(TDR)).
Global social crisis
The global crisis runs deep.4 The effects of global warming, the climate emergency, the global financial crisis and the latest global health crises and global economic shock still unfolding reveal the extent of our highly interconnected world, and the scale of the post-national political commitment from global institutions and societies needed to address them. They are all world issues, global problems and global challenges and multiple crises. They have all exposed social crises at every level, with many health and social protection systems and institutions severely challenged and struggling to cope in the age of extreme global inequality and poverty. The COVID-19 pandemic (with the new buzzwords ‘social distancing’ and ‘self-isolation’) is once again exposing the deep divides that exist within and between nations, but also the way risk is governed in an era of international financial liberalization. While the World Bank and IMF have made further loans available to the poorest countries grappling with the spread of the virus, it is clear they are prioritizing fiscal objectives and market-driven solutions rather than public health (Kentikelenis et al, 2020). The international financial institutions preferring to suspend debt payments on loans and grants, rather than cancelling them altogether in order to abolish debt burdens (Hickel, 2017; Oldekop et al, 2020).5 The rich nations stand accused of being complicit in a ‘climate debt trap’ with their loans to developing countries for ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change, and many argue that the polluters (the rich nations) should have to pay for the damage they have caused.6
The coronavirus crisis has had devastating health and socioeconomic impacts, it has exposed weaknesses, divisions and inequities in health and social protection systems around the world, and it has exacerbated health and social inequalities both within and between countries (UN, 2020b; WEF, in 2020).7 Perhaps the crisis will help to restore ‘universalism’ and universal health coverage (UHC), moving towards a fairer world post-COVID-19 with more inclusive and sustainable economies (OECD, 2020). Universal healthcare systems are vital for promoting global public health security, a global priority objective of the World Health Organization (WHO), the global health agency of the UN. The inclusion of UHC in the SDGs (Target 3.8) is rooted in the right to health. Social protection systems are in crisis in many parts of the world, where universal social protection is far from a reality, and safety nets are simply not available to catch people if they fall into poverty. The global health crisis reinforces the need for stronger universal social protection floors in developing and developed countries alike, to protect all members of society, and has re-energized the global debate on unconditional basic income: ‘basic income’ or ‘Universal Basic Income’ (UBI) (Downes and Lansley, 2018). Moreover, the health and social crisis has further exposed many fictions, myths and lies: that free markets can deliver healthcare for all; that unpaid care work is not work; that we live in a post-racist world; that we are all in the same boat (Williams, 2021). Across every sphere, the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated for women and girls, the poorest and the most vulnerable in society and the developing countries (UN, 2020b; WBG, 2020). The world faces a “catastrophic moral failure” because of unequal COVID-19 vaccine policies, the Director-General of the WHO has warned. The price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries.8
We are likely to see significant changes in how society works as a result of COVID-19.9 Already, we find that the crisis is transformatory in many ways. There is major governmental intervention at levels unprecedented in peacetime. Politicians and political parties are (mostly) united behind the raft of emergency packages, budgets and fiscal stimulus. Strong welfare states are once again the best automatic stabilizers in times of crisis, as unemployment soars, and new safety nets and aid packages have been designed and extended to help protect businesses and the self-employed in some contexts. Universal healthcare systems are the most powerful of policy instruments in a health crisis. Each night a grateful public in many countries like France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the UK, paid tribute to the carers and frontline workers dealing with the coronavirus pandemic (‘clap for carers’), a positive affirmation and display of social solidarity, and growing understanding of ‘social value’ created not by market forces but by society as a whole.10
The ‘social’ of social policy
Theorising ‘the social’ has a rich history in the social sciences, although notions and conceptions of the social are not always precisely defined.11 The term ‘social policy’ has also itself received a lot of critical scrutiny over the years yet there is no standard definition. Interest in exploring the ‘comparative’ and ‘global’ dimensions of the social of social policy continues to grow, as does work uncovering the origins of social policy with the framing of the ‘social question’ that demanded ‘social reform’ and ‘social policy’ and ‘social rights’ of citizenship as a growing response to the privations of the 19th century (Kaufmann, 2013).12
In all of this endeavour we find the search for a better understanding of the social, the social sphere and social life (of the state and of civil society), and we learn more about the conceptual challenges associated with drawing clear distinctions between the economic and the political realm, or the ‘public’, private, market and familial spheres; these are familiar distinctions and complex institutions that have long interested moral philosophers and social theorists alike, from Adam Smith ([1759] 2009) and Hegel ([1821] 1967) to Jürgen Habermas ([1962] 1989), Daniel Bell ([1977] 1996), Axel Honneth (1995a) and Carole Pateman (1988) for example.13 What does the ‘social’ mean in social policy debates, shaped by culture and history, and what does or might it increasingly mean in a transnational context in the work of the international organizations, the United Nations (UN) and International Labour Organization (ILO) for example (Emmerij et al, 2001; Bellucci and Weiss, 2020), and from a global social policy perspective (see also recent discussions of the social question(s) in global times by Bogalska-Martin and Matteudi, 2018; Breman et al, 2019; Faist, 2019; Leisering, 2021).
In this volume, then, we hold the idea of the ‘social’ in social policy up to fresh scrutiny. In so doing, we build on earlier works, along with some of our work, that has critically discussed the nature of the ‘social’ in social welfare (Clarke, 1996, 2007;
