GDP growth, annual percentage change, 2006–20
Tables
1.1 Differentiated life expectancy at birth
4.1 Sources of policy convergence
5.1 Taxonomy of social assistance systems
5.2 The World Bank Report’s Pension Pillars
6.1 Labour market expenditure as percentage of GDP
6.2 Distribution of migrant workers by world sub-region, 2015
7.1 Education expenditure as a percentage of GDP, selected countries
7.2 Northern European divergence in models of education provision
7.3 Gaps in school enrolment by region and gender
8.1 Proportion of urban population living in slum areas, 1990 and 2010
9.1 Mortality statistics for the WHO regions, 2015
9.2 Five types of OECD health care systems
10.1 Care through the stages of the life course
10.2 A typology of systems highlighting alternative approaches to care
11.1 The four ‘faces’ of environmental states
11.2 Typology of ‘environmental’ states
11.3 Deaths per 100,000 people attributed to forms of pollution, 2012 by WHO region
11.4 CO2 gas emissions: metric tonnes per capita, 2014
12.1 World union density change, 2006–16
Boxes
5.1 Distinguishing between national income security systems
6.1 ILO definition of unemployment
11.1 IPCC identification of key risks associated with climate change
This book emerged from our desire to provide a resource for advanced students that reflected a shift in the discipline of social policy from a focus on advanced welfare states in the OECD ‘world’ to wider interest in social policy development beyond the ‘welfare state’. A commitment to taking an international approach to analyzing social policy across different countries involves not merely an interest in comparative work but also a recognition of a need for global perspectives.
Zoë Irving’s interests in reconciling comparative and global analytical interests began while completing a PhD in comparative social policy supervised by Bob Deacon, whose prescient conviction regarding the notion of ‘global social policy’ in the mid-1990s has shaped it as a field, and without whom global actors and institutions would be conceived of much less confidently in terms of their social politics. In putting these interests into practice, Zoë has since taught comparative and global social policy at several UK universities, co-founded and convened the International and Comparative Group of the Social Policy Association 2004–11 with Nicola Yeates, and with Kevin Farnsworth is co-founding editor of the Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy. Following its launch in 2012, this journal aims to bridge the gap between global and national social policy, and its acquisition by the UK Social Policy Association in 2019 is a positive consolidation of this professional and disciplinary aim. Zoë’s current research centres on two strands of interest – the social politics of crisis and austerity (with Kevin Farnsworth), and the relationship between national population size and the possibilities for social policy development.
Michael Hill is at the end of a career that may be described as twin-tracked. On the one hand, there has been his engagement in very explicitly policy-oriented research on key issues of UK social policy – race relations, unemployment, social work, housing benefit, rent control – that has led to textbooks committed to detailed accounts of UK policies. On the other hand, he has developed an expertise in the study of the policy process, and explored ways to develop the diverse literature from the US and continental Europe. This has led to fruitful collaborations with scholars from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Scandinavia, and particularly writing on policy implementation with Peter Hupe. Michael has taught in several UK universities over the course of his career and has also been a visiting lecturer in many countries outside the UK including Hungary, Sweden and Taiwan. He continues to advise on research and publications, mostly from home but with visits to Denmark and Brazil in 2018–19.
Some time has passed between developing an initial idea and this book’s publication, and for their patience and support in the process we offer our sincere thanks to Alison Shaw, Catherine Gray, Vaarunika Dharmapala and all the team at Policy Press. In developing the book, it is also important to acknowledge the support of the publishers (Blackwell
