The De-Politicization of Social Policy at the Time of Social Investment. Mechanisms and Distinctive Features


Abstract


Social policy has undergone a major process of de-politicization all over Europe in the last twenty years, that was fostered by the paradigm shift towards the so-called Social Investment Welfare State. Though similar processes are taking place in many policy areas, social policy can be considered one of the most promising fields of observation of de-politicization. The downgrading of the political character of decision making, indeed, is in sharp contrast with the relevance of the debate about values and justice and with the conflicts that accompanied the establishment of welfare systems. The paper argues that de-politicization is the result of the interaction between three different mechanisms: the shift of emphasis from justice to effectiveness and the model of "governance by numbers"; the process of individualization of social intervention that marginalized collective responsibilities; the inclusive model of governance that co-opt civil society organizations reducing their role as conflicting actors. The three mechanisms give way to a model of de-politicization distinguished by the narrowing of the political debate about solutions, models of intervention and principles, based on inclusion rather than delegation and in which political ac-tors do not disappear. The process of de-politicization is relatively independent from the trend of re-trenchment that begins with the political success of neoliberalism. However, as we will see, it is essential to the survival of its principles.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v10i2p421

Keywords: De-politicization; Social Policy; Social Investment; Neoliberalism; Third Sector; Individualiza-tion; effectiveness

References


Ascoli, U. (1999) (ed.) Il welfare futuro. Manuale critico del Terzo settore. Rome: Carocci.

Atkinson, A. B. (2015). Inequality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Baldwin P. (1990), The politics of social solidarity: class bases of the European welfare state, 1875-1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Barbier, J. C., Mayerhofer, W. (2004). “Introduction: the many worlds of activa-tion”, European Societies, 6(4): 423-436.

Baumgartner F. R., Leech B. L. (1998), Basic interests: The importance of groups in politics and in political science. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Beetham, D. (2013), The legitimation of power, London: Palgrave.

Best J. (2008), “Ambiguity, uncertainty, and risk: rethinking indeterminacy”, International Political Sociology, 2(4): 355-374.

Bobbio L. (1996), La democrazia non abita a Gordio: studio sui processi decisionali politi-co-amministrativi, Milano: FrancoAngeli.

Burnham, P. (2001), “New Labour and the politics of depoliticisation”, The British Journal of Politics & International Relations 3(2): 127-149.

Busso, S. (2015). “What works: Efficacia e quantificazione nelle politiche sociali in tra-sformazione”, Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 56(3-4): 479-502.

Busso, S., Gargiulo, E. (2016). “ ‘Convergenze parallele’: il perimetro (ristretto) del dibat-tito italiano sul Terzo settore”, Politiche Sociali, 1: 101-122.

Caselli, D. (2016), “Between the Invisible hand and the Invisible Heart. Italian Welfare Re-structuring and the Quest for a New Neoliberal Hegemony”, Partecipazione e conflit-to, 9(2): 387-413.

Colombo, D., Gargiulo, E. (2016), “Participation and Privatisation in Neoliberal Policies: The Case of Italian'Piani di Zona'”, Partecipazione e conflitto, 9(2): 414-440.

Daly, M (2004) “Changing conceptions of family and gender relations in European wel-fare states and the third way” in Lewis, J., Surender R. (eds), Welfare State Change: Towards a Third Way?, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Davies H., Nutley S.M., Smith P.C. (1999). “What Works? The Role of Evidence in Public Sector Policy and Practice”, Public Money & Management, 19(1): 3-5

de Leonardis, O. (2009), “Conoscenza e democrazia nelle scelte di giustizia: un’introduzione”, La Rivista delle politiche sociali, 3: 73-84.

De Leonardis, O., Neresini, F. (2015), “Il potere dei grandi numeri. Introduzio-ne”, Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 56(3-4): 371-378.

Della Porta D., Diani, M. (2006). Social movements: An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.

Eikenberry, A. M., & Kluver, J. D. (2004), “The marketization of the nonprofit sector: Civil society at risk?”, Public administration review, 64(2): 132-14

Espeland, W. N., Stevens M.L. (2008) “A sociology of quantification”, European Journal of Sociology, 49(3): 401-436.

European Commission (2009). Impact Assessment Guidelines. Brussels,(No. SEC(2009) 92).

Evers A., Laville J. L. (2004) (Eds.), The third sector in Europe, Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Ferrera M. (2013), “Neowelfarismo liberale: nuove prospettive per lo stato sociale in Eu-ropa”, Stato e mercato, 97(1): 3-35.

Finlayson, A. (2003), Making sense of new labour, London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Fisher, M. (1997), “Research, knowledge and practice in community care”, Issues in Social Work Education, 17: 17-30.

Flinders M., Wood M. (2014), “Depoliticisation, governance and the state”, Policy & Poli-tics, 42(2): 135-149.

Flinders, M., Buller. 2006. “Depoliticization, democracy and arena-shifting”, in Christensen T., Lægreid, P. (Eds.) Autonomy and Regulation: Coping with Agencies in the Modern State, London: Edward Elgar.

Foster, E. A., Kerr P., Byrne C. (2014), “Rolling back to roll forward: depoliticisation and the extension of government”, Policy & Politics, 42(2): 225-241.

Gaynor, N. (2011), “Associations, Deliberation, and Democracy: The Case of Ireland’s So-cial Partnership”, Politics & Society, 39(4): 497-519.

Giddens, A. (1999), The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hall P. A. (1993), “Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state: the case of economic policymaking in Britain”, Comparative politics, 25(3): 275-296.

Harvey D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hay, C. (2007). Why we hate politics, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Higgins, J. P., Green S., (2008) (Eds) Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of inter-ventions (Vol. 5), Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hood C., Peters G., (2004) “The middle aging of new public management: into the age of paradox?”, Journal of public administration research and theory, 14(3): 267-282.

Hood, C. (1995) “The “New Public Management” in the 1980s: variations on a theme”, Accounting, organizations and society, 20(2): 93-109.

Jaeger H. M. (2007), “ ‘Global civil society’ and the political depoliticization of global governance”, International Political Sociology, 1(3): 257-277.

Le Grand, J. (1991) “Quasi-markets and social policy”, The Economic Journal, 101(408): 1256-1267.

Leggett, W. (2005), After New Labour: Social theory and centre-left politics. London: Pal-grave Macmillan.

Lippmann, W. (1922), Public Opinion, New York: MacMillan.

Lister R. (2004), “The Third Way’s Social Investment State” in Lewis, J., Surender R. (), Welfare State Change: Towards a Third Way?, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lødemel, I., Trickey, H.(2001) (Eds), 'An offer you can't refuse':

workfare in international perspective. Bristol: Policy Press.

Mair P. (2000) “Partyless democracy: solving the paradox of New Labour?”, New Left Re-view, 2: 21–35.

Marcon G. (2004), Le utopie del ben fare, Napoli: L’Ancora del Mediterraneo.

Marshall T. H. (1950), Citizenship and social class, Cambridge: Polity Press

Martin S., Davis H., (2001), “What works and for whom? The competing rationalities of 'Best Value'”, Policy & Politics 29(4): 465-475.

Mead, L. (1997) The new paternalism. Supervisory approaches to poverty, Washington: Brookings Institution Press.

Meyer, C. (1999), “Political legitimacy and the invisibility of politics: Exploring the Euro-pean Union's communication deficit”, Journal of Common Market Studies, 37(4): 617-639.

Moini G. (2011), “How participation has become a hegemonic discursive resource: to-wards an interpretivist research agenda”, Critical policy studies, 5(2): 149-168.

Moini G. (2015) (Ed), Neoliberismi e azione pubblica. Il caso italiano, Roma: Ediesse

Morel, N., (2013), “A social investment strategy for the knowledge-based economy?”, Scuola democratica, 4(3): 631-668.

Morel, N., Palier, B., & Palme, J. (2012) (Eds). Towards a social investment welfare state? Ideas, policies and challenges, Bristol: Policy Press.

Moro, G. (2014), Contro il non profit. Roma Bari: Laterza.

Osborne D., Gaebler T. (1992), Reinventing government: How the entrepreneurial spirit is transforming government, Reading MA: Adison Wesley Public Comp.

Palier B., Thelen K. (2010). “Institutionalizing dualism: Complementarities and change in France and Germany”, Politics & Society, 38(1): 119-148.

Palier, B. (2013) “Social policy paradigms, welfare state reforms and the crisis”, Stato e mercato, 33(1): 37-66.

Pielke, R. A. (2007), The honest broker: making sense of science in policy and politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Piven F. F., Cloward R. A. (1979). Poor people's movements: Why they succeed, how they fail. New York: Vintage.

Plewis, I. (2000), Educational Inequalities and Education Action Zones, in Pantazis C., Gordon D. (Eds), Tackling Inequalities: Where Are We Now and What Can Be Done, Bristol: Policy Press.

Powell, MA., (1999) (Ed), New Labour, New Welfare State?: The "Third

Way" in British So-cial Policy. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Powers M., Faden R. R. (2006), Social justice: the moral foundations of public health and health policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rawls, J. (1985), “Justice as fairness: political not metaphysical”, Philosophy & Public Af-fairs, 14(3): 223-251.

Rivest, M. P., Moreau N. (2015). “Between emancipatory practice and disciplinary inter-ventions: Empowerment and contemporary social normativity”, British Journal of So-cial Work, 45(6):1855-1870.

Rose, N. (2000), "Community, citizenship, and the third way". American Behavioral Scien-tist 43(9): 1395-1411.

Rose, N., Miller P. (1992), “Political power beyond the state: Problematics of govern-ment”, British Journal of Sociology, 2:173-205.

Sackett, D. et al. (1996), “Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn't”, British Medicine Journal, 312(7023): 71-72.

Salamon, L. M. (1994), “The rise of the nonprofit sector” Foreign Affairs, 73(4):109-122.

Sanderson I. (2002), “Making sense of ‘what works’: evidence based policy making as in-strumental rationality?”, Public Policy and Administration, 17(3): 61-75.

Sanderson, Ian. 2003 . “Is it ‘what works’ that matters? Evaluation and evidence‐based policy‐making”. Research Papers in Education 18.4: 331-345.

Saraceno C., (2013), Il welfare, Bologna: Il Mulino.

Soss, J. Fording R. C., Schram, S. (2011). Disciplining the poor: Neoliberal paternalism and the persistent power of race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Stone D. A. (2002), Policy paradox: The art of political decision making, New York: Nor-ton.

Supiot, A. (2010). L’esprit de Philadelphie. La justice sociale face au marché total, Paris: Seuil.

Surender R. (2004), “Modern Challenges to the Welfare State and the Antecedents of the Third Way”, in Lewis, J., Surender R. (), Welfare State Change: Towards a Third Way?, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Titmuss R. M. (1974), Social policy, London: Allen & Unwin.

Vandenbroucke F, Vleminckx K., (2011) “Disappointing poverty trends: is the social in-vestment state to blame?”, Journal of European Social Policy, 21(5): 450-471

Van Kersbergen, K. (2003), Social capitalism: A study of Christian democracy and the wel-fare state. London: Routledge.

Webb, S. A. (2001), “Some considerations on the validity of evidence-based practice in social work”, British Journal of Social Work, 31(1): 57-79.

Weiss C. H., (2000), “Which links in which theories shall we evaluate?”, New Directions for Evaluation, 87: 35-45

West, G. (1981), The National Welfare Rights Movement, NY: Praeger.

Wood, M., & Flinders, M. (2014). “Rethinking depoliticisation: Beyond the governmen-tal”, Policy & Politics, 42(2): 151-170.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.