Policy Press

Austerity

Touted as a short, sharp adjustment to the economy in the wake of the financial crisis, the cuts and slashing of the welfare state has caused a multitude of harms to individuals, communities and society as a whole as a result.

As a publisher who has had tackling inequality at its heart for 25 years, we have published many research outputs that tackle the topic of austerity, including many articles in our Journal of Poverty and Social Justice.

Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In this cross-cutting theme, we aim to address the following goal:

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You may also be interested in our Global Social Challenges on hunger, food, water and shelter, poverty, inequality and social justice and democracy, power and governance.

Showing 13-24 of 150 items.

Living on the Edge

Innovative Research on Leaving Care and Transitions to Adulthood

Addressing previously neglected groups of care leavers such as unaccompanied migrants, street youth, young parents and those with a disability, this book considers the precarity often experienced by many care leavers. It makes research relevant to practitioners and policy-makers aiming to enable, rather than label, vulnerable groups.

Policy Press

Raising the Nation

How to Build a Better Future for Our Children (and Everyone Else)

Setting out big public policy ideas, enhanced by contributions from academic and campaigning experts, as well as those with lived experience, Raising the Nation shows why we must prioritise child-centred policies to ensure the future strength of our communities, environment and economy.

Policy Press

Women and Welfare Conditionality

Lived Experiences of Benefit Sanctions, Work and Welfare

Drawing on a wealth of qualitative longitudinal evidence, this book casts light on women’s lived experiences of welfare and work. It uncovers the hidden gendered bias of conditional welfare reforms to challenge dominant political discourses, policy design and practice norms.

Policy Press

Class and Social Background Discrimination in the Modern Workplace

Mapping Inequality in the Digital Age

This book exposes how inequalities based on class and social background arise from employment practices in the digital age. Examining the ways in which digitalisation creates risks of discrimination, the book proposes essential law reform and improvements to workplace policy.

Bristol Uni Press

The Digital Health Self

Wellness, Tracking and Social Media

Putting the spotlight on neoliberalism as a pervasive tool that dictates wellness as a moral obligation, this book critically analyses how users navigate relationships between self-tracking technologies, social media and health management.

Bristol Uni Press

Creating an Ecosocial Welfare Future

A uniquely hybrid approach to welfare state policy, ecological sustainability and social transformation, this book explores transformative models of welfare change. Using Ireland as a case study, it addresses the institutional adaptations needed to move towards a sustainable welfare state.

Policy Press

Analysing the History of British Social Welfare

Compassion, Coercion and Beyond

This book offers insights into the development of social welfare policies in Britain. By identifying continuities in welfare policy, practice and thought throughout history, it offers the potential for the development of new thinking, policy making and practice.

Policy Press

The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education

Negotiating Inclusion and Prestige

By examining the emergence and growth of liberal arts degrees in English higher education, this book tackles one of the key issues in the critical sociology of higher education: the relationship between selective education and elitism.

Policy Press

Bringing Home the Housing Crisis

Politics, Precarity and Domicide in Austerity London

Often portrayed as an apolitical space, this book demonstrates that home is in fact a highly political concept. This book explores the legislative changes dismantling vulnerable groups’ rights to decent and affordable housing.

Policy Press

The Political Economy of Fortune and Misfortune

Prospects for Prosperity in Our Times

Bringing together philosophical insights with social theory, this book develops a better understanding of the role luck plays in generating and reinforcing inequality. The author offers a political economy of life chances and an analysis of durable and demonstrable social inequalities, revealing how they are sustained and reproduced.

Bristol Uni Press

The Marketisation of Welfare-To-Work in Ireland

Governing Activation at the Street-Level

This book offers Ireland’s introduction of a welfare-to-work market as a case study that speaks to wider international debates in social and public policy about the role of market governance in intensifying the turn towards more regulatory and conditional welfare models on the ground.

Policy Press

Beyond the Virus

Multidisciplinary and International Perspectives on Inequalities Raised by COVID-19

Stark social inequalities have been revealed and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This book explores these inequalities through three thematic strands: power and governance, gender, and marginalized communities. Through its examination, the book uncovers how unequal the pandemic truly is.

Bristol Uni Press