bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Belgian reference budgets for social participation and their use for policy purposes
Authors: Storms Bérénice
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses the development of reference budgets in Belgium. It confirms how reference budgets offer a monetary benchmark, which illustrates the minimum costs of goods and services that individuals and families should have at their disposal in order to adequately participate in society. It also clarifies the standard adequate social participation and reference budgets that are designed for pre-defined “model families.” The chapter looks into the approach of the study, which is grounded in the theories of human need and the deliberations of experts and researchers who are guided by official guidelines and scientific literature. It discloses how focus groups are used to help establish the acceptability of the reference budgets, which comprises of people from different socio-economic backgrounds.
The Norwegian reference budget
Authors: Austgulen Marthe Hårvik , Borgeraas Elling
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses the expert-led and methodological approach to Norwegian reference budgets. It describes how experts deliberate across various consumption areas in order to identify the items to be included in the “acceptable” budget for Norway. It analyzes the experts' definition of quantity, quality, assumed durability, and the price of household goods and services. The chapter points out how a reference budget is constructed in a more generic form, resembling more of an individual household budget that can then be adjusted for different household types and economies of scale. It notes the conceptual confusions that caused some organisations to refer to the reference budgets as “minimum” budgets rather than budgets reflecting an “acceptable” living standard.
Applying the Minimum Income Standard in diverse national contexts
Authors: Padley Matt , Davis Abigail
Published: January 2021

This chapter analyzes some of the challenges associated with research work that applies the Minimum Income Standards (MIS) approach in different national contexts around the globe. It delves into the conception of minimum living standards across different country contexts that requires a concerted effort to establish how much is enough in each context. It also points out that the definitions of minimum living standards should not only reflect the values and norms of a given country, but also that these definitions should function as the basis for establishing consensus about the sorts of goods and services needed to achieve the minimum living standard. The chapter stresses how the MIS work across diverse contexts requires a certain level of “translation.” It investigates the MIS programme of research conducted in Mexico, Singapore and South Africa, which confirms that the “minimum” can have different meanings, connotations, interpretations, and even contestations.
Homelessness: the most extreme inequality
Authors: Hearne Rory
Published: January 2021

This chapter shows the devastating human impacts of Homelessness. It details the trauma it causes children and describes it as a form of ‘structural violence’. It details the changing nature of homelessness and emergence of new family homelessness, as well as highlighting the wider lack of social housing and the centrality of social housing in providing a home for those on low incomes and in vulnerable situations. It details the structural causes of homelessness and challenges the ‘within person’ explanations of homelessness. It also shows the increase in homelessness in recent years has also seen a corresponding increase in expenditure on the provision of homelessness services rather than prevention. It looks at discrimination in housing – and state responses through the housing assistance ground in the new Equality Legislation and its impact. It details how the new form of homeless accommodation for families, Family Hubs are institutionalising women and children.
Working for social justice: community, activism and academia
Authors: Hearne Rory
Published: January 2021

This chapter explores the author’s housing journey, from living in private rental housing, to working with disadvantaged communities on housing and human rights, campaigning on homelessness and the right to housing, to being a publically engaged academic researching and engaging in the national policy debate on housing. It details the everyday impact of austerity on disadvantaged social housing communities and their response through a successful ‘Rights-in-action’ human right to housing campaign. It also details participatory action research with homeless families, the Participatory Action Human Rights and Capability Approach. In then discusses the role of academics, policy makers and researchers in social change, empowerment and participation in relation to social justice and housing issues. It interrogates the concept of knowledge production – who’s interest does it serve? Drawing on Freire and Gramsci the Chapter outlines five areas, for the academic researcher (and this can be applied to policy analysts and researchers, NGOs, human rights organisations, trade unions and community activists) to contribute to achieving an egalitarian, socially and environmentally just, and rights-based housing system.
The neoliberal roots of the current crisis
Authors: Hearne Rory
Published: January 2021

This chapter outlines how Ireland is an interesting case through which to understand housing, because of its particular history. It shows that housing crises are not new, nor are they universal, either within countries or across different countries. It explores different philosophies of housing, from Keynesianism to neoliberalism. It details Ireland’s housing history, from early state intervention in favour of tenant farmers, and responses to the housing crisis of the early years of the Irish free State through building public council housing. It details local authority housing expansion through the 20th Century, producing high-quality homes and neighbourhoods. It also details the neoliberal housing shift internationally, as a dramatic shift took place in the economic order in the late 1970s and the 1980s. It then introduces the concepts of financialisation and marketisation in housing, and explains ho w neoliberalism unfolded in the Irish housing system. It then details the Irish housing boom and bust of the 2000s. It ends with an overview of cost rental housing: unitary and dualist housing systems, to understand the Irish housing system.
The new waves of financialisation: vultures and REITs
Authors: Hearne Rory
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes and details the wave of global real estate and vulture investment in distressed assets and loans, as the second wave of financialisation of residential property (housing), following the first wave of financial market and equity involvement in mortgage lending and securitisation from the late 1990s to 2008. It then defines and details a third wave of financialisation is evident in the post-2010 period as global institutional investors have increasingly invested in the private rental ‘build-to-rent’ sector. This third wave is a further development in the restructuring of the finance–real estate relationship through the increased role of large-scale corporate finance and global private equity funds (pension funds, hedge funds, wealth funds, shell funds, private equity) in the provision of rental residential property. It shows how housing and land is providing another important vehicle for investing the global ‘wall of money’ searching for higher returns in a context of reduced profitability and rising risk in the wider ‘real’ economy. It details how the Irish state’s strategy to overcome the global property and financial crash of 2008 and achieve the recovery of financial institutions and the wider economy was based on the sale of ‘toxic’ and ‘non-performing’ loans and associated land and property, at a considerable discount, to international ‘vulture funds’ and property investors via the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and domestic banks. The strategy was based on a deepening of the financialisation of the Irish housing (and wider property) system.
The people push back: protests for affordable homes for all
Authors: Hearne Rory
Published: January 2021

Housing has always been a deeply political issue given its centrality to people’s lives. However, how it is politicised and treated, and its prominence in political and public debate, has changed over time. Housing is now becoming a political battleground of the 21st century between big finance, government and citizens seeking affordable housing. This chapter details the new housing protests and movements in Ireland challenging evictions and rising homelessness, and the scandal of derelict properties and high rents, and are campaigning for the use of vacant public land for affordable homes for all and the inclusion of the right to housing in the Constitution and law. A housing movement has been increasingly active in Ireland since 2014, responding to growing homelessness, and rental and mortgage arrears crises. Activity initially involved a number of small grassroots groups working incrementally to develop strategies and tactics around how to tackle the housing crisis in Ireland. A larger housing social movement erupted sporadically in 2016 over plans to demolish and redevelop Apollo House, a former government office block, and then in a more sustained manner in 2018 with the Take Back the City and Raise the Roof campaigns.
How parents and children view the system
Authors: Diaz Clive
Published: January 2021

This chapter considers children and parent’s perspectives of child protection conferences and whether they feel actively involved in decision making. It is based on interviews with 40 children and 52 parents in two local authorities whose children were subject to a child protection plan at the time. Most parents felt unsupported throughout the child protection process, reporting feelings of powerlessness, intimidation and fear. Parents reported that they found child protection conference particularly stigmatizing and oppressive and this led to them not trusting social workers and often other key agencies. A further interesting finding was that some parents felt sorry for their social workers and stated that they seemed stressed, clearly under too much pressure and often did not do what that said they could do.
The chapter also considered young people’s views of social workers and what the barriers and enablers of good child protection practice are. This chapter highlights the high number of social workers young participants had; their relationships with their social worker and their perception of the child protection conference. The extent to which the young participants were aware of the impact of bureaucracy and high caseloads on the service they receive, coupled with the impact of the high turnover of social workers, was also examined. These factors impacted on how much the children and young people participated in the work that social workers were carrying out with them and the extent to which they trusted their social workers.
When it goes wrong
Authors: Diaz Clive
Published: January 2021

This chapter looks at the complaints process - what happens when children in care are dissatisfied with the services they receive. Despite the introduction of guidelines and procedures aimed at encouraging and supporting children and young people to complain about the services they receive, children in care still face barriers to doing so in practice. Following semi-structured interviews with children in care, social workers, senior managers and independent reviewing officers from two English local authorities, the research uncovered issues of concern. Complaints by children in care are managed at the lowest possible level and senior managers have an overly optimistic view about children in care being informed of complaint procedures and being encouraged to do so. Children in care are worried about complaining and their voices are often not heard. However, when issues are clearly defined, independent reviewing officers have some degree of success in resolving complaints from children in care.
Summary and conclusions
Authors: Diaz Clive
Published: January 2021

In the last chapter, I provide my conclusions and a summary of the key research findings from the different participants in this research. Key messages as well as recommendations for policy and practice are also outlined. This chapter highlights what changes need to take place - both systemically, but also in terms of practice - by individual IROs and social workers. It particularly outlines how the caseloads of social workers need to be reduced and their needs to be much clearer focus on doing the right thing rather than just ‘doing things right’ (Munro 2012).
Radical Hope
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

This book describes the new Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP), which was developed in Israel through intense involvement with the field of social work in various initiatives. The paradigm was adopted in 2014 by the Israeli Ministry of Welfare and Social Services as a leading paradigm for social workers in social services departments. The book draws from the rich experience of the implementation of the PAP in practice and connects examples of practice to theoretical ideas from radical/critical social work, critical poverty knowledge, and psychoanalysis. The PAP addresses poverty as a violation of human rights and emphasizes people’s ongoing efforts to resist poverty. In order to recognize these sometimes minor acts of resistance and advance their impact, social workers should establish close relationship with service users and stand by them. The book proposes combining relationship-based practice and rights-based practice as a means of bridging the gap between the emotional and material needs of service users. In addition to introducing the main concepts of the PAP, the book also contributes to the debate between conservative and cultural theories of poverty and structural theories, emphasizing the impact of a critical framework on this debate. The book consists of four parts. The first, “Transformation”, addresses the transformational nature of the paradigm. The second, “Recognition”, is based on current psychoanalytic developments and “translates” them into social work practice in order to deepen our understanding of relationship-based practice. The third, “Rights”, describes rights-based practice. The fourth, “Solidarity”, presents various ways in which solidarity might shape social workers’ practice. The book seeks to reaffirm social work’s core commitment to combating poverty and furthering social justice and to offer a solid theoretical conceptualization that is also eminently practical.
Introduction
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

This chapter provides the context for the development of the Poverty-Aware Paradigm and outlines the central stages in the process of its implementation at the Ministry of Welfare and Social Services. Neo-liberal ideology that has influenced Israeli society since the 1980s has contributed to the blurring of the political nature of poverty and the denial of the role social work plays with regard to poverty. However, in recent years there have been signs of a reaction against these trends in Israel. The PAP is described as one of these reactions. In this context hope is crucial. The chapter also includes a map of the book with a summary of each of its chapters.
How to speak critically about poverty
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

This is the first of the four chapters that comprise Part One of the book, which is dedicated to the issue of transformation. This chapter focuses on the transformation of the professional spoken vocabulary regarding poverty. Through a close look at the words that social workers use to describe service users in poverty, links are made between language (rhetoric), attitudes, and practice. The chapter presents an overview of six basic principles of the paradigm and translates them to guidelines regarding the way in which social workers should speak about and with service users. It urges social workers to be aware of the language they use and to change it.
Frequently asked questions about poverty and poverty-aware social work
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

This chapter, the fourth of Part One of the book, asks ten questions regarding poverty and the Poverty-Aware Paradigm and answers them. Among the questions are the following: Are people who are busy with basic survival and the attempt to meet their primary existential needs available for emotional therapeutic processes? If structural issues have such a crucial impact on poverty, how can we understand that in the same neighbourhoods, the children of some families manage to escape poverty while others do not? Does poverty-aware social work free people of their responsibility for their situations? How can social workers avoid encouraging dependency among service users?
On minor movements of resistance
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

The concluding chapter of Part Two of the book closely examines the efforts people make to resist poverty and the means by which social workers should identify these acts of resistance in order to amplify them. The chapter is based on Lister’s taxonomy of acts of agency and conceptualizes the difference between agency and resistance. The chapter focuses on the manifestations of service users’ efforts to resist poverty in their encounters with social workers, including situations in which social workers feel that they have been manipulated or abused by service users. The chapter suggests a way of thinking that promotes the maintenance of close relationships under very difficult circumstances.
What is active in the active exercising of rights?
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

This chapter is the first of the book’s third part, titled “Rights”. Thinking about rights-based practice as a necessary complement to relationship-based practice is an organizing principle of the PAP. This chapter serves as a theoretical and conceptual introduction to the discussion on rights. In addition, it describes the guidelines of the new role of rights-exercising social workers, which was adopted by the Ministry of Welfare and Social Services. In line with the PAP’s commitment to seeing the emotional and the material worlds as interconnected, this chapter explains how a rights-based practice can become therapeutic.
Material help and a flexible budget
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

The second chapter of Part Two deals with material assistance as a component of PAP practice. Throughout the history of social work there has been a complex relationship between responses to emotional needs and responses to material needs. In the PAP, the internal and external realms are perceived as connected. Thus, practice should seek to respond simultaneously to both. The chapter presents a case study to explore the need for material assistance in working with people in poverty. In addition, based on the experience of using material assistance in PAP programs, its characteristics—immediacy and flexibility—are discussed.
Active rights exercising: advanced
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

The third chapter of Part Three delves into the practice of the active exercising of rights and addresses the difficult issue of working with service users under circumstances where they have no legal rights that can be actualized. This might happen when service users do not have citizenship, or when certain needs of citizens are not covered by law. Based on examples from the field, the principles of dealing with such situations are explored, emphasizing the importance of the social worker’s analysis of these situations in the framework of poverty as a violation of human rights.
A babysitter for a dollar: community development
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

The second chapter of Part Four of the book considers a case in which a fire broke out in the public housing apartment of a woman who had locked her children in when she left for work. Is this the story of a neglectful mother? What is the connection between the fire and poverty? What does a practice of standing by service users look like in such a case? Responding to this incident by means of community development takes into consideration the structural barriers that parents face and challenges the automatic response that blames mothers for acting neglectfully.
‘I’m not that kind of person’: solidarity in a group intervention
Authors: Krumer-Nevo Michal
Published: January 2021

This is the concluding chapter of Part Four. It is based on the story of the first meeting of a group intervention in which a man threatened to set himself and his children on fire as an act of protest in order to receive better housing. His threat challenged the establishment of solidarity that was so crucial at that stage. The response of the social worker is analysed in terms of giving recognition to service users and standing by them.
Decolonizing Childhoods
Authors: Liebel Manfred
Published: January 2021

This book addresses key aspects of the post- and decolonial analysis of childhood, such as the scope and limitations of Eurocentric concepts of childhood and the impact of social inequality aggravated by capitalist globalization on children's life prospects. In this context, it discusses the specific modes of agency emerging in children of the Global South. It reconstructs the way in which the colonialization process and the ideologies that supported it have used the metaphor of childhood, and investigates the extent to which they are reproduced in processes of colonizing childhoods. The book presents some colonial and postcolonial policy approaches to modelling childhood in different regions of the world, and asks how, within the postcolonial constellation, children's rights are to be understood and how to deal with them to overcome postcolonial paternalism. Particularly, it discusses various forms of paternalism and asks how they can be overcome in the field of rights-based children’s protection and participation and how child-led movements in the Global South can be understood as a form of citizenship from below. The book explains theoretical and conceptional reflections by case studies from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Finally, the book portrays efforts directed against the invisibilization, marginalization and social exclusion of childhoods and the recuperation of a dignified life of children.
Introduction
Authors: Liebel Manfred
Published: January 2021

The introduction explains the concept of childhood as understood in this book, and why it is necessary to develop a differentiated and culturally sensitive perspective and terminology that reflects the experiences and ways of living of children. It explains what postcolonial theory means and how it serves for a better understanding of the childhoods in the Global South and the enterprise to decolonize them. Finally, the introduction explains the central terms and gives an overview of the structure of the book and the contents of the individual chapters.
Beyond paternalism: Plea for the de-paternalization of children’s protection and participation
Authors: Liebel Manfred
Published: January 2021

When aiming at characterizing the quasi-colonial or adultist relationship between adults and children, the concept of paternalism is often applied. The term is used in different ways, and this chapter intends not only to present it, but also to determine to what extent it is really apt to analyse, qualify and design the relationships between adults and children in different social and cultural contexts. To this end, it places particular emphasis on issues of child protection and child participation. First, the chapter explains the concept of paternalism and questions the arguments with which the so-called pedagogical paternalism or soft paternalism is usually justified. Secondly, it analyses to what extent the rights of children and certain variants of paternalism can be compatible or contradictory. Then the chapter explains with regard to several examples of child protection and child participation, how they are marked by paternalist thought patterns and how these can be overcome.
Children’s movements as citizenship from below
Authors: Liebel Manfred
Published: January 2021

Citizenship of children implies that they can assume political co-responsibility in society on an ongoing basis, as well as influence societal processes and political decisions, not only in the future, but in the present. To understand children as citizens means that they can do so in a particular, but equal and equivalent way as adults. This must be accompanied by the development of a culture of children's rights in society that takes children seriously as legal subjects and grants them, in particular, participation rights, which enable them to make their own decisions in all areas of life and in society including questions, which touch the interests of adults. This requires not only the recognition of the children's competencies, but also the creation of conditions, which enable children to develop their agency competencies and use them practically. First, this chapter outlines what can be understood by citizenship in general and what problems are associated with the term. Then it discusses concepts of citizenship that relate directly to children and their relatively impotent social status. Finally, with regard to children, it explains what the term citizenship from below means, and how this can emerge from social movements of children, principally those from the Global South.
Continuity and change in the knowledge base for social work
Authors: Thoburn June
Published: January 2021

This chapter draws on writer’s experiences as: a student ona postgraduate child care officer course in 1962; a child and family and then a generalist ‘patch’ social worker; a social work lecturer and researcher; a board member of the General Social Care Council (GSCC); and in the voluntary sector. References to key texts are woven into a commentary on the changing views between the 1950sand the late 2010s about necessary knowledge for social workers in the early stages of their career. Detailed knowledge needed for more specialist and supervisory roles is beyond the scope of this chapter.
Practising social work
Authors: Shennan Guy
Published: January 2021

The chapter considers changes and developments in the content of social work education under the three headings of social science disciplines, understanding human development and relationships, and theories, approaches and methods for practice. At the start of the period under review, social science knowledge (primarily from sociology and social policy) and human development theories predominated, but as their research base and published literature have expanded, theories and methods for practice have become more prominent. The contribution to knowledge from research conducted by social workers themselves is acknowledged, as is the contribution made by experts by experience, both directly and through research interviews. The prominence of sequences on law for social workers is noted. The chapter concludes by asserting that the broad partnership of interests which should determine the content of the social work knowledge base is threatened by Government's much-expanded role, but that most social work programmes continue to ensure a balanced curriculum.
The impact of scandal and inquiries on social work and the personal social services
Authors: Jones Ray
Published: January 2021

Following a summary of changes in the context of social work education in the last 50 years, the chapter discusses key issues which have shaped educational approaches: the nature of the profession; preparation for one role or for many; student selection and recruitment targets; where decision-making should lie; where responsibility for financing social work education should lie; and the relative importance in social work education of curriculum and programme content, underpinning of professional ethics and a focus on service users, education for anti-discriminatory practice and preparation for practice. Challenges now facing social work education are then discussed. Do higher education institutions and employers agree on what makes a good social worker? Can we and will we learn from evaluation? Are we sufficiently international? Among conclusions drawn are that social work still has a problem with its public image, that insufficient attention has been given to retaining social workers in practice by enabling quality relationship-based work to be practised under good supervision, and that it will be important to maintain programmes of initial education in strong research-based institutions.
British social work: international context and perspectives
Authors: Lyons Karen
Published: January 2021

The recognition of social work as a global profession has gained currency in recent years. This is in part the result of the increased number of social workers from overseas working in Britain and in part the heightened awareness of global issues. Climate change, migration and neoliberal policies following the economic crisis of 2008 have affected the social work role. Participation in ERASMUS has opened up opportunities for students to study abroad. The international social work organisations have been active in promoting a global social policy agenda addressing sustainable development and environmental issues. This has reflected a shift away from a Euro/American view of social work. This wider perspective offers an opportunity for social workers to broaden their experience and recognise the ability to learn from different cultures and experiences.
Britain and Europe at a Crossroads
Authors: Ryder Andrew
Published: January 2021

Britain and Europe at a Crossroads: The Politics of Anxiety and Transformation dissects the complex social, cultural and political factors that led the UK to take its decision to leave the EU and examines the far-reaching consequences of that decision. Developing the conceptual framework of securitization, the book uses primary sources and a focus on rhetoric and discourse analysis to examine the ways that political elites engineered a politics of fear, insecurity and Brexit nationalism before and after the Brexit vote. The book situates Brexit within a wider shift in international political ideas, traces the resurgence in popularity of far-right politics and explores how Britain and Europe now face a choice between further neoliberal reform or radical democratic and social renewal. The book posits a number of policy responses that might serve as antidotes to the causes of Brexit and radical right populism centred on a new Social Europe, redistribution and social justice and forms of deliberative democracy that extend participation and preserve representative judgement in the British tradition of ‘pouring new wine into old bottles’.
Introduction: Paradigm Shift, Reflexivity and Securitization
Authors: Ryder Andrew
Published: January 2021

The chapter sets out the conceptual framework for the book describing Brexit as part of a paradigm shift in Britain’s socio-economic and cultural chemistry. Brexit is a multi-layered and multidimensional phenomenon, at the intersection of many social, political and cultural forces and processes and the book’s introduction seeks to provide the context to these factors by exploring the nature of the economic, social and cultural drivers of Brexit. The introduction also explores the ‘tabloidisation’ of political rhetoric, basically the subtle manipulation of public thought through speech acts on identity and nationhood to further an agenda premised on achieving a new neoliberal order and the consolidation of power by existing economic, cultural and political elites. In this sense the book explores how a fear of risk and sense of anxiety is manipulated through securitisation. The introduction also sets out for the reader a conception of critical thinking and forms of discourse analysis used throughout the book to understand and dissect Brexit.
Politics in Focus: Labour
Authors: Ryder Andrew
Published: January 2021

The chapter gives an overview of the strategy of Labour in response to Brexit by detailing the words and action of key Labour figues in the wake of the referendum. Labour’s response to Brexit and course of developments between 2016 and 2019 is a story, as with the Conservative Party, of paradigm change, tension and struggle between the different strands and traditions of a party in a state of flux. The chapter sets out a typology: The Lexiteers – radical socialists who saw Brexit as part of the socialist transformation of Britain but included centrists who felt Britain must exit a federalist project and respect the referendum result. In contrast Labour Europhiles wished to retain close links with Europe or even retain full membership and were broadly drawn from the centrist strands of the party. A third strand were the Radical Left Europhiles who generally supported Corbyn the Labour leader but included soft left factions, they favoured remaining in the EU and working for radical reform in Europe. A policy of ambiguity was employed to maintain unity between these diverging groups. Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer and Tony Blair are among the personalities that feature in the discussion.
Boris Johnson: Getting Brexit Done?
Authors: Ryder Andrew
Published: January 2021

This chapter provides an overview of the premiership of Boris Johnson between July and December 2019, detailing the progress of Brexit negotiations and the General Election – events that shaped the final trajectory of Brexit but also in all probability the course of Britain’s future for the coming decades. The events described are thus literally nation defining. Brexit from its inception in 2016 had brought to society and politics extreme convulsions, drama and chaos and those characteristics were especially evident in the Johnson premiership, prior to the election. The former Prime Minister David Cameron was moved to describe some of the antics as “sharp practice”. Such traits were compounded by the fact that under the Johnson premiership Brexit resembled a game theory stratagem. Game theory is where individual agents or institutions are assumed to interact strategically and is a concept used in the chapter to try and decipher the machinations and tactics of a radicalised section of the political class through the application of the chicken game, madman theory and the opposition through Mexican standoff.
The New Technocracy
Authors: Esmark Anders
Published: January 2021

Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, the book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines the development since the 1980s of a new 'post-industrial' technocratic regime and its complicity in the populist backlash against politics and political elites that is visible today. The new technocracy – a combination of network governance, risk management and performance management – has, the author argues, abandoned the overtly anti-democratic sentiments of its industrial predecessor and proclaimed a new partnership with democracy. The rise of populism, however, is a clear sign that the inherent problems of this partnership have been exposed and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exacerbate existing problems.
Fathers’ Sense of Entitlement to Earmarked and Shared Parental Leave
Authors: Brandth Berit , Kvande Elin
Published: January 2021

In most countries, parental leave systems consist of several parts with different lengths for fathers and/or mothers. We compare fathers’ sense of entitlement to two parts of the Norwegian leave policy available to them, namely the individual, non-transferable father’s quota and the shared parental leave. The objective is to gain knowledge of the rationale for fathers’ different take-ups of the two types of leave. Analysis of interviews with 22 fathers shows culturally divergent understandings of the two types of leave among fathers. Using the concept of ‘entitlement’ as theoretical lens, we find that fathers feel entitled to the father’s quota based on gender equality norms in working life and the wider society. Fathers do to a much smaller degree feel entitled to the shared parental leave, which is culturally understood as mothers’ entitlement. This understanding is, however, challenged by some fathers’ claim to the shared leave based on their being competent parents.
Flexible Use of the Father’s Quota: Problems and Possibilities
Authors: Brandth Berit , Kvande Elin
Published: January 2021

Research on work-family balance has seen flexible work arrangements as a key solution for reconciling work and family, but it has given contradictory results regarding fathers. This chapter focuses on flexible parental leave use for fathers in Norway. It is based on interviews with 20 fathers who have used the father’s quota flexibly either as part-time combined with part-time leave or as piecemeal leave. The study describes the motives for using flexible leave and the consequences of the two types of flexibility for fathers’ caregiving. Flexibility provides them with a menu of choices, which affects their caregiving differently. Findings show that part-time leave allows work to invade care, produces a double stress and promotes halfway fathering. It tends to confirm fathers as secondary caregivers instead of empowering them as primary caregivers.
Masculinity and Childcare
Authors: Brandth Berit , Kvande Elin
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on fathers who took parental leave before they were granted earmarked rights. Fathers taking parental leave were rare at that time. The chapter explores how they include caregiving in their construction of masculinity. Using an interactionist perspective, viewing mothers and fathers as negotiating their caregiving roles, we find that fathers assert masculine identity by using several strategies. One of them is shaping their form of care-work differently from mothers' interaction with the child. Another is defining caregiving as an extension of the “masculine sphere” of the outdoors. Both mothers and fathers, however, take part in the process of reproducing masculinity as normative by giving masculine care higher status than women’s care work. Care-giving activities are adopted by the hegemonic form of masculinity with its strong connection to paid work.
Immigrant Fathers Framing Parental Leave Use and Caregiving
Authors: Brandth Berit , Kvande Elin
Published: January 2021

There has been a concern that Norwegian family policies may be problematic for immigrants because such policies carry normative expectations about gender equal divisions of work and care. The study explores how immigrant fathers to Norway frame taking parental leave and practicing childcare. Parental leave for fathers, being rare or non-existent in their home countries, is justified in a favorable way to their family and friends at home. Hence, in a transnational perspective, the leave is narrated into an account of the auspicious aspects of their life in a new country, and they oppose being defined as lesser men because of having to take leave. The analysis shows that staying home with the child increases their capacity to provide emotional and practical care for their children. They situate themselves in terms of what they understand to be the dominant understandings of fatherhood. This is the “involved father frame”, which may be variable in content but fits well in a Norwegian discourse.
Managers: Irreplaceable in Caregiving and Replaceable at Work
Authors: Brandth Berit , Kvande Elin
Published: January 2021

This chapter is based on interviews with middle managers in engineering who have used the father’s quota. It explores their experiences with taking leave for their career development. The concepts “availability” and “irreplaceability”, which are often applied in studies of the career logic, are here used to analyze these fathers’ experiences with childcare and work. By making themselves continuously available for their babies while home on leave the managers find themselves irreplaceable in caregiving rather than at work. They experience that being replaceable at work need not have any consequences for their career development. The chapter discusses how this might be a sign of shift in the career logic.
County Lines
Authors: Harding Simon
Published: January 2021

Described by the National Crime Agency as a ‘significant threat’, county lines involve gangs recruiting vulnerable youth to sell drugs in provincial areas. This phenomenon has impacted local drug markets, increasing criminal activity and violence. Exploring how county lines evolve, the book reveals extensive criminal exploitation and control in the daily ‘grind’ to sell drugs. Drawing upon extensive interviews and case studies, the book gives voice to users and dealers, providing an in-depth analysis of techniques, relationships and ‘trapping’. The book examines how London-based urban street gangs establish county line drug-supply networks into the Home Counties. It draws upon two principle theoretical perspectives: social field analysis and street capital theory. It then traces the emergence of county lines, noting operational and cultural shifts in drug supply and distribution, and assesses the question of who joins a county lines. The book moves on to examine how the actual processes of county lines drug-supply networks work in reality, looking at the internal dynamics, and it evaluates the complex set of inter-personal relationships between the user community and county line operatives. It then focuses on the families of those involved in county lines, looking at how violence and intimidation often reverberates back into families. The book concludes that in the United Kingdom, the social fields of the urban street gang and of drug distribution markets, are rapidly evolving; it is important to consider how the relational boundaries of these social fields are interacting with the social field of organised crime. With county lines now a critical issue for policing and government, this is an invaluable contribution to literature on gangs, youth violence and drugs. The book begins by describing how the research study was conducted.
A Changed Landscape?
Authors: Harding Simon
Published: January 2021

This chapter traces the emergence of county lines, noting operational and cultural shifts in drug supply and distribution. Over the past several years, the evolution of UK drug markets has gathered national attention from the government, media, and public. This has centred upon the emerging development and expansion of drug distribution and supply networks from urban centres to provincial towns — in a process known as ‘running county lines’. This shift has been facilitated by advances in technology, that is, mobile phones. Technological advance has profoundly altered transactional practice for ordering, supplying, and distributing illegal drugs. The chapter then looks at the principle of flux and turbulence in the social field of the gang before considering county lines via the prism of marketing, business enterprise, and entrepreneurialism. It centres county lines within a transactional framework of customer relationship management and business decisions, and establishes the central premise of building competitive advantage.
Ripples, Reverberations and Responses
Authors: Harding Simon
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on the families of those involved in county lines, looking at how violence and intimidation often reverberates back into families. Familial reverberations occur when issues arising from criminal activity, or proximity to it, return to impact upon the domestic situation or wider family. Commonly this occurs due to: unpaid debts; teaching people ‘a lesson’; revenge; intimidation; demonstration of power; and as proxy method of reaching a gang-affiliate not personally locatable. In this way, the physical violence is transferred by proxy to other family members as a substitute. The type of familial reverberation depends upon: the principal target; trigger motivation; role of target; and relationship to urban street gang. The chapter then explores the range of potential responses available to local youth once a county line emerges in their town, noting emergence can offer either opportunity or threat. It also offers a spectrum of local adaptations employed by local youth before establishing a new theory of asymmetric clash and the gang Sprouting model — both detailing how county line emergence can dramatically impact host locations generating violence and fear.
Boxing as Sports Criminology
Authors: Jump Deborah
Published: January 2021

The chapter explores the history of boxing and its relationship to desistance from crime. It will briefly examine the appeal of boxing and also its position in contemporary criminological theory. I will introduce arguments that examine and critique the relationship between the sport of boxing and desistance from violence. I will argue that combat sports in general are conducive to the maintenance of valued masculine identities and therefore perpetuate dominant discourses of masculinity that value violence as a central theme
The Case of Frank: Respect, Embodiment and the Appeal of the Boxing Gym
Authors: Jump Deborah
Published: January 2021

The pen portrait of Frank demonstrate how boxing offers a medium by which men can re-shape a sense of identity to support valued themes, and also why boxing is appealing particularly for these men having had a prior history of economic, academic and structural disadvantage. Frank’s story discusses how boxing acted as ‘survival training’ in an environment that took violence as a form of defence, Frank’s story talks of childhood bullying, gang violence, and a burning desire to accrue respect at a time when being a young unemployed Black man was viewed negatively by both state and society
Desistance and Boxing: The Ambivalence of the Gym
Authors: Jump Deborah
Published: January 2021

In this chapter I examine the structural positioning of young men and how this translates into the appeal and desisting elements of boxing. Building upon criminological theories, I present arguments that elaborate on how the sport of boxing is appealing in its promotion of physical capital, money and peer admiration, and also how the logic of the gym reinforces the logic of the streets. In short, the lessons learnt and the masculine discourses inherent in the boxing gym reinforce the discourses of the streets, and the men who attend the gym are well versed in its translation. Seen in this light, the boxing gym merely acts as a site of incapacitation and is therefore not contributory to a process of desistance or cognitive transformation (Giordano 2002; Maruna 2001)
Discussion
Authors: Jump Deborah
Published: January 2021

The concluding chapter summarises the findings, and elaborates on issues of situated respect, identity, and on the psychosocial perpetuation of an immersive violent habitus. In light of these findings, I problematise the extent to which boxing is still deemed relevant for youth policy and practice today and argue, that this misplaced and counterproductive faith only underlines the limited options of damaged, socially marginalised men, and the equally limited public expectations of them