Abstract
This collection of essays has been written by an international team of scholars on a range of issues around the theme of the state and caring. Each of the contributors focuses on an aspect of state care which is to be found in all modern societies — that is, in all those societies of the advanced industrial, liberal democratic type. It is in such societies that the state ostensibly plays a leading and major caring role, promoting people’s welfare through a wide range of social activities, arrangements and devices, including social policy, social services, education, housing provision, health facilities, income maintenance and the legal framework. A prominent thread running through the essays is composed of the following questions: How well does the state ‘care’? Does the state through its caring activities and devices simply add to — or does it also subtract from — people’s welfare? How might the answers to the previous questions be accounted for? Why does the state care in the way it does? Is there an associated or hidden agenda behind the state’s caring role? In particular, to what extent does state care also entail state control — and to what extent can state care be accounted for in terms of state control?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1992 Paul Close
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Close, P. (1992). Introduction. In: Close, P. (eds) The State and Caring. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12755-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12755-9_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-12757-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-12755-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)