Managing the Socially Marginalized: Attitudes Towards Welfare, Punishment and Race

Welfare and incarceration policies have converged to form a system of governance over socially marginalized groups, particularly racial minorities. In both of these policy areas, rehabilitative and social support objectives have been replaced with a more punitive and restrictive system. The authors examine the convergence in individual-level attitudes concerning welfare and criminal punishment, using national survey data. The authors\u27 analysis indicates a statistically significant relationship between punitive attitudes toward welfare and punishment. Furthermore, accounting for the respondents\u27 racial attitudes explains the bivariate relationship between welfare and punishment. Thus, racial attitudes seemingly link support for punitive approaches to opposition to welfare expenditures. The authors discuss the implications of this study for welfare and crime control policies by way of the conclusion

Neoliberalism and the Far-Right: A Contradictory Embrace

This article examines the contradictory relationship between neoliberalism and the politics of the far-right. It seeks to identify and explain the divergence of the ‘economic’ and the social/cultural spheres under neoliberalism (notably in articulations of race and class and the ‘politics of whiteness’) and how such developments play out in the politics of the contemporary far-right. We also seek to examine the degree to which the politics of the far-right pose problems for the consolidation and long-term stabilization of neoliberalism, through acting as a populist source of pressure on the conservative-right and tapping into sources of alienation amongst déclassé social layers. Finally, we locate the politics of the far-right within the broader atrophying of political representation and accountability of the neoliberal era with respect to the institutional and legal organization of neoliberalism at the international level, as most obviously highlighted in the ongoing crisis of the EU and Eurozone

The origins and essence of US social policy: on taxonomies, time and transfers

Our understanding of US social policy has not been advanced by the classification of welfare states that has dominated social policy analysis in recent years. But in biology and cosmology we can find useful examples of the way in which we can develop more theoretically informed and dynamic classifications. A common feature has been the incorporation of time and developmental paths into classification. The way in which social and political developments unfold over time is particularly important in social policy and, in the case of the USA, this has enabled us to understand that social policies can and have changed, with a rich mix of progressive and regressive policies evolving and receding over the decades. In view of the dominance of the USA in world affairs and the global transfer of resources, ideas and polices across regions, this more subtle analysis of the nature of US social policy is essential