Social Policy in an Era of Competition

“This excellent volume presents a multidisciplinary assessment of how shifts in global markets influence the development of social policy, offering analytically and empirically rich contributions that unravel the relationship between globalization and different sectors of the welfare state.” Karen Anderson, Associate Professor of Social Policy, University of Southampton

Dan Horsfall is a Lecturer in Comparative Social Policy at the University of York and Associate Fellow of the Centre for Research in Comparative and Global Social Policy. Dan’s current research seeks to assess the impact of the financial downturn upon welfare state typologies.

John Hudson is Professor of Social Policy at the University of York and Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Comparative and Global Social Policy (CRCG). His research and teaching spans three themes: The policy process; Comparative social policy analysis; and Government in the “information age”.

Introduction: Social policy in an era of competition ~ Dan Horsfall and John Hudson;

Section I: Global competition as the context for welfare

The competition state thesis in a comparative perspective: The evolution of a thesis ~ Dan Horsfall;

Changing labour markets, changing welfare across the OECD: The move towards a social investment model of welfare as a response to competition ~ Naomi Finch, Dan Horsfall and John Hudson;

From social regulation of competition to competition as social regulation: Transformations in the sociο-economic governance of the European Union ~ Antonios Roumpakis and Theo Papadopoulos;

Housing and mortgage markets in the everyday: How globalisation came home ~ Stuart Lowe;

Section II: The impact of intensifed competition on local governance;

Exporting healthcare services: A comparative discussion of UK, Turkey and South Korea ~ Neil Lunt;

Global competitiveness and the rescaling of welfare: Rescaling downwards whilst competing outwards? ~ Chris Holden and John Hudson;

Section III: The reframing of welfare discourses in an era of competition;

Rewriting the contract? Conditionality, welfare reform and the rights and responsibilities of disabled people ~ Peter Dwyer;

Global ‘vulnerabilities’: New configurations of competition in the era of conditionality? ~ Kate Brown;

Convergence of government ideology in an era of global competition: An empirical analysis using comparative manifesto Data ~ Stefan Kühner;

Crisis, austerity, competitiveness and growth: New pathologies of the welfare state ~ Kevin Farnsworth and Zoë Irving;

Section IV: Conclusions

Conclusion: Social policy in an era of competition ~ Dan Horsfall & John Hudson.