies are deployed for the management of expert authority. Anti-political motifs such as associationism and communitarianism which do not seek to govern through society, are on the rise in political thought. The paper suggests some ways of diagnosing and analysing these novel territorializations of political thought and action.
Social capital has many faces in the geography of urban opportunity, and as such, particular housing policies might have positive effects on some forms of social capital and negative effects on others. The author defines social support and social leverage as two key dimensions of social capital that can be accessed by individuals. A sample of 132 low‐income African‐American and Latino adolescents is used to examine the early impacts of a Yonkers, NY, housing mobility program on social capital. Overall, program participants (’movers’) appear to be no more cut off from social support than a control group of “stayer” youth. On the other hand, movers are also no more likely to report access to good sources of job information or school advice— to leverage that might enhance opportunity. Adding just one steadily employed adult to an adolescent's circle of significant ties has dramatic effects on perceived access to such leverage.
Offers a detailed critical analysis of the ideal of ‘community’ in politics. Traces elements of the idea of community in a number of social, philosophical, and political contexts over the last century, exploring how these have been and continue to be articulated in recent political and public policy debates. ‘Community’ is invoked as a justification for reorganization of state institutions, as the source of care and support for individuals, and as an entity that is valuable in its own right and must therefore be sustained and defended. In community development, community action, community care and community politics, the tensions and contradictions within the concept are invariably felt. Community is both inclusive and exclusive, both organized and unstructured, both hierarchical and egalitarian. The book argues that analysis of the concept ‘community’ reveals the role of ideas and ideals in shaping political action, the barriers to the realization of community in practical contexts, and ultimately the untenability of the ideal itself.
In this book Bo Rothstein seeks to defend the universal welfare state against a number of important criticisms which it has faced in recent years. He combines genuine philosophical analysis of normative issues concerning what the state ought to do with empirical political scientific research in public policy examining what the state can do. Issues discussed include the relationship between welfare state and civil society, the privatization of social services, and changing values within society. His analysis centres around the importance of political institutions as both normative and empirical entities, and Rothstein argues that the choice of such institutions at certain formative moments in a country's history is what determines the political support for different types of social policy. He thus explains the great variation among contemporary welfare states in terms of differing moral and political logics which have been set in motion by the deliberate choices of political institutions. The book is an important contribution to both philosophical and political debates about the future of the welfare state.
This book provides an authoritative and detailed examination of neighbourhood decentralisation in practice. It locates the drive towards decentralisation within the context of changing ideas about the nature of public service management and new demands by different groups of citizens for active involvement in decisions which affect their lives. It reports findings of an in-depth study of the impact of decentralisation strategies in two inner London Boroughs - Islington and Tower Hamlets
Ulrick Beck is, first and foremost, referring to threats to the environment. The focus of this chapter is the ‘bads’ of the social infrastructure captured in the concepts of underclass and social exclusion. Along with the ecological challenge these social ‘bads’ form unavoidable points of reference for social sciences dealing with present forms of social integration and differentiation.
Robert Frank caused a national debate in 1995 when he and co-author Philip Cook described the poisonous spread of "winner-take-all" markets. Now he takes a thought-provoking look at the flip side of spreading inequality: as the super-rich set the pace, everyone else spends furiously in a competitive echo of wastefulness. Frank offers the first comprehensive and accessible summary of scientific evidence that our spending choices are not making us as happy and healthy as they could. Furthermore, he argues that human frailty is not at fault. The good news is that we can do something about it. We can make it harder for the super-rich to overspend, and capture our own competitive energy for the public good. Luxury Fever boldly offers a way to curb the excess and restore the true value of money.
This paper sets forth a framework for analyzing the role of organization-environment relations in defining the classification-disposition functions of people-processing organizations. People processing organizations are defined as attempting to achieve changes in their clients not by altering basic personal attributes, but by conferring on them a public status and relocating them in a new set of social circumstances. The paper's basic proposition is that people-processing organizations employ classification-disposition systems that reflect, in part, organizational adaptations to the constraints of their exchange relations with various market units receiving the processed clients. Using a power-dependence paradigm, variables which increase or decrease the organization's dependence on its market units are identified. The consequences of these exchange relations on the organization's classification-disposition system are then explored.
Concepts of "activating social policy" enjoy increasing popularity in public and sociological discourses. The underlying assumption of all concepts of activation is that recipients as well as employees in the public service sector should participate more actively in the processes of defining and accomplishing social policy outcomes. One of the supposed advantages of activation programmes is seen in the enhancement of the individual autonomy of welfare recipients. The article critically examines how activation policies in the area of social policy will probably affect the chances of welfare recipients to enlarge their level of autonomy. It is suggested that the effects of "activating social policies" will be contradictory and that we thus should be careful in advocating activation concepts in the name of individual autonomy.
The article critically discusses the two main uses of the concept of class in recent stratification research. They are John Goldthorpe's analysis of social mobility from a class formation perspective and Erik O Wright's analysis of income inequality in the labor market. I argue that the main problem with both efforts is the lack of a satisfactory theory of how class generates inequality within the labor market. The logic of Gold thorpe's argument assumes that class causes inequality generating separate class interests in the labor market, but he does not provide such a theory. Wnght provides such a theory. However, his several class schemes either provide explanations for inequality that can be derived from standard internal labor market theory that does not satisfy the requirement of class theory; or, they are based on a concept of exploitation that is unsatisfactory for the identification of class categories within the labor market. I observe that it is not clear why Marxist theory needs a class theory of how inequality is generated within the labor market: standard neo-classical economic theory seems consistent with Marx's own conception of the capitalist economy
The answer depends on the domain under study. In the case of family aspirations, the evidence is that goals do not change very much as marital status and family size change. In the case of material ends, however, aspirations appear to grow commensurately with household wealth. The difference between these two domains in the extent to which aspirations adjust to actual circumstances implies that a more lasting increase in well-being over the life cycle is likely to result from time spent on family life rather than on the accumulation of goods.
This article examines the determinants of variations in welfare state attitudes between Germany, Norway, and the United States. Besides the influence of different welfare regime types'as discussed by Esping-Andersen and others, compositional effects of individual variables measuring people's socio-economic interests and socialization experiences and the interaction of aggregate-level (welfare regime) and individual-level (individual variables) determinants of welfare state attitudes are considered. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), results of our analysis show that remarkable between-country differences in welfare state attitudes exist. Our results suggest that these differences have to be explained both in terms of overall country effects and of the influence of country- specific economic interests and socialization experiences.
Social capital as a concept has over the last decade or more been gaining significance in relation to a number of linked fields of analyses, including the identification of factors influencing educational attainment; explanations of differing levels of participation in formal and informal adult education; and conditions necessary to the construction and enhancement of institutions and practices conducive to lifelong learning. Within these contexts, social capital has come to be defined in a variety of ways, all of which have been linked to collective norms, values and relationships reflecting the involvement of human individuals in 'a common life based on family and community'. In this respect, social capital enhancement appears to have direct links with community development education in that community development is generally defined as a social learning process which serves to empower individuals and to involve them as citizens in collective activities aimed at socio-economic development. In this contribution, the author questions the validity and efficacy of social capital as an analytical concept in the field of adult education research by exploring a number of key issues related to the assumed links between community development and social capital enhancement. The analysis is based on research currently being conducted by the School of Social and Community Sciences of the University of Ulster.
This paper argues that institutional conditions in the form of the extent and form of democracy have systematic and sizeable effects on individual well-being, in addition to demographic and economic factors. Using recent interview data from 6,000 residents of Switzerland, we show that individuals are cet. par. happier, the better developed the institutions of direct democracy are in their area of residence. This also applies to a second institution, the degree of government decentralisation (federalism). Finally, we are able to support some of the earlier results for other countries and periods with new data also based on a survey with a large sample size. In particular, we find that the unemployed are to a great extent less happy than employed persons, and that a higher household income level only raises happiness to a small extent
This paper is about the relationship between power and subjectivity in a democracy, about the lines between subjectivity and subjection, democracy and despotism. The ability of the democratic citizen to generate a politically able self depends upon technologies of subjectivity which link personal goals and desires to social order and stability, which link power an subjectivity. I begin with the contemporary self-esteem movement spearheaded by feminist Gloria Steinem and California legislator John Vasconcellos to show that programs which attempt to enhance the subjectivity of women and the poor-strategies of empowerment, self-help, and democratic participation - are also practical techniques for the subjection of individuals. I go on to outline a history of the present ‘state of esteem’ beginning with the work of Alexis de Tocqueville. I locate the emergence of democratic self-governance in the advent of the social as a sphere of governability and expertise.
There exists a contradiction between the domination of
postmodernism and cultural relativism in intellectual life and the universalism and globalism dominant in the real world of institutions and politics. In this topsy-turvy world, core values and needs are relative and local, while means and policies are global and universal.
This article contributes to those challenging this world-view. The first part looks at human well-being and contrasts the intellectual case for a universalist understanding of all people’s capabilities and the case for
localism, respect for people’s values and knowledge, before exploring theoretical attempts to reconcile the two. The second part turns to the world of institutions and structures. It considers ideas of globalization as a universal trajectory before moving on to defend multi-level and middle-range frameworks. The article concludes by arguing for a clearer distinction between universal needs, local need satisfiers and subjective understandings, together with a comparative middle-range theory to explain contemporary success and failure in improving human well-being.
This paper describes a research project that explored the relevance of Putnam's (1993) definition of social capital (as consisting of social networks, norms of trust, reciprocity, civic engagement and participation in communities) with children and young people in disadvantaged areas. Also, the paper presents data from an empirical sociological study that attempted to explore the meaning and relevance of different aspects of "social capital" for 12-15 year olds living in two deprived areas of a town in SE England. It is based on young people's descriptions of their everyday lives, and focuses on four elements: accounts of parents and the centrality of mothers; gender differences in accounts of the meaning and nature of friendship; gender differences in experiences of neighbourhood spaces and local facilities; and gender differences in young people's aspirations for the future.
This article applies a Foucauldian analytics of government to recent developments in the European Union (EU), focusing particularly on open methods of co-ordination (OMCs) in the EU. It argues that in the perspective of an analytics of government, the open method of co-ordination can fruitfully be understood as ‘advanced liberal government’, a particular conceptualization of government constituted of ‘practices of liberty’. These practices continuously presuppose, depend on and enable their subjects – in the case of the OMC most often the relevant national government agencies. At the same time, however, they shape and reshape them. There is thus a dual nature to the open method which is typical of advanced liberal government: the method enables and opens up new possibilities for its subjects and at the same time restrains these subjects as they are subjected to a certain calculative and disciplinary regime.
Welfare spending in the UK is too low to provide services at the level to which most citizens aspire. The problem is that, although most people state in surveys that they would like to pay higher taxes for better services, politicians from all the main parties generally do not believe that they would put their vote where their mouth is. Advocates of higher spending increasingly retreat to a position of promoting ear-marked taxes for specific, highly favoured services, as in the 2002 Budget plan to finance the cost of improvements in the highly valued NHS through increased National Insurance Contributions. Recent theoretical work further undermines arguments for higher state spending: an important strand in political science argues that trust in state institutions is in decline, and work in sociology claims that citizens are becoming more independent, reflexive and keen to take responsibility for meeting their own needs. This paper uses data from a recent ESRC-financed national survey to examine these arguments. It shows real support for hypothecated taxes for the NHS, and more generalised support for higher taxes for welfare provision. Such support is not undermined by a decline in citizen trust in the welfare state or by a rejection of collective solutions. However, there is little endorsement of hypothecated taxation in other areas, and the use of such measures may encourage citizens in a pick-and-mix approach to welfare services.
The broad contours of the move from the old to the new welfare are well
established but the changes in social theory which bear on this have been
relatively neglected. Also neglected are the links between these theoretical
positions and contemporaneous shifts in economic thought. Drawing
on the works of Titmuss, Marshall, Putnam and Etzioni, this paper traces
how understandings of social cohesion, social provision, responsibility
and obligation have shifted over time. It then indicates the relationship
between these constructions and parallel developments in economic
theory. Here attention is drawn to a fundamental ideological tension
between communitarian and neo-classical accounts. It is argued that
governments attempt to resolve this tension by projecting notions of
moral disintegration onto welfare claimants. Alternatives to the new
welfare are canvassed in the final section of the paper.
S. Baron, J. Field and T. Schuller (eds) (2000) Social Capital: Critical Perspectives , Oxford University Press, Oxford
A. Portes (1998) ‘Social capital: its origins and perspectives in modern sociology’, Annual Review of Sociology , 243, 1, 1–24.
R. Putnam (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community , Simon & Schuster, New York