Social and Public Policy - Research

This important book uses empirical evidence to explore the concept of public trust in health systems.

In doing so, it provides a comprehensive contemporary explanation of public trust, how it affects health systems and how it can be nurtured and maintained as an integral component of health system governance.

It is widely assumed today that the 'welfare state' is contracting or retrenching as an effect of the close scrutiny to which entitlement to social security benefits is being subject in most developed countries. In this book, fifteen authorities from nine different countries investigate to what extent this assumption is warranted.

In a time of increasing inequality, why has there been a recent surge of support for political parties who promote an anti-welfare message? Using a mixed methods approach and newly released data, this book aims to answer this question and to show possible ways forward for welfare states.

Offers a rare and vivid insight into the everyday lives, attitudes and behaviours of the rich as well as the poor across the UK, demonstrating how those marginalised and validated by the existing welfare system make sense of the prevailing socio-political settlement and their own position within it.

The welfare we want? presents a detailed and unique comparison of welfare policies in the Britain and America. A team of international experts outlines, compares and contrasts the reform strategies pursued in each country and summarises the results to date. 

With welfare to work programmes under intense scrutiny, this book ranges widely across Europe to review existing policies and explore future ones. It shows how many schemes do not adequately address social rights and lived experiences, and consider alternatives based on theories of non-domination.

This book analyses fresh empirical evidence which demonstrates the gendered impacts of the new conditionality regime within Universal Credit. Drawing on in-depth interviews with mothers, it offers a compelling narrative and policy recommendations to make the social citizenship framework in the UK more inclusive of women.

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.

Welfare reform is a central part of the modernisation programme adopted by the Labour Government since 1997. This book examines the role of Parliament in the formulation and scrutiny of welfare policy, focusing in particular on how MPs and Peers view their influence on policy.

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.

This book brings together a selection of Richard Titmuss's important writings on a range of key social policy issues, together with commentary from experts in the field.

The companion volume is, Private complaints and public health: Richard Titmuss on the National Health Service edited by Ann Oakley and Jonathan Barker (The Policy Press, 2004).

In this book, Sarah Kerr explains that we live in a state of ‘wealtherty’, characterised by the hyper-concentration of wealth and a stark distinction between the rich and the poor. In pursuit of social and economic justice, she argues that we need to stop talking about poverty and start addressing the social and political problems caused by wealth.