Pervasive Uncertainty in Second Modernity: an Empirical Test

Recent discussion of social change implies that, for a number of reasons, to do with globalisation, shifts in family life styles and labour markets, more critical attitudes toward the authority of officials and experts and greater awareness of possibilities and options, social life is more strongly affected by a sense of uncertainty. It also implies that uncertainty is pervasive and not specifically linked to fears about specific contingencies. It is associated with an orientation towards self-direction and a rejection of tradition and conformity. This thesis has been widely discussed, but rarely tested using quantitative data. This paper uses data from a recent national survey carried out by the ESRC Social Contexts and Responses to Risk network to show that uncertainty and security concerns are strong, but are in fact linked to traditionalism and conformity rather than to a critical and reflexive awareness. A high value is attached to self-direction, but this is linked to privileged social status rather than attitudes of pervasive social uncertainty. In general the values posited by recent discussion seem to be associated more closely with immediate social position than with the society-wide impact of social change.Uncertainty, Traditionalism, Reflexivity, Risk Society, Empirical Test

New labour and reform of the English NHS: user views and attitudes.

BACKGROUND: The British National Health Service has undergone significant restructuring in recent years. In England this has taken a distinctive direction where the New Labour Government has embraced and intensified the influence of market principles towards its vision of a 'modernized' NHS. This has entailed the introduction of competition and incentives for providers of NHS care and the expansion of choice for patients. OBJECTIVES: To explore how users of the NHS perceive and respond to the market reforms being implemented within the NHS. In addition, to examine the normative values held by NHS users in relation to welfare provision in the UK. DESIGN AND SETTING: Qualitative interviews using a quota sample of 48 recent NHS users in South East England recruited from three local health economies. RESULTS: Some NHS users are exhibiting an ambivalent or anxious response to aspects of market reform such as patient choice, the use of targets and markets and the increasing presence of the private sector within the state healthcare sector. This has resulted in a sense that current reforms, are distracting or preventing NHS staff from delivering quality of care and fail to embody the relationships of care that are felt to sustain the NHS as a progressive public institution. CONCLUSION: The best way of delivering such values for patients is perceived to involve empowering frontline staffs who are deemed to embody the same values as service users, thus problematizing the current assumptions of reform frameworks that market-style incentives will necessarily gain public consent and support

Paid work is never enough: we need to pay attention to the quality as well as the quantity of jobs created

Getting people into employment will not on its own ensure decent living standards and reduce poverty, finds Peter Taylor-Gooby. His research shows that, while higher employment is associated with lower poverty, other factors are more important. The most important factor in reducing poverty levels across the countries looked at was the strength of contractual rights, and other policies, such as access to child care, policies to reduce discrimination against women were also significant

UK POLICY COMMUNITY VIEWING ETHNIC DIVERSITY POLICY: FROM STRONGER TO WEAKER MULTI-CULTURALISM?

Multiculturalism as the dominant approach to managing diversity in the UK has been called into question by politicians, community leaders and academics in recent years. This paper reports interviews about multiculturalism, social cohesion and future policy directions with leading figures in the debate, including Home Affairs Select Committee members, authors of major reports, experts, researchers and academics. The attitudes expressed when discussing overall policy directions do not fit the traditional left-centre-right dimension of British politics but, in most cases, indicate unease at assumed segregate effects of current policy. However, when specific issues (sharia law, faith schooling, dress/ diet codes, political representation) are considered the viewpoints of most interviewees are more pragmatic. Relatively few advocate strong policies to impose British values or move decisively away from a general multiculturalism stance. The transition most widely supported would be from stronger to weaker multiculturalism rather than from multiculturalism to a different approach to diversity

Making the Case for the Welfare State

The UK welfare state is under unprecedented attack from (1) harsh spending cuts, focussed particularly on benefits and services for women, children, low-paid people and claimers of working age, and (2) a profound restructuring programme, which is fragmenting services and embedding private provision across the state sector. It is proving surprisingly difficult for pro-welfare state actors to make a case for generous state welfare that is both inclusive and electorally attractive. This paper analyses why this is so and what can be done about it. It discusses trends in the development of state welfare and in the way the issues are understood, the trilemma that pro-welfare policy-making faces, proposals for new directions in policy and a reform programme that might help build a more inclusive welfare discourse. It argues that any government that wishes to build a more inclusive society must implement policies that progressively reframe the way people think about work, reward and the role of government

Can ‘New Welfare’ Address Poverty through More and Better Jobs?

New welfare has been prominent in recent European social policy debates. It involves mobilising more people into paid work, improving human capital and ensuring fairer access to opportunities. This programme is attractive to business (more workers, better human capital and reduced social conflict to enhance productivity and profitability) and to citizens (more widely accessible job-opportunities with better rewards): a relatively low-cost approach to the difficulties governments face in maintaining support and meeting social goals as inequalities widen. The general move towards ‘new welfare’ gathered momentum during the past two decades, given extra impetus by the 2007-9 recession and subsequent stagnation. While employment rates rose during the prosperous years before the crisis, there was no commensurate reduction in poverty. Over the same period the share of economic growth returned to labour fell, labour markets were increasingly de-regulated and inequality increased. This raises the question of whether new welfare’s economic (higher employment, improved human capital) and social (better job quality and incomes) goals may come into conflict. This paper examines data for 17 European countries over the period 2001 to 2007. It shows that new welfare is much more successful at achieving higher employment than at reducing poverty, even during prosperity, and that the approach pays insufficient attention to structural factors, such as the falling wage share, and to institutional issues, such as labour market deregulation

Deliberative forums show that attitudes to welfare turn hostile because of low trust in government

Peter Taylor-Gooby outlines the findings of research that used deliberative forums to examine attitudes towards welfare. He concludes that what lay behind the views expressed was a mistrust in the capacity of the government to address the issues that most people face. It is this lack of trust that turns people against the welfare system rather than an ideological commitment to neoliberalism

Participation and Solidarity in a Changing Welfare State

Participation requires that the less powerful groups succeed in making their voices heard. Such groups often have few resources other than their numbers, so that concerted action within a democratic framework is essential. The various welfare states that emerged during the past century rested in different ways on traditions of national male breadwinner working class solidarity, often in class-coalition with middle class groups and supported by an active trade union movement. Welfare policies in the post-war heyday of corporate capitalism reinforced this solidarity. More recently the post-war settlement has been eroded by globalisation, the shift from manufacturing to a service economy, the decline of the nation state, insistent pressures from women’s groups and others for greater equality and the emergence of new social risks. The new welfare state settlement is market liberal rather than neo-Keynesian. These shifts disempower the groups that were able to influence the traditional welfare state but empowers new groups affected by new social risks and by globalisation. The key question for a politics of participation is whether these groups can form solidarities that enable them to exert real influence