Social and Public Policy - All titles

How to Create Societies for Human Wellbeing presents a compelling new perspective on psychological wellbeing informed by evidence on human stress responses. It shows how our mental health is shaped by the social and cultural conditions in which we all live and offers new ways to respond through political and social change.

This book takes a critical political economy approach to understanding food insecurity in Canada and the UK. It provides a vision of a future whereby public control over the distribution of resources –including food – will eliminate food insecurity and other conditions that threaten health.

Focusing on three key areas: prevention, support and investment, this book argues that tackling poverty and financial insecurity through well-designed social security systems could offer a new focus for improving our collective mental health.

The use of fiscal welfare has been growing over the past decades in European welfare states. This book sheds light on the use and effects of fiscal welfare in welfare and labour market reforms in both countries and examines the introduction of a 50% tax deduction on domiciliary care and household services.

This book uses qualitative longitudinal data, from repeat interviews with people subject to compulsion and sanction in their everyday lives, to analyse the effectiveness and ethicality of welfare conditionality in promoting and sustaining behaviour change in the UK.

Ciaran Hughes and Markus Ketola explore the consequences of neoliberal policies on the voluntary sector in Northern Ireland. They trace the changing relationships between government and voluntary organisations since the Good Friday Agreement and lessons about the impact of neoliberal policies on governance, relationships and the peace process.

Providing original observations, this seminal text analyses the emergence of social investment policies in both Europe and East Asia. Experts explore the roads and barriers towards effective social investment policies, derive practical social policy implications and highlight important lessons for future social policymaking.

What kinds of care are being offered or withdrawn by the welfare state? What does this mean for the caring practices and interventions of local activists? Shedding new light on austerity and neoliberal welfare reform in the UK, this vital book considers local action and activism within contexts of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, flexible working has become the norm for many workers. This volume examines flexible working using data from 30 European countries and drawing on studies conducted in Australia, the US and India

Drawing on fieldwork from the UK, France and Germany, this volume addresses the relationship between trust and transparency in the context of multi-level governance.

Drawing on place-based field investigations and new empirical analysis, this original book investigates civil society at local level.

With case studies from around the world, this accessible book explores the methodological complexities of research into voluntary action, charitable behaviour and participation in voluntary organisations.