The Divisive Welfare State

An important tradition in social policy writing sees the welfare state as an agent of social cohesion against the conflicts of market capitalism. Social policy in the UK is now developing in a way that directly conflicts with this approach. This may signal the future direction of change in other countries, as crisis and slow growth limit available resources and governments become increasingly committed to neo-liberal and consolidation agenda. The 2010 Conservative-led Coalition and 2015 Conservative governments in the UK use social policy to exacerbate and embed social divisions as part of a project to achieve permanent cuts in welfare state spending without damaging their own electoral chances. This paper reviews the divisive welfare state policies in relation to taxation, benefits for working age people and for immigrants and between pensioners and non-pensioners because these groups cover much of welfare state activity and are currently salient in a way that gives the project political purchase. It goes on to argue that the divisions mask a further neo-liberal long-term project of reducing the proportion of national resources going to all recipients of social spending. In this sense we are all in it together

The end of mass homeownership? Changes in labour markets and housing tenure opportunities across Europe

With continued economic growth and expanding mortgage markets, until recently the pattern across advanced economies was of growing homeownership sectors. The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) has however, undercut this growth resulting in the contraction of homeownership access in many countries and the revival of private renting. This paper argues that these tenure changes are not solely a consequence of the GFC, and therefore, reversible once long-term growth returns. Rather, they are the consequences of more fundamental changes especially in labour markets. The very financialisation that fuelled the growth of homeownership has also led to a hollowing out of well-paid, secure jobs—exactly those that fit best with the taking of housing loans. We examine longer-term declines in labour market security across Europe from before the GFC, identifying an underlying correlation between deteriorated labour market conditions and homeownership access for young adults. While variations exist across European countries, there is evidence of common trends. We argue that the GFC both accelerated pre-existing labour insecurity dynamics and brought an end to offsetting such dynamics through the expansion of credit access with the likelihood of a return to an era of widespread homeownership growth starkly decreased

The hand of accounting and accountancy firms in deepening income and wealth inequalities and the economic crisis: Some evidence

This paper looks at the economic crisis in the UK. It argues that everyday accounting practices are deeply implicated in the inequitable distribution of income and wealth, a major cause of the economic crisis engulfing the neoliberal economies. Without adequate purchasing power middle and low income households cannot make the purchases necessary for a sustained revival of the economic activity. Accounting calculations and discourses play a major role in the determination of wages and taxes. They prioritise the interests of capital over labour and the state and have systematically eroded labour's share of the gross domestic product. At the same time, despite a massive growth in corporate profitability, the UK state's share of the national wealth in the form of tax revenues has also declined. It is argued that accounting practices which label payment of wages to labour and payment of taxes to the state as ?costs? amplify capitalist concerns about private appropriation of surpluses and have played a major role in assigning such payments to negative spaces. Through the sale of tax avoidance schemes to corporations and wealthy elites, accountancy firms have facilitated a skewed distribution of income of wealth and further constrained the state's capacity to reflate the economy. Consequently, the tax burdens on the less well-off have increased and further eroded their purchasing power and possibilities of building a sustainable economy

From urban catastrophe to 'model' city?: politics, security and development in post-conflict Kigali

In the years immediately after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Kigali was a site of continuing crisis amid extraordinary levels of urban population growth, as refugees returned to Rwanda in their millions. Yet unlike many post-conflict cities that spiral into endemic crime and instability, it was rapidly securitised in the context of political consolidation and large amounts of foreign aid, and hailed by the UN as a ‘model, modern city’. This paper analyses the government’s approach to securitising Kigali, interrogating how its rapid trajectory from epicentre of conflict to carefully planned showcase for development has been achieved. It is argued that Kigali bears the weight of many of Rwanda’s development aspirations and keeping it secure and orderly is viewed as critical by the government. After examining the national and local processes through which the government has aimed to achieve ‘secure urbanisation’, the potential longer-term implications of its urban development strategy are considered