Abstract
Social Policy Concepts and Language: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives has two aims. First, it seeks to draw attention to the conceptual and discursive foundations of social policy. Second, it seeks to sketch the rudiments of a new research agenda for social policy scholars. The volume offers comparative, historical and political perspectives on the development of key social policy concepts in 14 advanced industrial democracies, which are selected so as to represent different welfare regimes.
The introductory chapter situates the book at the interface of two scholarly traditions, namely, the study of conceptual history and the ideas- and discourse-centred scholarship in the social sciences. The subsequent 15 substantive chapters of case studies are structured around fundamental social policy concepts like ‘welfare state’ and ‘social policy’.
First out are two chapters based on two country comparisons, one of Denmark and Sweden and one of Hungary and Poland. Each comparison shows how similarities in social policy concepts and language are reflected in shared historical experiences, especially of political regimes and dominant ideologies.
Next follow three chapters which discuss the use and development of social policy concepts in transnational environments, and the role of international organisations in the diffusion of these concepts. Of particular interest here is chapter 3, which discusses the impoverishment of social policy language brought by the exclusive use of English in European Union forums. It is argued that the use of English as a lingua franca generates shallow and sometimes detached debates about social policy which fail to recognise member-state variation.
Chapter 4 in turn argues that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) accelerated the search for a new conception of social policy after the 1970s crisis, and adds complexity to the popular view of the OECD as a driving factor in the neoliberal assault on the welfare state. The final chapter in this section offers a critical reading of the impact of different social policy concepts on the international development discourse, illustrating how some concepts may undergo incremental change while their underpinning meanings remain the same.
Besides these comparative chapters, the volume offers 10 single-country studies. Each varying somewhat in their focus, these chapters provide overviews of the historical and political development of social policy concepts in Britain, France, Finland, Germany, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United States. The concluding chapter highlights differences and similarities in conceptual stability and success of new concepts across the case studies. Moreover, it distinguishes useful themes for conceptual studies (among them first- and second-order social policy concepts, timing and historical waves, national and transnational patterns), and outlines some directions and ideas for further research.
Taken together, the volume effectively illustrates the variety of meanings that underpin similar concepts (most prominently ‘the welfare state’), both across countries and within countries over time. Although the core concepts explored across cases are largely the same – which, it should be noted, contributes to making this a particularly coherent edited volume – the variation of meanings underpinning these is unmistakable. To take but one example, the concepts of ‘society’ and ‘state’ which have been, and continue to be, at the heart of the social policy development have, as a consequence of political tradition, history and language, been used in very different ways. In France, for example, the emphasis on ‘state’ is, and continues to be, detested. In Germany, by contrast, concepts that harmonise the potential antagonism between society and state have been dominant in social policy discourse. And in Nordic countries, the two terms have not quite been intelligibly separable.
Not only the different meanings behind shared concepts but also the variety of second-order concepts tied to them is striking. Consider, for example, the relevance of the concept of ‘solidarity’ in France, or ‘caring’ in the Netherlands. In addition, the study illustrates the transnational diffusion of concepts, from the spread of Bismarck’s ‘social insurance’ to the mushrooming of Dutch/Danish ‘flexicurity’. All this reflects how contextually laden the concepts used in comparative welfare state research are, which supports the introductory chapter’s claim that reflexive, comparative and historically informed discussion is a necessary starting point for research and teaching in the field.
It should be noted that the book could have benefited from an additional chapter on the methods of conceptual research in social policy. This would have provided the substantive chapters with a useful framing, for although most chapters are historical overviews, they do employ somewhat different approaches to the study of concepts. The chapter on Britain does, for example, have a much stronger intellectual history bent than any of the other chapters, while some basic frequencies are included in the chapter on Japan. Indeed, the volume’s focus on the analysis of concepts suggests a greater focus on methodology. Absent a standalone chapter on methods, one could have wished for a gathered, and more thorough, discussion of the methodological perspective, or perspectives, behind the book as a whole. Such reflections are only loosely scattered throughout the book. One might wonder, for example, what the methodological implications of combining historical approaches with causation-oriented social science, which the introductory chapter advocates, are.
On the whole, though, this is a rich and useful volume for anyone interested in comparative social policy, and especially for those concerned with the role of ideas in the history and politics of social policy.