Public policy and the policy process

Authored by two highly respected and experienced academics, this book demonstrates the rewards of studying social policy from an international perspective by avoiding the constraints of a single-nation focus.

Father and daughter provides an unique ‘insider perspective’ on two key figures in twentieth-century British social science, combining biography of Richard Titmuss and autobiography by his daughter Ann Oakley.

In this topical book, expert scholars from the Nordic countries, the UK and the US demonstrate how modern fatherhood is supported in Nordic countries through family and social policies, and how these shape and influence the images, roles and practices of fathers in a diversity of family settings and variations of fatherhoods.

Rajiv Prabhakar brings together the typically exclusive views of supporters and critics to present a nuanced, critical analysis of ‘financial inclusion’. Addressing issues including the ‘poverty premium’, financial capability and housing, this dialogue advances crucial public, academic and policy debates and proposes alternative paths forward.

Forgotten Wives examines how marriage has contributed to the active ‘disremembering’ of women’s achievements. Ann Oakley uses case studies of four women married to well-known men to ask questions about gender inequality and contributes a fresh vision of how the welfare state developed in the early 20th century.

The global financial system seems caught in a cycle of boom and bust, instability and scandal. Building on the classic works of E F Schumacher and other kindred spirits, Magnuson provides a Buddhist economics perspective on this recurring pattern and offers new possibilities for change.

Written by leading academics in the field of local governance, this book provides a broad framework in which to analyse the impact of the financial crisis on public services and local government.

The book is the only book-length treatment of New Labour's approach to child poverty, and examines initiatives such as Sure Start, the influence of research on inter-generational continuities, and its new stance on social exclusion. 

This book explains the origins of development and underdevelopment and offers a new vision for development, demystifying the statistics that international organizations use to measure development and introducing the alternative concept of buen vivir: the state of living well.

We are all 'glass consumers'. Organisations know so much about us, they can almost see through us. This book takes the debate beyond privacy issues, arguing that we are living in a world in which - more than ever before - our personal information defines our opportunities in life.

This revised edition uses extensive updated research and survey evidence to challenge the view of 'skivers versus strivers', showing how much our lives vary not just as we age, but from week-to-week and year-to-year.

A compelling new approach to public policy-making as problem processing, bringing together aspects of puzzling, powering and participation and relating them to cultural theory, issues about networks, models of democracy and modes of citizen participation.