Social and Public Policy - Research

The governance of illegal drug use is often subject to polarized debate, with political preferences seemingly driven by the need to appeal to populist fears. Based upon research with ‘elite’ insiders, David Brewster explores global cannabis policy approaches and offers future directions for policy making and comparative criminology.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically exposed weaknesses in UK housing, with housing inequality contributing to the unequal impact of the disease. Becky Tunstall assesses the position of housing in public policy and health, and the most immediate responses to the pandemic in one convenient resource for students, scholars and practitioners.

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.

Focusing on youth activism for greater equality, liberty and mutual care - radical democracy - this timely collection explores the movement’s impacts on community organisations and workers. Essays from the Global North and Global South cover the Black Lives Matter movement, environmental activism and the struggles of refugees.

Rather than being seen simply as social policy implementors, in recent decades there has been recognition of the unique insights that social workers can bring to policy formulation. This book offers a theoretical framework for understanding why social workers engage in policy, and the implications for research, education and practice.

Most governments in the world have taken responsibility for social policy and elected to develop services in health, education and social security. This book explores the role of government and the state in the contemporary world and discusses views about government responsibility for social welfare services.

This unique work reveals how the denial of race as a social category maintains and reproduces systematic racism in contemporary France. Léonard offers an in-depth analysis of contentious issues in society, revealing how color-blind racism is at the centre of social inequality in France.

This book explores how the uncertainties of the 21st century present existential challenges to civil society. Presenting original empirical findings, it highlights transferable lessons that will inform policy and practice in today’s age of uncertainty.

Drawing on the largest database available on labour migration to Europe, this book examines the poverty outcomes for three generations of settler migrants spanning multiple European destinations, as compared with their returnee and stayer counterparts living in Turkey.

Curating rigorous academic, policy and practice-based research, this book explores the response and adaptation of the UK voluntary sector to the COVID-19 pandemic and considers what can be learned to maximise its contribution in the event of future crises.

This book scrutinises the narratives created around stealing jobs, opening new debates on the role of automation and migration policies. The authors reveal how the advances in AI and demands for constant flow of immigrant workers eradicate political and working rights, propagating fears over job theft and ownership.

Contributing to debates on the unpredictability of middle-class attitudes and their changing relations with the welfare states in Europe, this book identifies key trends in the literature and considers the impact of recent welfare reforms on the middle class.