Critical Social Policy

This article puts the policy goal of the Urban Minimum Living Standard Guarantee (UMLSG) in China into question and it aims to expose the assertion ‘covering whoever is eligible’ as a myth. An exploratory study of the implementation of the UMLSG eligibility criteria was launched in Guangzhou. Interviews were conducted with twenty-five poor people and local bureaucrats. In addition to people’s meeting the income requirement, it was discovered that there were three unwritten principles flexibly used by local bureaucrats in assessment: the ability to work, the family unit and clientelism. The prevalence of street-level bureaucracy in the UMLSG administration not only hampered state resources from reaching the families living in urban poverty, but also seriously contradicted the reformulated ideologies and undermined the party’s legitimacy. The findings of this study suggest that variations in UMLSG eligibility, which are causing a serious problem of under-coverage, should attract immediate attention from both officials and academics.

In March 2013, China’s so-called fourth generation of leadership stepped down. Upon taking office a decade ago, they launched a series of high-profile health reform programmes, which have often been touted as a prime example of their commitment to prioritizing social welfare. However, throughout their period in power the reform remained remarkably unsuccessful at delivering as promised. This paper explains the failure. Unlike most of the existing literature which hinges upon issues within the health sector, this paper places the country’s political economy at the centre of the analysis. In particular, it highlights the role of neoliberalism. It argues that rather than improving the population’s health, the primary purposes of the health reform were to, first, accommodate socio-political unrest that was caused by neoliberal policies implemented prior to the early 2000s, and, second, facilitate further neoliberal economic restructuring. Moreover, anti-welfare neoliberal tenets, which run counter to improving health outcomes, were deeply imbedded in the formulation of health reform policies.

The idea of ‘intergenerational cultures of worklessness’ has become influential in UK politics and policy, and been used to explain contemporary worklessness and to justify welfare reforms. Workless parents are said to pass on to their children attitudes and behaviours which inculcate ‘welfare dependency’. In its strongest version, politicians and welfare practitioners talk confidently of ‘three generations of families where no-one has ever worked’; even though no study, bar this one, has investigated whether such families actually exist. Solid evidence for intergenerational cultures of worklessness is elusive so this study tested the idea via interviews with twenty families in Glasgow and Middlesbrough that had been long-term workless. Theories of intergenerational cultures of worklessness feel like ‘zombie arguments’ – resistant to evidence and social scientific efforts to kill them off. Regardless, the findings of this critical case study are offered as a fresh batch of ammunition with which to try to do so.

This article makes a case for investigating the needs of migrant women as transnational mothers, and the sources of social support accessible to them. Much has been written on migrants’ homebound commitments and obligations in terms of transnational caregiving, care chains, and the like. Less analysed are the consequences on their personal needs and demands, which are out of synch with the territorially-based social welfare provision of either sending or receiving countries. Building on my fieldwork with Ecuadorian care workers in Italy, I explore migrant women’s constructions of their care needs and the limited social support they rely upon in host and home societies, as well as in the ‘intermediate space’ of their cross-border care practices. Overall, the prospects for their indirect needs for care to emerge as a public issue are contentious and uncertain. By delving into them, though, critical light is shed on the ambivalences and tensions inherent in migrants’ practice of care, at many levels: concerning its gendered bases, its elusive boundaries and the overload of affections and expectations which it typically bears.

The current age of ‘austerity’ is associated with neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism can be understood as a form of governmentality – a way of reconfiguring selves and the social order in accord with the demands of market economies. A recent UK policy initiative by the Coalition government’s Behavioural Insights Team required benefit claimants to submit to online psychometric testing. We examine this policy in some detail, arguing that this use of psychometric testing is flawed, unethical, and unlikely to help claimants to find work. Our analysis of the test procedure and its results suggests that the policy functions primarily as a means whereby benefit claimants can be ‘nudged’ towards acceptance of the precepts of neoliberal subjectivities.

This article explores the continuities in alcohol policy over the past decade under both Labour and Coalition governments. It is argued that these continuities reflect a neoliberal mentality of government whereby market mechanisms are maintained even when the outcomes produced are deemed undesirable. Policies to address these outcomes have focused on the individual citizen, conceived of as a potentially rational decision-maker. If exhortations to behave in the desired fashion do not reap results then measures are targeted at specific individuals or groups of individuals considered flawed consumers. The continuity is examined in light of recent commentary that has identified a trend in policymaking reflecting a loss of confidence in individual rationality and market outcomes, described variously as post-liberalism or neocommunitarianism. It is suggested that the stability of the broader underlying structures of thought that circumscribe contemporary policy discussions should not be underestimated.