Title: The Politics of Wellbeing
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: This proposal responds to a significant gap in wellbeing research. There has been a dramatic rise of international and national policy interest in wellbeing, quality of life and happiness research, and particularly in the measurement of wellbeing for public policy purposes. This has intensified in the context of the financial crisis as politicians and policy-makers grapple with new policy goals and political narratives while pursuing economic and employment growth to sell to electorates. Politicians and policy-makers interested in wellbeing have engaged with academics and academic contributions from a range of disciplines, such as Economics, Psychology and Sociology - but the discipline of Politics has been largely absent from the debate. However, through our engagement with academics in other disciplines and with policy practitioners we believe that the Politics discipline has an important and distinctive contribution to make. In particular, we identify three fields of Politics - Public Policy Analysis, Political Economy and Political Theory - that can play an important role in contemporary developments. In this context, the main aim and innovation of this seminar series is to bring the Politics discipline into dialogue with other disciplines and with policy-makers, to identify and communicate its distinctive contribution, and to contribute to wellbeing policy debate and policy development in the UK and beyond. This proposal will bring together academics and non-academics from across the UK and internationally to investigate and instigate advances in wellbeing research and policy enabled by a new wellbeing research agenda in the Politics discipline. It will involve both those experienced and those new to the field of wellbeing. Through a series of interdisciplinary and academic/practitioner seminars over two years we will develop a new and distinctive contribution to wellbeing research and to policy debates. This will be enhanced by the creation of a new network bringing academics into dialogue with other disciplines and with practitioners, policy makers and politicians which will have a life beyond the term of the project. In addition, a new online presence will be created to enable an international exchange of ideas and development of collaborative working. Wider impact will be facilitated through regular briefings for policy practitioners to foster exchange and collaboration. Our main focus will be on the UK, which has been at the forefront of developments. Of particular importance was Prime Minister Cameron's announcement in November 2010 that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) would be developing measures of wellbeing that would henceforth inform public policy (see Case for Support). However, this is an issue that has attracted much interest beyond the UK, both within countries (e.g., Italy, France and Germany) and within international organisations (the EU, OECD and UN). In this context, a more specific objective of the seminar series is to understand developments in Britain in international and comparative perspective. The focus of this seminar series on new ways of measuring economic and social progress, the explicit focus on improving the development and implementation of wellbeing policies, and the connections between quality of life and issues of equity and fairness, speak directly to the ESRCs three priorities of Economic Performance and Sustainable Growth, Influencing Behaviour and Informing Interventions and A Vibrant and Fair Society.


Research activity codes: 1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE