Critical Social Policy

The return of austerity has provoked social conflict, political controversy and academic disputes. In this article we explore some of these through the metaphor of an ‘alchemy of austerity’ that forms the foundation for strategies of state retrenchment through which the consent of populations is sought. We begin, in ‘Magical thinking’, by tracing some of the discursive repertoires that circulate in analyses of austerity, showing something of its significance as a key term being mobilized in different international and national political discourses. We then go on to explore political strategies, with a particular focus on the UK in ‘Sharing the pain’. However, we suggest that such a focus offers a limited conception of politics that fails to illuminate the contradictory field of political forces put into motion by austerity strategies. This field of forces, we go on to argue, crystallizes around the problem of securing consent. In ‘Austerity and the problem of consent’ we examine this further, pointing to the proliferation of different forms of dissent and their relationship to austerity measures. We end by tracing shifting articulations of the moral and the economic by revisiting E.P. Thompson’s concept of ‘moral economy’.

The formation of the Coalition government in 2010 has resulted in unprecedented spending cuts presented as necessary austerity, together with the promotion of the ‘Big Society’ as the panacea for social ills. This article argues that the cuts continue a thirty-year process of redistribution to the rich. Rather than being a necessary response to the economic crisis, they constitute a neo-liberal shock doctrine, forcing through punitive policies which undermine the collective provision against risk that constitutes the ‘just’s umbrella’. However, arguments for reduced consumption and self-organization in civil society have purchase partly because of real needs for sustainable development and human well-being. Reading austerity and the Big Society through a ‘hermeneutics of faith’ rather than a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ opens up the utopian possibility of thinking holistically about an alternative, equitable, sustainable future radically different from that offered by conventional politics.

This paper considers the continuing resilience of the notion of community in social policy making and wider political commentary in the contemporary UK. Focusing in particular on the ways in which community is negatively and positively invoked and mobilized in narratives of the ‘big’ and ‘broken’ societies, it considers why the notion of community, so popular with the previous New Labour government, continues to enchant the present UK Coalition government and has been given added resonance in the context of the economic crisis and of the ‘austerity’ measures currently being adopted. The paper argues that placing community at the heart of current welfare provision illuminates a number of tensions in the UK government’s policy-making agenda. Informed by a discussion of Liverpool – once one of the big society ‘laboratories’ – we highlight the contradictions between top-down, depoliticized understandings of community and the types of community engagement and participation that are to be found in poor, disadvantaged communities in particular. Such communities are also where the impact of UK government ‘austerity’ measures are being most keenly felt.

This article explores how in recent years both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have begun to argue that the institutions of civil society and community should be reinvigorated and strengthened. Such arguments take inspiration from the theories of communitarianism, which stress the importance of community and civic life over the more liberal claims of individual rights. For the Conservatives, these ideas have been synthesized under the banner of the ‘Big Society’, while ‘Blue Labour’ – a relatively new political tendency – argues that Labour must stand for a more cooperative and reciprocal civil society based upon community action. It is subsequently argued that although both concepts unquestionably represent an engagement with communitarian ideas, they face significant challenges. Ultimately, the article concludes that the Big Society faces more profound impediments than Blue Labour which, if it is able to overcome its own difficulties, may well support the foundation for a powerful, communitarian social democracy.

Policy documents are a useful source for understanding the privileging of particular ideological and policy preferences (Scrase and Ockwell, 2010) and how the language and imagery may help to construct society’s assumptions, values and beliefs. This article examines how the UK Coalition government’s 2010 Green Paper, 21^st Century Welfare, and the White Paper, Universal Credit: Welfare that Works, assist in constructing a discourse about social security that favours a renewal and deepening of neo-liberalization in the context of threats to its hegemony. The documents marginalize the structural aspects of persistent unemployment and poverty by transforming these into individual pathologies of benefit dependency and worklessness. The consequence is that familiar neo-liberal policy measures favouring the intensification of punitive conditionality and economic rationality can be portrayed as new and innovative solutions to address Britain’s supposedly broken society and restore economic competitiveness.

The current Greek crisis started off in 2009 as a fiscal crisis, soon turned into a sovereign debt crisis, then mutated into a full-blown recession, unprecedented in depth and duration. The article offers an early analysis of the impact of the crisis on the labour market and the distribution of incomes, showing that the need for social protection is now much greater than ever before. It then critically reviews social policy responses in a context of both cuts to social spending and reforms in social programmes, arguing that the Greek welfare state is poorly equipped to meet the challenge. The article concludes by discussing prospects for social policy in an era of permanent austerity.

The Irish government has been held up as a model pupil of the IMF and the EU Commission because of its adoption of an intensified neoliberal response to the crisis. It has developed a policy consensus in support of wage cuts and severe austerity in order to prop up its banking system. However, the economic expertise that it relies on displays a considerable class bias. Under the guise of a neutral, technical language, the interests of a wealthy elite are being protected. Levels of social deprivation and inequality have, as a result, risen considerably. Yet despite its apparent success, there is considerable evidence that an investment strike is under way and there is no sign of a sustained recovery.

The Scottish National Party’s election win in 2011 produced the first overall majority for any party since the Scottish Parliament’s inception in 1999, despite the proportional representation system that was supposed to prevent single party governments. This historic election has been followed by much discussion of how much further the powers of the Scottish Parliament could be extended and whether devolution would allow Scotland to have a superior welfare settlement. In this context policy divergence has been the major focus of the developing devolution debate but discussions about greater powers or even independence for the Parliament have increased significantly. They are often presented as a means to achieve a ‘better’ or more ‘fair’ society. This article argues that shortcomings in the steps towards fairness achieved under the current arrangements of devolution highlight the need for a far-reaching and innovative approach to social justice to be carried out alongside any further discussions of independence. Such an approach cannot be taken for granted.

Austerity in Wales has to be understood in the context of the more general budgetary limitations created by the out-dated Barnett formula and the current debates in Wales (and Scotland) about the ways in which devolved functions should be funded in the future. This paper identifies the key measures which successive administrations have taken in support of an essentially Keynesian, counter-cyclical approach to countering recession in Wales. It traces the outcomes of the May 2011 Assembly election and the emerging policy and legislative agenda of the minority Labour administration which that election produced. The paper ends by placing these developments within the wider austerity agenda pursued by the Westminster coalition and its deleterious impact on Wales.

This paper examines social policy developments in Northern Ireland since the May 2011 election. In many areas of social policy Northern Ireland lags behind other regions of the UK, the results of decades of neglect of economic and social policy, and years of conflict. The mandatory coalition established under devolution presents particular challenges for policy making but there had been optimism that devolved structures would be more responsive to Northern Ireland’s particular circumstances. However, this paper argues that the lack of progress or vision evident in the previous period of government shows no sign of improving during the current mandate. It provides examples to illustrate problems caused by the failure to link economic and social policy, a silo mentality and the dominance of a neo-liberal agenda.