John Hudson - The Short Guide to Social Policy

First edition published in 2008
Second edition published in Great Britain in 2015 by

Policy Press
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ISBN 978 1 44732 568 0 paperback
ISBN 978-1-4473-2569-7 ePub
ISBN 978-1-4473-2570-3 Mobi

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Each chapter includes a number of charts comparing social policy across countries. For presentational reasons, we have limited each chart to 20 countries/cases, meaning that the charts do not provide as comprehensive view as would be possible with larger pages, but we have endeavoured to use a wide range of different countries in the charts. We use the standard international three-letter classifications rather than full country names in the charts, again, to save space. A list of the country codes used in the charts is as follows.

This textbook arose from the demand of our students at the University of York for a concise, straightforward and clear account of the subject matter of Social Policy and, in particular, the requests of our overseas students who often came to us with questions not only about social policy but also about why so many of their introductory textbooks excluded consideration of any case but the UK.

We were quickly able to show all of our students that Social Policy is an interdisciplinary subject that draws on the knowledge base and concepts of the core social sciences with a focus on the analysis of social problems. After this, the perennial burning question remains: What is social policy? The answer to this is that there are many different definitions and explanations of the subject but when forced by our students to make a decision about where they might best begin, we have increasingly felt that going back to basics offers a good starting point. Our short guide to social policy here focuses on the pillars of the welfare state and echoes the subject in its earliest days of development in the UK, following the setting up of the National Health Service, the state education system, a universal social security system, a massive programme of state housing and a commitment to full employment, all the product of the aftermath of the Second World War, when people expected benefits from the trauma, losses and struggle of war. People were promised a new society and out of the ashes rose the welfare state. While being aware that this apparently simple and even naive solution is itself full of pitfalls and would be unlikely to satisfy many of our colleagues, who might well approach the subject very differently, seen from the perspective of students brand new to the subject, the demand for a short overview of some key building blocks is perfectly understandable.

However, while we take our inspiration from the British case, we have tried to broaden the scope of our reflections here by drawing on examples and evidence from over 60 countries. While our writing still betrays our Western European mindset, we have tried hard to offer a less ethnocentric treatment of the subject matter of Social Policy here, not least because we believe that there is much to be gained from reflecting on how social policies differ across nations. Indeed, we have discovered from our students that, in many ways, the UK welfare state is quite odd and the assumption in much of the literature that the Beveridge model of welfare is a kind of default against which other countries might be judged and compared is mistaken. Looking comparatively helps us to see our own countries more clearly and to recognise that one key dimension of the subject of Social Policy ought to be a comparative analysis.