Social Policy for Development

Anthony L Hall, James Midgley

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780761967156, 9780761967149
• eBook ISBN: 9781446229224
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

?Strong social policy is essential for sustainable growth. This book is an extremely useful overview of social policy issue for policy makers and anyone who wants to understand the true roots of successful sustainable development? - Ian Johnson, Vice President for Sustainable Development, The World Bank

?Throughout the world issues of social development have now taken centre stage. There is no more comprehensive and readable guide to the choices and conflicts of this global drama. This book is essential reading for all students and practitioners of social development - and for every World Bank economist?

- David Piachaud, Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics

This much-needed textbook fulfils a major gap in providing a complete up-to-date guide and introduction to the increasingly important role of social policy in the context of development processes and practice.

Across a number of key sectors and areas of social policy concern, the authors accessibly introduce and explain the main conceptual debates, the most recent policy discussions, and provide applied examples to illustrate the latest developments in the social policy and planning field. Central topics covered include:

- poverty

- rural development

- urban development

- education

- health

- social work

- social welfare

- international development and cooperation.

Social Policy for Development is an essential text for all students and practitioners alike seeking a deeper understanding of the issues of poverty, social exclusion and deprivation across social policy and development studies internationally.

1	SOCIAL POLICY FOR DEVELOPMENT: LOCAL, NATIONAL AND GLOBAL DIMENSIONS

Summary

Conceptualization and application of social policy in a development context has evolved significantly in recent years. Notions of what constitutes social policy have moved from the statutory provision of social services, either under a minimalist, residual model or through a more systematic, institutional-incremental approach. Narrow, targeted interventions of a residual type have become popular since the 1980s as a short-term response to the poverty generated by structural adjustment, including safety net devices such as social funds. Yet in order to address long-term issues of poverty and social deprivation in the South, it is increasingly recognized that a more comprehensive, holistic and cross-sector livelihoods analysis is more appropriate. The goals of social policy have broadened to include poverty alleviation, social protection, social inclusion and the promotion of human rights. Implementing these goals requires not just a strong State, but also the actions of civil society, the private sector and international development institutions. The increasing ‘globalization’ of social policy through development banks, UN bodies, regional and supranational organizations raises important issues about where the locus of social policy-making now lies. In dealing with these fundamental questions, traditions of representative, analytical and normative theory should be borne in mind. Normative theory in particular enables a distinction to be made amongst three major schools of thought and value systems that determine social policy: the statist, institutional-welfarism model, the individualist, free market enterprise approach and populist or community development strategies. All have contributed elements to an emerging hybrid and holistic model of social policy for developing countries that will prove useful in identifying the most appropriate interventions to address the specific needs of diverse groups.

Rethinking social policy for development

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The time is ripe for a re-examination of social policy and its role in the development process. Past development paradigms and related social policy approaches have proved to be of limited effectiveness in addressing mass poverty and promoting human welfare in the South. Arguably, this criticism is as valid for neo-liberal economic growth theories as it is for targeted and other more radical strategies. Intellectually, the unilinear, blueprint and universal solutions of the modernization and Marxist approaches have been challenged by post-modern and post-structuralist critiques. The latter, in their turn, have been criticized for adopting too incremental and piecemeal an approach that does not address structural barriers to promoting more equitable patterns of economic growth. Furthermore, it could be argued that one of the major reasons for the shortcomings of conventional development strategies has been their inability to recognize and take due account of social complexity and its interface with other key development dimensions such as the economic, the political and the environmental. These lacunae have undoubtedly helped to perpetuate serious problems of poverty, vulnerability, powerlessness and exclusion.

However, while policy itself tends to evolve slowly, the perceptions and practices that generate policy change have advanced markedly over the past decade. Interventions have become more targeted and tailored to meet the specific economic and social needs of diverse groups. At the same time, development planners have become increasingly aware of the need to systematically integrate social analysis and social policy into the mainstream of development policy design and implementation. There is a growing consensus that inclusion of the social dimension, while no panacea for the above problems, is one of the major prerequisites for more successful development. Reflecting this evolution, development institutions at both domestic and international levels have begun to incorporate and institutionalize social policy, social planning and social development into their mainstream activities.

The literature on social policy and development has also expanded considerably over this period and, together with related academic courses, has played a key role in sensitizing development policy-makers and practitioners to these issues. There have been many books published on specific social sectors including health, education, rural development and urban housing as well as related areas such as the environment and gender. There have also been landmark texts cutting across the social development and social welfare spectrum (Conyers, 1982; Hardiman and Midgley, 1982; MacPherson, 1982; MacPherson and Midgley, 1987; Booth, 1994; Midgley, 1995, 1997). Those early publications, among the first to address economic and social development within a more holistic vision, have been instrumental in advancing the frontiers of international social policy. They have extended its legitimate sphere of concern beyond narrow conceptions of social service provision by national governments towards inclusion of much broader livelihood issues. In particular, threats to human welfare arising from the internationalization and globalization of economic, social and political forces have generated new pressures that require a rethinking of how social policy reforms can most effectively respond to these changes.

It is important to stress, however, that re-examining the role and scope of social policy in development does not signify a rejection of all past practices, nor is it an exercise in reinventing the wheel. In other words, we seek to identify the best of these practices and combine them with new experiences and analyses in appropriate applications suitable for diverse and changing circumstances. We wish in this volume to review how conceptions of social policy have evolved, how such ideas and linked strategies have been applied to promote human well-being, and how they may be improved to better address critical development problems in the South.

Redefining social policy: from welfare to livelihoods

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The above opening remarks suggest that defining ‘social policy’ is not as straightforward a task as it once seemed. The term is nowadays fraught with potential ambiguity and confusion. It therefore needs to be carefully set out and employed appropriately. In the first instance, a basic distinction should be made between social policy as (a) an applied policy arena relating to governmental and other institutional interventions that affect people’s welfare and (b) an academic field of enquiry. These two aspects are closely related since theory feeds directly into practice.

Historically, for example, the writings of early utopians and advocates of scientific social planning such as Auguste Comte, one of the founding fathers of sociology, were relevant for the emergence of social policy as an applied field. Early socialistic ideas were applied by pioneering industrialists such as Robert Owen, who in the early 1800s established the community of New Lanark in Scotland. Poverty surveys conducted by Charles Booth, Paul Kellogg and Seebohm Rowntree exposed the harsh and brutal conditions under which many ordinary people lived and fuelled pressures for social reform by pioneers such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb in the UK and Jane Addams in the US (Midgley et al., 2000). Anti-slavery movements in the US, Latin America and England during the nineteenth century can also be regarded as early intellectual expressions of progressive social policy. Social security and welfare policies introduced during the 1930s in the US under the New Deal, as well as publication of the Beveridge Report in the UK, were both underpinned by pioneering academic enquiry and the application of normative principles of social science for the improvement of society. Subsequently, social policy as an academic subject acquired its own identity in the UK with the appointment in 1950 of Richard Titmuss to the first such professorial position at the London School of Economics. In this discussion of emerging social policies, however, it should not be forgotten that societies have always evolved their own informal mechanisms for dealing with the needs of the elderly, sick and frail amongst their numbers. As will be seen in the following chapters, there is much to be learned from indigenous systems of social support and much to be gained from incorporating such lessons into modern practice.

Conceptions of social policy have thus evolved to reflect historical priorities and changing attitudes towards the causes of social problems and solutions perceived as being most appropriate. These definitions overlap with, and should be considered alongside, the theoretical paradigms of normative social policy discussed in a later section of this chapter in which statist, enterprise and populist approaches are outlined.

Social policy as welfare services

Conventionally, applied social policy has been considered synonymous with government intervention to provide social services. Until the early twentieth century, this signified minimal State action to address the immediate needs of the poor and destitute. Comprehensive and systematic public social policy provision came to the fore in the European post-war conception of the ‘welfare state’, in which government was perceived as having a duty to ensure certain fundamental living standards for all its citizens, literally ‘from the cradle to the grave’. Alongside economic planning based on Keynesian principles of employment-generating public investment, this involved government funding for key social sectors such as health, education and housing. In addition, complementary support would be provided to the socially disadvantaged and the needy through statutory regulation, including a range of unemployment and social security benefits. Taken together, such government measures are based on normative principles that are commonly understood to form the basis of a ‘civilized’ and ‘modern’ society. They include, for example, the economic, social and political rights and freedoms that comprise ‘citizenship’ (Marshall, 1950).

In the developing world also, social policy has tended to become equated with government intervention. During the 1950s, according to mainstream economic theories of the time, it was expected that central planning would stimulate modernization and growth through urban-based industrialization, generating employment while alleviating poverty. It was generally held that the benefits of growth would inevitably ‘trickle down’ to the wider population, automatically improving their welfare. At the same time, public spending on social sectors was considered a wasteful diversion from the business of economic growth. According to this ‘residual model’ of social welfare, introduced by many colonial authorities before independence, government intervention to meet social needs was to be minimized (Hardiman and Midgley, 1982). Government would restrict its actions to dealing with social pathologies such as crime and prostitution, as well as helping those who could literally not help themselves, such as the disabled, the old and infirm or orphans. Social needs would be met through individual effort in the market place, with support from the family and community, and via charitable or voluntary organizations such as the church. This minimalist approach, echoing nineteenth-century European and American Poor Laws, was commonly incorporated into the policy agendas of Ministries of Welfare in newly independent developing countries.

However, the residual welfare model proved unworkable for several reasons. Firstly, even where economic growth did take place, it by no means guaranteed improved standards of living and welfare for the poorer classes. Residual social policy was evidently not equipped to cope with mass poverty. Secondly, social demand for basic services such as health, education and housing grew emphatically, especially from the 1960s onwards. The populations of newly independent nations were understandably anxious to gain access to social services and enhance their life chances, which they saw as their right after years of colonial domination. Responding to pressure from urban middle classes in particular, governing elites have expanded social service provision by building new schools, houses and hospitals in the competition to secure electoral support and political legitimacy. Thus, the ‘incremental welfare’ model was put in place, in which social sectors are expanded in a piecemeal, expedient fashion in response to political pressures rather than to social need as such (Hardiman and Midgley, 1982). This gave rise, for example, to accusations of ‘urban bias’ on the grounds that the pressing needs of the majority rural poor were simply ignored by most governments (Lipton, 1977). Arguably, this incremental approach is still characteristic of social sector planning in most of the developing and much of the industrialized world.

Deciding upon the means by which to achieve social policy goals has been a matter of growing political contention. During the 1980s, Keynesian economics together with the hitherto central role of the State in implementing public policy came under fire. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, supported by the Friedmanite stance of the New Right, raised serious doubts about the viability of the comprehensive welfare state (Friedman and Friedman, 1980). Other analysts, notably Charles Murray (1984), questioned the effectiveness of public assistance and social welfare programmes in the industrialized nations, alleging that they merely exacerbated the problems they were meant to solve and lead to the creation of a permanent, poor ‘underclass’. The post-war welfare ethos was thus undermined by several factors. Firstly, by ideological mistrust of the allegedly paternalist and repressive State machine, coupled with the proposal to strengthen individual freedom of choice. Secondly, by the need to contain public spending and shift a larger share of the cost burden to service consumers themselves. To meet these two goals, economic liberalization and deregulation have meant the growing privatization of public services along with reliance on the creation of markets and internal quasi-markets to boost efficiency in the allocation and spending of resources in Europe’s ‘welfare’ states. Some countries such as France, Sweden and Germany retain a strong belief in the responsibility of central government to fund and manage basic welfare provision and public utilities, while others such as the UK have resorted increasingly to assistance from the private commercial and voluntary sectors as service providers.

Social policy as safety nets

This free market ideology was transferred to the developing world through programmes of economic stabilization and structural adjustment from the mid-1980s onwards. In order to strengthen indebted economies and their repayment capacity, their productive potential would be enhanced through a combination of economic and social measures. The so-called ‘Washington Consensus’ thus emerged to preach market deregulation and competition (Williamson, 1990). This ideology also embraced measures including withdrawal of the State machine from monopolistic positions such as agricultural marketing boards, the reduction of public expenditure, incentives for foreign investment, restrictions on imports and the provision of export incentives. The adverse social impacts of these policies have been documented at length (Cornia et al., 1987; Ghai, 1991; Stewart, 1995). Far from being self-rectifying under adjustment, as had originally been predicted, poverty and vulnerability were exacerbated in many countries and, for many groups, social indicators worsened. Welfare provision was heavily compromised, with basic sectors such as health and primary education often bearing the brunt of spending cutbacks, as detailed in Chapter 9 of this volume (Graham-Brown, 1991; Kanji and Manji, 1991).

There has for some time been discussion of medium-and long-term policies for dealing with the adverse social impacts of structural adjustment. Even in the initial stages, ‘adjustment with a human face’ was advocated in order to deal not just with short-term problems but also to address deep-seated cross-sector and structural obstacles to balanced development (Cornia et al., 1987). In practice, however, the emphasis has been on the creation of social safety nets using social funds to target scarce resources at poorer, more vulnerable groups (Narayan and Ebbe, 1997; Subbarao, 1997; Conway, 2000). However, the mini-malist and selective nature of this approach as well as its reliance on the voluntary sector for implementation is somewhat reminiscent of the residual welfare model. Yet the havoc caused by adjustment has led to the realization amongst policy-makers that a longer-term perspective is also necessary to address deep-seated social problems within a more systematic analysis of poverty, its causes and appropriate policy solutions. These issues are taken up in Chapters 2 and 9.

Social policy and livelihoods

The above perspectives consider social policy as being concerned primarily with either, (a) social and welfare services of one kind or another, or (b) safety nets to alleviate immediate crises. However, a third definition views social policy in a much broader sense as encompassing any planned or concerted action that affects people’s lives and livelihoods. In this conceptualization, social policy is concerned essentially with more fundamental questions of sources and stability of employment, support institutions, processes and structures that determine people’s well-being as well as broader natural and political factors which encourage and constrain human development. Thus, in the words of one observer, social policy in this wider vision m...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Glossary
• 1 Social Policy for Development: Local, National and Global Dimensions
• 2 Poverty, Inequality and Development: The Challenge for Social Policy
• 3 Social Policy and Rural Development: From Modernization to Sustainable Livelihoods
• 4 Social Policy and Urban Development
• 5 Basic Education for Social Development
• 6 Health Systems in Developing Countries
• 7 Social Work and the Human Services
• 8 Social Security Policies and Programmes
• 9 International Development Cooperation and Social Policy
• Index