Welfare Rights and Social Policy

Welfare Rights and Social Policy provides an introduction to social policy through a discussion of welfare rights, which are explored in historical, comparative and critical context.

At a time when the cause of human rights is high on the global political agendathe authorasks why the status of welfare rights as an element of human rights remains ambiguous. Rights to social security, employment, housing, education, health and social care are critical to human well-being. Yet they are invariably subordinate to the civil and political rights of citizenship, they are often fragile and difficult to enforce, and because of their conditional nature they may be implicated in the social control of individual behaviour.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I - WELFARE RIGHTS IN THEORY
1. The Social Rights of Citizenship
The Amelioration of Class
The Origins of Rights
Social Rights and 'Privatisation'
Summary/Conclusion
2. Poverty and Need
Defining Poverty
Defining Need
Rights and Equality
Citizenship and Welfare
Summary/Conclusion
3. Welfare Rights in Global Perspective
Social Rights and Social Development
Welfare State Capitalism
The Globalisation of Social Policy
Global Citizenship and Human Rights
Summary/Conclusion
4. Critiques of Welfare Rights
The Neo-Liberal Challenge
The Neo-Marxist Challenge
The Challenges of 'Post-Modernity'
Summary/Conclusion
PART II - WELFARE RIGHTS IN PRACTICE
5. Rights to Subsistence
A Hybrid System
The Traditional Means-Test
Enforcing Family Responsibilities
Security in Old Age
The Rights of Disabled People and Carers
Summary/Conclusion
6. Rights to Work
Employment Protection
The Working-Age Benefits Regime
'In Work' Benefits
Incapacity
Summary/Conclusion
7. Rights to Shelter
Paying for Housing
Protection Against Exploitation and Eviction
Housing Conditions
Homelessness and the Rationing of Social-Sector Housing
Summary/Conclusion
8. Rights in Education, Health and Social Care
Education
Health
Social Care
Summary/Conclusion
9. Rights of Redress
The Juridification of Welfare
Access to Legal Expertise
The Role of the Courts
Administrative Redress
Summary/Conclusion
PART III - RETHINKING WELFARE RIGHTS
10. Discourses of Citizenship, Rights and Responsibility
Traditions of Citizenship
Interpreting Rights
Rights and Responsibility
Summary/Conclusion
11. Welfare Reform or Social Resistance?
Welfare Reformism
Social Resistance
The Autonomous Subject and the Ethical State
Summary/Conclusion
References
Index