Abstract
More than ever before, the lives of citizens depend on the social policies of government. Western nations have constructed a vast edifice of programmes designed to alter existing patterns of social life. What men can achieve, both as individuals and as groups, is shaped by the responsiveness of government to their needs and desires. Their health, education, housing and general life chances lie heavily in the hands of the state. For many of the poor and vulnerable, state action may represent the only possibility of substantial progress. Social policies today consume close to half of public expenditure in nations such as Britain, and their management consumes a similar share of the efforts of public leaders. A steady stream of decisions flows from cabinets, parliaments, public services and courts, shaping and reshaping the complex structure known as ‘the welfare state’.
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Notes
For useful reviews of the policy-making literature generally, see Austin Ranney (ed.), Political Science and Public Policy (Chicago: Markham, 1968);
Richard Rose, ‘Comparing Public Policy: an Overview’, European Journal of Political Research, 1 (1973), 67–94;
Hugh Heclo, ‘Review Article: Policy Analysis’, British Journal of Political Science, 2 (1972), 83–108;
Richard Simeon, ‘Studying Public Policy’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 9 (1976), 548–80.
Harold Wilensky, The Welfare State and Equality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 47.
See also Harold Wilensky and C. N. Lebeaux, Industrial Sociey and Social Welfare (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1958), p. 230;
W. W. Rostow, Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), pp. 11–12, 73–4.
For a critical survey of similar arguments in historical interpretations of the rise of the welfare state by Beales, Carr and Polyani, see John Goldthorpe, ‘The Development of Social Policy in England, 1800–1914’, Transactions of the Fifth World Congress of Sociology, 14 (1962), 41–56.
Philips Cutright, ‘Political Structure, Economic Development and National Social Security Programs’, American Journal of Sociology, 70 (1965), 537–50;
Felix Paukert, ‘Social Security and Income Redistribution: A Comparative Study’, International Labour Review, 98 (1968), 425–50;
See, for example, Thomas Dye, Politics, Economics and the Public (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966).
For critical reviews of this vast literature, see Herbert Jacob and Michael Lipsky, ‘Outputs, Structure and Power’, Journal of Politics, 30 (1968), 510–38;
Stuart Rakoff and Guenther Schaefer, ‘Politics, Policy and Political Science: Theoretical Alternatives’, Politics and Society, 1 (1970), 51–77;
John Dearlove, The Politics of Policy in Local Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), ch. 4;
Joyce Munns, ‘The Environment, Politics and Policy Literature: A Critique and Reformulation’, Western Political Quarterly, 28 (1975), 646–67.
For an argument that the importance of political factors increases when concern shifts from levels of expenditure to their redistributive nature, see Brian Fry and Richard Winters, ‘The Politics of Redistribution’, American Political Science Review, 64 (1970), 508–22.
For example, variation in social security expenditures among developed nations is explained less by economic level than by such factors as how long social security policies have been in effect. See Henry Aaron, ‘Social Security: International Comparisons’, in Otto Eckstein (ed.), Studies in the Economics of Income Maintenance (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1967);
Koji Taira and Peter Kilby, ‘Differences in Social Security Development in Selected Countries’, International Social Security Review, 22 (1969), 139–53;
Frederic Pryor, Public Expenditure in Communist and Capitalist.Nations (London: Allen & Unwin, 1968), pp. 146–51 and 172–76.
For useful critiques of the functionalist underpinnings of many such interpretations, see Goldthorpe, ‘Development of Social Policy in England’; Dorothy Wedderburn, ‘Facts and Theories of the Welfare State’, in Ralph Miliband and John Saville (eds), The Socialist Register 1965 (London: Merlin Press, 1965);
John Carrier and Ian Kendall, ‘Social Policy and Social Change — explanations of the development of social policy’, Journal of Social Policy, 2 (1973), 209–24.
This argument can be found in the critique of bourgeois and critical-utopian socialism in Marx’s The Communist Manifesto and Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. For modern variations on the theme, see Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969);
Frances Piven and Richard Cloward, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (New York: Randon House, 1971);
Victor George, Social Security and Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973);
James O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973).
Gaston Rimlinger, Welfare Policy and Industrialization in Europe, America and Russia (New York: John Wiley, 1971), ch. 4; Lidtke, however, suggests that the strategy was not particularly effective and that any check on the growth of the Social Democrats was only transitory.
Vernon Lidtke, The Outlawed Pary: Social Democracy in Germany, 1878–1890 (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1966), especially pp. 158–64.
For interpretations in which the fear of unrest is not present, or at best is one of a variety of factors, see Maurice Bruce, The Coming of the Welfare State, 4th edn. (London: Batsford, 1968);
Bentley Gilbert, The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain (London: Michael Joseph, 1966);
Bentley Gilbert, British Social Policy, 1914–1939 (London: Batsford, 1970);
Kenneth Bryden, Old Age Pensions and Policy-Making in Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1974);
Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974).
This approach builds on Vickers’ distinction between policy-making as a mental skill and policy-making as an institutional process. See Sir Geoffrey Vickers, The Art of Judgment (London: Chapman & Hall, 1965).
James March and Herbert Simon, Organizations (New York: John Wiley, 1958);
Charles Lindblom, The Intelligence of Democracy (New York: Free Press, 1965);
Karl Deutsch, The Nerves of Government (New York: Free Press, 1963); Vickers, Art of judgment;
John Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision-Making (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974).
A. V. Dicey, Law and Public Opinion in England, 2nd edn. (London: Macmillan 1914), p. 33.
O. McGregor, ‘Social Research and Social Policy in the Nineteenth Century’, British Journal of Sociology, 8 (1957), 146–57;
Robert Pinker, Social Theory and Social Policy (London: Heinemann, 1971).
Donald Price, Government and Science (New York, N.Y.: New York University Press, 1954), v.
See also Guy Benveniste, The Politics of Expertise (Berkeley, Cali.: The Gendessary Press, 1972) for a comparative discussion.
Nathan Glazer, ‘A New Look in Social Welfare’, New Society, 7 Nov 1963, 6–8.
A similar picture emerges in more detailed studies of these developments; see Gilbert Steiner, Social Insecurity: The Politics of Welfare (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966);
Robert Connery, The Politics of Mental Health (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968).
Daniel Moynihan, The Professionalization of Reform’, Public Interest, I (1965), 6–16.
James Sundquist and C. Schelling (eds), On Fighting Poverty (New York: Basic Books, 1969);
Daniel Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding (New York: Free Press, 1969);
Peter Marris and M. Rein, Dilemmas of Social Reform, 2nd edn. (Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1973).
See especially D. V. Donnison, Social Policy and Administration Revisited (London: Allen & Unwin, 1975).
On the role of social workers at the national level, see Phoebe Hall, Reforming the Welfare (London: Heinemann, 1976).
Samuel Beer, Modern British Politics: A Study of Parties and Pressure Groups (London: Faber, 1965).
Richard Crossman, Inside View (London: Jonathan Cape, 1972).
Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1957).
David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain, 2nd edn. (London: Macmillan, 1974), ch. 8;
Philip Converse, ‘The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics’, in David Apter (ed.), Ideology and Discontent (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964).
On politicians’ perceptions of their electorates, see David Butler and Anthony King, The British General Election of 1964 (London: Macmillan, 1965), ch. 3;
Warren Miller and Donald Stokes, ‘Constituency Influence in Congress’, in Angus Campbell, et al., Elections and the Political Order (New York: John Wiley, 1967).
Oliver MacDonagh, ‘The Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Government’, Historical Journal, 1 (1958), 52–67
Oliver MacDonagh, A Pattern of Government Growth: 1800–1860 (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1961);
David Roberts, Victorian Origins of the British Welfare State (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1960).
For an interesting elaboration of this perspective, see Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), chs 3 and 4.
Richard Rose, The Problem of Party Government (London: Macmillan, 1974), ch. 15.
Maurice Kogan, The Politics of Education (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1971), p. 36.
For examples, see John Stewart, British Pressure Groups (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958);
S. E. Finer, Anonymous Empire (London: Pall Mall, 1958);
Harry Eckstein, Pressure Group Politics: The Case of the British Medical Association (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960);
Allen Potter, Organised Groups in British National Politics (London: Faber, 1961);
Peter Self and Herbert Storing, The State and the Farmer, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1962).
See the discussion of British politics in the report of the SSRC Committee on Comparative Politics, reprinted in Harry Eckstein and David Apter, Comparative Politics (New York: Free Press, 1963);
Robert McKenzie, ‘Parties, Pressure Groups and the British Political Process’, Political Quarterly, 29 (1958), 5–16.
Useful discussions of decision-making are Vickers, The Art of Judgment; March and Simon, Organizations, ch. 6; Charles Lindblom, The Policy-Making Process (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1968), chs 2–4;
Kenneth Boulding, The Image (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1956).
This power may also be used to exclude issues from the political agenda. For an argument that the poor, in particular, suffer from such ‘non-decision-making’, see Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz, Power and Poverty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970).
For a general discussion of the factors that influence the priority of issues, see P. Hall, H. Land, R. Parker and A. Webb, Change, Choice and Conflict in Social Policy (London: Heinemann, 1975), ch. 15.
Rimlinger, Welfare Policy and Industrialisation; Anthony King, ‘Ideas, Institutions and the Policies of Government’, British Journal of Political Science, 3 (1973), 291–313 and 409–23;
Peter Kaim-Caudle, Comparative Social Policy and Social Security (London: Martin Robertson, 1973); Heclo, Modern Social Politics; Wilensky, Welfare State and Equaliy;
Arnold Heidenheimer, Hugh Heclo and Carolyn Adams, Comparative Public Policy: The Politics of Social Choice in Europe and America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975);
David Woodsworth, Social Security and National Policy: Sweden, Yugoslavia, japan (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1977).
Theodore Lowi, ‘American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory’, World Politics, 6 (1964), 677–715.
On the nature of innovation see Homer Barnett, Innovation: The Basis of Cultural Change (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953), ch. 7. In Hall et al., Change, Choice, and Conflict in Social Policy, the term innovation is limited to the initial introduction of a programme; according to the typology employed in that study, the policies examined here are primarily ‘reforms’.
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© 1979 Keith G. Banting
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Banting, K.G. (1979). Explaining Social Policy. In: Poverty, Politics and Policy. Studies in Policy-Making. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03610-3_1
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