bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Policy analysis in Turkey’s central government: current practices and future challenges
Authors: Sadioğlu Uğur
Published: January 2019

Turkey has witnessed a comprehensive transformation in its political-administrative structure and policy making actors since the 1980s, at which point Turkey started to pull away from its traditional ‘transcendental state’ tradition. While the central government expanded, especially within the prime ministry, and became a policy making centre, the external dynamics resulted in the creation of independent regulatory organisations, privatisation policies, NPM reforms and decentralisation. However, the dynamics of internal politics came to the fore and the referendum that was passed for the direct election of the president by the people in 2007 brought radical changes to the ministerial system in 2011, structured around the prime ministry. The adoption of a presidential government system in principle strengthened the central government again, triggering discussions on ‘re-centralisation’. In this chapter, the policy actors and dynamics that have been influential in the post-1980 period at the central government level in Turkey are examined from a constitutional-institutional perspective, transformations caused by administrative reforms in the field of policy making are evaluated and finally the transformation and challenges facing the presidential system and central government are analysed.
Territorial policy-making and administrative reform in Turkey
Authors: Çiner Can Umut
Published: January 2019

This chapter provides an explanation of public administration reform in Turkey, and an overview of points of discussion and recent policy trends in local administrations. The chapter will examine the fundamental transformation of the Turkish State alongside public policies that directly impact local administrations, such as consolidation, decentralization, metropolisation and regionalisation. Through this perspective Turkish public administration, recent policy frameworks and the structural transformation of institutions will be explained. The chapter will go on to examine how public policies are designed in local administrations and how public policies have transformed the central administration-local administration relations.
Beyond developmentalism: the role of experts and expertise in Turkey’s environmental policy disputes
Authors: Orhan Gökhan
Published: January 2019

Although perceptions about expertise in the policy process and its legitimacy has changed over time, environmental policy is a contested policy area with a variety of policy disputes between experts who inform competing policy positions. The distinguished position of experts in the policy process faces a new challenge as lay people and a new breed of embedded experts take dominant interest policy positions in a number of policy disputes. In post-truth situations, it is not expertise but the way one articulates a position that matters. Re-centralisation of policy processes and the predominance of particular economic interests in policy processes sideline experts who are supposed to enlighten the process in the name of common good. The continual sidelining of expert opinions, including that of professional chambers and predominance of developmentalist discourses characterize environmental policy processes in Turkey. Experts from a variety of public authorities are bypassed to enable environmentally risky development projects without much deliberation, despite experts’ opposition on the grounds of environmental, ecological, economic and social infeasibility of such projects. Embedded experts have been available for most of the occasions and use of environmental discourses has been a common feature of legitimization process.
Europeanisation of policy-making in Turkey and its limits1
Authors: Bölükbaşı H. Tolga , Ertugal Ebru , Özçürümez Saime
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses the impact of the European Union on macroeconomic, regional development and immigration policies and governance in Turkey during the 2000s. It also explores the extent to which these changes represent instances of ‘Europeanization’. Following the ‘policy structure approach’, it traces changes in principles, objectives, procedures and instruments of these key policy sectors. It shows that these changes resulted in stronger government policy commitment reflected in increased ‘policy intensity’ and ‘policy density’. All of these changes led to an ever-larger ‘policy capacity’ of the Turkish state. The chapter concludes that the ‘transformative power’ of the EU in shaping policy structures, expanding both the density and intensity of these policies and enhancing the policy capacity is overwhelmingly large in Turkey.
Public opinion and public policy in Turkey
Authors: Turper Sedef
Published: January 2019

This chapter focuses on political attitudes and policy preferences of Turkish citizens in various salient policy domains. The chapter makes use of several public opinion surveys conducted in Turkey during the period between 1990 and 2015. Firstly, the chapter is concerned with levels of political interest among the Turkish public, and across different subpopulations. The chapter then goes on to consider the public policy issues which have been salient to the Turkish public over the last ten years and the policy preferences of Turkish citizens regarding these salient public policy issues. The current analysis of the policy preferences of the Turkish public points at probable causes of discontent with certain public policies in Turkey as well as the potential areas for policy change where substantial public support can be consolidated.
Political parties and public policy in Turkey
Authors: Aytaç Selim Erdem
Published: January 2019

Election manifestos of political parties are important sources of information as they reveal each party’s policy priorities. This chapter analyses the election manifestos of major political parties in Turkey over the last five general elections (2002 to 2015) with a focus on their public policy proposals. This chapter will explore which policy domains are prioritized by the major political parties and any divergence in the prioritization of different policy domains across political parties. The chapter will also consider any change over time before considering if parties’ priorities match those of voters. These questions are addressed by drawing on the Manifesto Project and public opinion data.
Think tanks and policy analysis in Turkey
Authors: Morçöl Göktuğ , Köseoğlu Özer , Zahid Sobacı Mehmet , Köktaş Ömer Faruk
Published: January 2019

This chapter traces the history of think tanks in Turkey and presents the results of content analyses of the policy papers produced by think tanks in the 2000s. The historical context of the development of think tanks since the 1960s, particularly the democratisation process and internationalization, are discussed. Data collection or analysis methods were applied in a very small percentage of the earlier papers. Most of the papers include an abstract or executive summary, but smaller percentages of them include purpose statements and problem definitions. A large majority of the papers are descriptive and they lack recommendations or evaluations. There are noticeable improvements in the inclusion of purpose statements and problem definitions in the papers over time, but data collection and analysis methods were used in only slightly more papers over time. The number of Turkish think tanks grew over time and they have become more active and influential in foreign affairs, democratization, human rights, energy and migration. The chapter concludes that the proliferation of the numbers and activities of think tanks in recent decades in Turkey and the growing community of public policy scholars, who have played roles in think tanks, hold promise for the future development of public policy as a distinct academic discipline in Turkey.
Public policy and media in Turkey
Authors: Yavçan Başak , Ongur Hakan Övünç
Published: January 2019

This chapter addresses the different roles played by the mass media in its relationship with policymaking within the Turkish case, including agenda-setting, framing and the panoptical reflected by public policy. Based on Pierre Bourdieu's field theory, this chapter demonstrates that media as a semi-autonomous field can reflect and refract public policy with respect to varying conditions and argues in particular that this role depends on the level of consolidation of the governmental power, the ideological positioning of the media outlet, and the issue area under discussion. Methodologically, a template is established for a media content analysis of the Turkish media and its role in policymaking. This template has been implemented by collecting data across five different Turkish newspapers between 1995-2013 as a framework for future studies and the analysis confirms the expectations.
Doing embodied research: participatory and creative approaches
Authors: Vacchelli Elena
Published: January 2019

This chapter provides examples of creative and participatory work done when qualitatively researching race, gender, and migration. The ground-breaking practices developed by voluntary and community organisations and NGOs to help the communities they target is constantly evolving, differs according to the area of intervention, and is not systematically documented or mapped in a coherent body of work. Rather, it is fragmented, unevenly developed within organisations and highly dependent on the context in which these experimentations with creative methods take place. The chapter reviews the experience of third-sector organisations using embodied approaches to engage their service users and discusses examples of research conducted using participatory and creative research methods in the social sciences, before focusing specifically on research which has dealt with embodied methodologies in the field of migration. Colonial relationships in research are considered from a critical perspective.
Connecting families? An introduction
Authors: Neves Barbara Barbosa , Casimiro Cláudia
Published: January 2019

This book examines how information and communication technologies (ICTs) relate to family life (including intergenerational relationships, routines, norms, work, intimacy, and privacy). Drawing on theoretical, methodological, and empirical approaches, it explores how ICTs are used and integrated in family dynamics and what opportunities and challenges arise from that use in a life course perspective. The book features contributions from researchers who attended conferences of the International Sociological Association (ISA), the last of which was held in 2016 in Vienna, Austria. Topics include technology adoption within family and the life course; the use of communication technologies such as emailing and texting for the maintenance of intergenerational solidarity; the impact of ICTs on storytelling processes among transnational families; and how ICTs affect the permeability of work–family borders. This chapter explains the concepts of family, generations, ICTs, and the life course before concluding with an overview of the organisation of the book.
Recursive approaches to technology adoption, families, and the life course: actor network theory and strong structuration theory
Authors: Mead Geoffrey , Neves Barbara Barbosa
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines two recursive approaches to the study of technology adoption within families and the life course: actor network theory (ANT) and strong structuration theory (SST). These recursive approaches explain the reciprocal relationship between social structure and agency in the context of technology use over time. ANT rejects any dualism between technology and society, whereas SST combines structure, agency, and context to offer a comprehensive analysis of users, technologies, and their situational dimensions. The chapter first provides an overview of the theoretical commitments ANT and SST entail for the researcher before discussing the ways in which each has been, and can be, applied in the domains of family and life course studies. It also presents two case studies to illustrate the opportunities and challenges that both recursive approaches bring with them in framing and explaining relationships between technology use, family life, and life transitions.
Oversharing in the time of selfies: an aesthetics of disappearance?
Authors: du Preez Amanda
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the affordances of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the different intergenerational practices of oversharing online. Using the concepts of ‘aesthetics of appearance’ (representation that endures over time and space) and ‘aesthetics of disappearance’ (constant presentism), it asks what prompts oversharing, what oversharing reveals about our life stages and the state of being human in an age of over-acceleration dominated by ICTs, and how oversharing affects our embodied phenomenology. The chapter first provides an overview of ideas about acceleration and the resulting aesthetics of disappearance, as proposed by philosopher and urbanist Paul Virilio, before discussing how the phenomenon of oversharing is mediated by social media platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat. It then considers whether posting selfies on a Facebook page constitutes oversharing and whether oversharing (real-time presence) achieves what Virilio calls an aesthetics of disappearance. Finally, it explores how oversharing impacts social interactions and intergenerational relationships.
The application of digital methods in a life course approach to family studies
Authors: Maddox Alexia
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers how the emerging field of digital research methods can be applied in a life course approach to family studies. It first describes the methodological dimensions of the life course approach to family studies before discussing what analytical elements of this approach may be aligned with digital methods. It then provides examples of digital methods present in family studies and goes on to examine digital thinking that leads to the development of three tropes through which to order and align digital approaches: networks, big data and ubiquity. It also explains how digital research methods may be used to identify data sources (such as the use of digital traces of online activity within social media), within data collection techniques (such as web scraping techniques) and through data analysis approaches, including data visualisation. The chapter concludes by highlighting the limitations and ethical issues of employing these methods.
Cross-disciplinary research methods to study technology use, family, and life course dynamics: lessons from an action research project on social isolation and loneliness in later life
Authors: Neves Barbara Barbosa , Baecker Ron , Carvalho Diana , Sanders Alexandra
Published: January 2019

This chapter reports on the design and implementation of cross-disciplinary research methods for investigating technology adoption in later life as well as family and life course dynamics. Drawing on a mixed methods, action research project on technology and social connectedness, facilitated by a team of sociologists and human–computer interaction (HCI) researchers, it examines the use of a digital communication technology to study social isolation and loneliness in later life. The chapter first provides an overview of the deployment and feasibility design of the study, the deployment stages and procedures, data analysis and participants before discussing the lessons learned. It concludes with an assessment of the challenges and opportunities of cross-disciplinary and mixed-method research to study technologies, families, and the life course. One of the ways that cross-disciplinary mixed methods approaches can enhance family and life course studies is by capturing the immediacy of life transitions.
Floating narratives: transnational families and digital storytelling
Authors: Patiño Catalina Arango
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the effects of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on storytelling as a practice of communication among transnational families. It describes three technological affordances that are linked to digital storytelling practices of six Colombian migrant families residing in Montreal, Canada: presence, interactivity, and multimodality. After providing an overview of the methodological approach employed in the research study and the techniques used to collect and analyse the data, the chapter discusses the findings with regard to the views of the participant families about the dynamics of their post-migration storytelling experiences. More specifically, it considers the Colombian families' perspectives about being present during their digital interactions. An important finding is that digital mediation seems to be altering family storytelling. For some families, ICTs catalyse storytelling in situations where presence and multimodality take place; for others, ICTs constrain family storytelling when the illusion of nonmediation is not experienced.
The origins of health promotion
Authors: Palfrey Colin
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the origins of health promotion in the UK. It begins with a discussion of diseases in Britain before and during the nineteenth century that made public health a major concern of governments, followed by an analysis of the role of William Farr in establishing a system that recorded the cause of death, along with three important pieces of legislation: Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, Public Health Act 1848, and Public Health Act 1875. The chapter then considers disease monitoring and surveillance before describing Charles Booth's work on poverty in the late nineteenth century, Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree's poverty surveys, and the consequences of the Boer Wars for public health. Finally, it explores key legislation in the twentieth century prior to the establishment of the NHS, the emergence of a new public health, and the impact of health promotion on the social determinants of health.
International perspectives
Authors: Palfrey Colin
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers international perspectives in the area of health promotion. It begins with an overview of health promotion as a global enterprise, citing major developments such as the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Alma Ata Declaration, and the introduction of the notion of the social determinants of health by Thomas McKeown. It then examines the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986) and the five health promotion areas that it identified for achieving better health: building healthy public policy, creating supportive environments, strengthening community action, developing personal skills, and reorienting health services. The chapter goes on to discuss other international health promotion initiatives, including the Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion in a Globalized World (2005) and the Helsinki Global Conference on Health Promotion (2013). Finally, it analyses the role of the WHO in health promotion, along with the issues of health inequalities and health inequities.
The future for health promotion
Authors: Palfrey Colin
Published: January 2019

This chapter reflects on the future for health promotion in the UK, first by highlighting the health promotion initiatives of civil society organisations and then discussing the issue of homelessness. More specifically, it considers the health promotion needs of homeless people and the challenges involved in addressing the problem. It also examines public health issues of the past that have either re-emerged in the twenty-first century or have never actually disappeared, such as widespread diseases and two of the more persistent causes of ill health: air pollution and river pollution. The chapter goes on to take a look at agencies and government departments that provide health protection services, including the Environment Agency in England and Natural Resources Wales. Finally, it reviews the claim that empowerment should be a central aim of health promotion, the controversy surrounding health promotion evaluation methodologies, and whether health promotion was effective and cost-effective.
Condition or movement? A genealogy of trans discourse
Authors: Pearce Ruth
Published: January 2019

This chapter offers a genealogical account of the discursive repertoires of trans as condition and trans as movement. It describes the negotiation of differing positions on trans condition and movement by health professionals and radical feminists as well as trans patients, activists and academics. In addition to providing a roughly chronological history of ideas, it explores how contemporary trans possibilities have emerged through categorisation and contestation, and explains why medical discourse has played a particularly important role in this process. It looks at how recent sociological studies incorporated condition-oriented identities within broadly movement-oriented accounts of trans community, focusing on Surya Monro's concept of ‘gender pluralism’. It shows how recent interventions from health professionals have sought to acknowledge movement-oriented trans identities and experiences.
Trans health in practice: conditions of care
Authors: Pearce Ruth
Published: January 2019

This chapter focuses on UK healthcare provision in the 2010s. It describes the material context of the author's research project in terms of both public and private healthcare provision, making visible the systems that trans patients must negotiate to access care. It outlines the medical pathway and extensive assessment procedures for the trans ‘condition’ with reference to clinical guidance and public health documents, while also examining the challenges faced by patients outside of trans-specific services. It shows how this context has been shaped by recent political events such as the passage of the Equality Act 2010 and the Health and Social Care Act 2012, as well as by international guidance such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care. The discussion is framed by a description of the power differentials that persist between practitioner and patient.
Trans temporalities: imagining a future in the time of anticipation
Authors: Pearce Ruth
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores Jess Bradley and Francis Myerscough's ‘time of anticipation’ as a form of trans temporality. Temporality refers to ‘the social patterning of experiences and understandings of time’. It is not simply about the passing of time, but about how time is felt by individuals and shaped through social circumstance. The chapter shows how an engagement with temporality can help us to better understand discourse around patient experience and the operation of the UK's gender identity services. It begin by outlining several theoretical interventions, including Jack Halberstam's description of ‘queer time’, Julian Carter's analysis of ‘transition time’, and Laura Horak's observations on ‘hormone time’.
Towards affirmative care
Authors: Pearce Ruth
Published: January 2019

This chapter summarizes the book's arguments. It also takes a further look at the discursive power wielded by gender identity specialists, and relates this to the manner by which ‘trans health’ is constituted through the operation of this power. It argues that the power invested in — and actively wielded by — gender clinic gatekeepers has significant consequences for the possibility of ‘trans’ subjectivities, as well as for the wider terrain of trans health. To make this argument, the chapter first revisits the original stated aim and questions for the author's research project, which aimed to uncover how both ‘trans’ and ‘trans health’ are understood in multiple contexts, in order to grasp the social processes at play in encounters where trans patients feel marginalised, misunderstood, and/or discriminated against.
Imagine …
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This chapter asks the reader to imagine some representative people trying to cope with the UK's tax and benefits system, and then to imagine themselves creating a tax and benefits system in a country without one. In the first scenario, inflation is low, forcing the government to print some extra money and to give equal amounts to every citizen. People who had been on means-tested Jobseeker's Allowance are now on lower amounts of it. They all want to support themselves and their families and to contribute to society, but the only income that they can rely on is Child Benefit. In the second scenario, everyone is given a Citizen's Basic Income with all the positive changes it would bring to households, relationships, wages, or hours of employment. The chapter concludes by proposing an ideal tax and benefits structure whose requirements conform to the idea of a Citizen's Basic Income.
Individuals and their families
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the changing family patterns in the UK and argues that a benefits system containing a Citizen's Basic Income would go a long way towards meeting the needs of families and households, now and in the future. It first considers the ways in which households and the family have changed during the past half century, citing the ‘flexible employment market’ which gives rise to ‘whole communities in which it is very difficult to establish and maintain families’, and how a Citizen's Basic Income would enable households to benefit from the economies of scale that they generate. It then discusses the changing role of women and asks what kind of benefits system will most benefit women and enhance individual dignity. Finally, it describes the ways in which women are affected by the current tax and benefits structure and the ways they might be affected by a Citizen's Basic Income.
Administrative efficiency
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses the ways in which a Citizen's Basic Income would translate into a benefits system that is coherent, simple to administer, and avoids error and fraud compared to means-tested benefits. It argues that the current tax and benefits structure does not fit together, with different sets of rules for means-tested benefits, National Insurance benefits, Income Tax, National Insurance Contributions, and universal benefits such as Child Benefit. The current tax and benefits structure is also not simple to administer, and the chapter elaborates on why the regulations for a Citizen's Basic Income would not cause problems for the administration of any other parts of the system, and therefore would make a good basis for a future benefits and tax structure. Finally, it explains why and how a Citizen's Basic Income would reduce administrative error, fraud and criminalisation.
Reducing poverty and inequality
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses the ways in which a Citizen's Basic Income would reduce poverty and inequality. It first considers how the word ‘poverty’ makes the measurement of the extent of poverty problematic, and suggests an alternative definition that focus on removing the barriers to social inclusion. It then explains how a Citizen's Basic Income scheme could reduce poverty at the point of implementation and how it could also help to repair social rifts and thus the deeper social structures that generate income inequality and other inequalities. It also examines the redistributional effects of a Citizen's Basic Income, and more specifically how it would change the ways in which income is redistributed. In addition to its impact on income redistribution, the chapter shows how a Citizen's Basic Income would lead to a redistribution of the ability to raise one's net income without causing too much burden on high-earning households.
Objections
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines various objections to a Citizen's Basic Income, such as: people should not be paid for doing nothing; immigration would go up; people would not work; we cannot afford it; it would cause a hike in public expenditure; the money could be better used on other things. Another objection is that if means-tested benefits are abolished, then we would not know to whom we should give passported benefits such as free school meals. The chapter responds to each of these objections, focusing in particular on funding schemes for the Citizen's Basic Incomes such as making changes to the existing tax and benefits structure, taxing appropriation of the commons, or by means of consumption taxes or a Financial Transaction Tax. It also considers some of the problems that a Citizen's Basic Income cannot solve, including disability, housing costs, fuel poverty and climate change.
A brief summary1
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This chapter summarises the main arguments for a Citizen's Basic Income. It first defines Citizen's Basic Income (sometimes called a Basic Income or a Citizen's Income) as an unconditional, automatic and nonwithdrawable regular income for each individual who is a legal resident of the UK, explaining in particular why it is unconditional, automatic and nonwithdrawable. It also gives emphasis on the fact that Citizen's Basic Incomes would be paid on an individual basis, rather than on the basis of a couple or household. Finally, it enumerates the benefits that a Citizen's Basic Income would bring, such as: promote social cohesion, reduce perverse incentives that discourage work and savings, and encourage caring and community activity. A graph shows what a Citizen's Basic Income looks like with respect to net income after tax and benefits and pre-tax income from all sources.
Afterword
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This afterword concludes that the book has discussed the significant advantages that a Citizen's Basic Income would provide to society and to the economy. During the 1920s, family allowances in the UK were seen as an issue for ‘cranks and utopians’. In the 1930s, the country suffered from recession and rising unemployment. By 1946, every family with more than one child was receiving Family Allowances. The book argues that a Citizen's Basic Income is no longer just an issue for cranks and utopians, but an idea that every policy maker needs to address and consider for implementation. This afterword ends the book with a remark from Barbara Wootton, as quoted by Hermione Parker in her book Instead of the Dole: ‘The limits of the possible constantly shift … Again and again, I have had the satisfaction of seeing the laughable idealism of one generation evolve into the accepted common-place of the next’.
Setting out the stall
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter first explains the author's motivation for writing this book. It then sets out the basic questions which this book seeks to address: Against the harsher economic and political climate, how will the interests of children be protected when their parent's relationship runs into difficulties leading to separation and divorce? Above all, will more and more children feel sidelined? Will they find that their needs for support and information are ignored when having to cope with stressful problems at home? These are important questions, particularly as there is mounting evidence of the potentially adverse consequences for their education, social wellbeing and mental health — to say nothing of the likelihood that some will be at risk of serious abuse and/or exploitation.
Numbers, scale and trends
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter summarizes some key social and demographic statistics from England and Wales which illustrate the scale of the challenge which faces any governments should they wish to develop strategic preventative social and legal policies to better support children and young people caught up in the critical family transitions following the breakdown of their parents' relationship. It begins with some preliminary observations which may not be immediately apparent from the bold figures. It then discusses fluctuating divorce rates and the increase in cohabitation, and statistical problems concerning the number of children involved in private law litigation involving contact and residence orders.
Summarised research reviews upon which to promote social and emotional wellbeing in children of separated parents
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter summarizes the principal research findings of social and behavioural science which highlight factors concerning risk and resilience in children when parental conflict results in the breakup of their families. The purpose is simply to indicate the growing background knowledge base for the practice and policy proposals for preventive support services for children. Two main streams of research are considered. The first focuses on the social and emotional wellbeing of children in schools. These institutions have a primary preventive role, as indeed do primary healthcare teams. The second, drawn largely from the field of developmental psychology, focuses more on intra-familial behavioural issues. This is a rapidly growing area of knowledge which is being recognised and applied more particularly to the field of parental conflict resolution and in the context of the interdisciplinary family justice system.
Children in crisis speak out
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter illustrates the way children and young people experience parental separation using verbatim extracts from a multidisciplinary Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) research study that the author took part with colleagues at Cardiff University. The study was just one of a number of other researches around the turn of the century that sought to examine children's experiences of divorce and family reconstruction. These reflected a cultural shift across the Western world that is a reaction against the traditional highly paternalistic view of childhood. The extracts selected broadly follow the children's reactions to key stages in the deterioration of their parents' relationship before, during and after the divorce.
The crisis model of preventive mental health and its potential application for support services for children coping with parental separation
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers the development of a conceptual framework modelled on Caplanian Community Mental Health principles, an approach which offers a theoretical basis for early support for children and families undergoing stressful critical life experiences. It first outlines the key elements of the crisis model of mental health, briefly explaining its development in the period following the Second World War. It then summarizes the related practice of short-term crisis intervention, which can be used by various services offering support to children as they adapt socially and psychologically to challenges posed by stressful life-changing events — in this instance, parental conflict and separation. The chapter concludes by speculating as to why such a preventive approach has not caught on in the UK despite mounting evidence of the long-term risks to young people's mental health and wellbeing resulting from the breakdown of parental relationships.
The pros and cons of the preventive mental health approach
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses some of the reasons why Caplanian principles of preventive mental health have not generally as yet found their way into practice and policy in England and Wales. It then explains why services for children in this field, such as they are remain largely uncoordinated and focused on remedial services when problems have become acute and entrenched. Finally, it discusses why the development of preventive services in particular has proved so difficult. It argues that to be effective, supportive help needs to be provided during the crisis, not weeks or months after unrealistically maladaptive defences have been erected and when related problems have escalated. By enabling frontline community care agents such as school teachers to undertake crisis intervention when it is needed, the need for more expensive specialist therapeutic intervention is reduced later.
Providing short-term primary preventive crisis intervention for children in schools
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses some ideas about how the Caplanian approach to preventive mental health — specifically the method of crisis intervention — might be applied in state schools, a non-stigmatic site for primary prevention. It argues that there is a strong prima facie case, based both on evidence from children and young people and from theory, for finding ways and means to apply crisis intervention methods of support for children in schools to help them cope with stressful upheavals associated with intense interparental conflict, separation and divorce. The main challenge is how to persuade practitioners and policy makers and educational and school health services that this is a promising approach worth developing.
The repeal of Section 41 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and related reforms: is the state turning a blind eye to the needs of children in divorce proceedings?
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

Section S.18 of the Children and Families Act 2014 repealed s41 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Generally known as the welfare check in undefended divorce cases where there were no accompanying applications for child-related orders, these provisions required a district judge to scrutinise a Statement of Arrangements for all the dependent children of the family in order to determine whether the court should exercise any of its powers under the Children Act 1989. The repeal of s41 raised the question of whether the state should attempt to safeguard these children's welfare in some other more effective way. This chapter examines the matter from the perspective of a socio-legal researcher who over the years has studied the operation of the welfare check in its various guises, and who has conducted several other child-related divorce studies, including some high-conflict cases where the children were separately represented.
Changing the culture of family justice: barriers to be overcome
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers a number of underlying problematic issues that make it difficult to change the culture of the family justice system so as to put the needs of children centre stage and see the system as part of a matrix of public services to promote children's wellbeing and strengthen their emotional resilience. The discussions cover the way the Coalition government set about cutting legal aid from most private family law proceedings; the repeated and longstanding failures to invest in information technology; the ‘normalisation’ of divorce and the problem of scale; the problem of labelling interparental disputes as ‘private law’ cases; the problem of ‘churn’ in civil service staffing policy; and attempts to overcome obstacles to interprofessional understanding and collaboration.
Scanning the horizon
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter concludes the book with a number of challenging questions concerning the future. Among them are, will the movement to listen to and take account of the voices of children and young people in the policy process gain more public recognition and support? What will be the impact of further rapid advances in information technology on children themselves, their parents, and the helping professions? Will principles of preventive mental health and early supportive intervention come to underlie and be integral to the work of the education services (and primary healthcare) and that of the interdisciplinary family justice system? The chapter also considers the prospects for developing an early preventive approach to promote children and young people's positive mental health and wellbeing.
Fake Goods, Real Money
Authors: Antonopoulos Georgios A. , Hall Alexandra , Large Joanna , Shen Anqi , Crang Michael , Andrews Michael
Published: January 2019

The trade in counterfeit goods is growing. Recent EU studies on Fast Moving Consumer Goods indicate that 6.5% of all sports(wear) goods, 7.8% of cosmetics and 12.7% of luggage/handbags sold in the EU are in some way counterfeit. The WTO has an oft-repeated estimate of 7% of all global commerce as counterfeit. The World Economic Forum goes further, suggesting that counterfeiting and piracy cost the global economy an estimated $1.77 trillion in 2015, which is nearly 10% of the global trade in merchandise. Much work and popular scrutiny has examined flows of counterfeit goods. However, there remains a general lack of information on the financing of the counterfeit trade. Drawing upon cross-disciplinary research, the book offers a unique account into the financing of the trade in counterfeit goods. Focusing on tangible goods, it addresses the ways in which capital is secured to allow counterfeiting businesses to be initiated and sustained, how entrepreneurs and customers settle payments, the costs of conducting business in the counterfeiting trade, and how profits from the business are spent and invested. The book covers the UK context, whilst also considering the distinctly transnational nature of the trade.
The nature and dynamics of the counterfeiting business
Authors: Antonopoulos Georgios A. , Hall Alexandra , Large Joanna , Shen Anqi , Crang Michael , Andrews Michael
Published: January 2019

Chapter three focuses on the nature and social organisation of the counterfeiting business. It examines the structures and actors involved in the business as well as their motivations, briefly explores the political economy of supply, and pays attention to the role of the internet in the trade.
Conclusion and future directions
Authors: Antonopoulos Georgios A. , Hall Alexandra , Large Joanna , Shen Anqi , Crang Michael , Andrews Michael
Published: January 2019

The final chapter summarises the key findings of the research presented in the book. Studying the actors involved, their illicit practices, as well as their financial practices, highlights a blurred boundary between legality and illegality, online and offline, and global and local. This chapter suggests a critical departure from the discourses on ‘organised crime’ and crime-money and identifies some specific gaps that require further investigation.
Mobility
Authors: Gilmartin Mary , Wood Patricia Burke , O’Callaghan Cian
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers the mobility of people and shows how this has been politicised by both the Trump presidency and the Brexit vote and its aftermath. The chapter focuses on two different types of mobility: short-term travel and longer-term migration. First, it discusses the travel ban that was signed by President Trump on 27 January 2017, the same day he welcomed the UK prime minister to the White House. Second, it discusses the way in which migration was framed as a problem by advocates of Brexit. It argues that both the travel ban and the migration problem operate in similar ways by creating hierarchies of acceptability based on nationality, race, religion, or other social characteristics. This practice has historical antecedents in its articulation and enforcement of the biopolitics of mobility.
Grenfell foretold: a very neoliberal tragedy
Authors: Hodkinson Stuart
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the main neoliberal policy failures behind the devastating fire in June 2017 that engulfed Grenfell Tower, a public housing tower block in London, killing at least 71 people. The first section discusses the Thatcherite destruction of the post-war public housing model that built Grenfell Tower. The second section traces the damaging effects on fire safety and resident agency from decades of pro-business deregulation policies and ‘austerity’. The third section pf this chapter examines the wider urban processes of gentrification-based housing market restructuring. The conclusion argues that while the fire may have been accidental, Grenfell’s destruction was a contemporary form of what Engels called ‘social murder’, and must mark a radical turning point in policy-making towards restoring housing safety for all in law.
Childcare, life chances and social justice
Authors: Calder Gideon
Published: January 2019

The notion of ‘life chances’ is frequently invoked in political rhetoric and debate about social mobility and equality of opportunity. Typically, it is only loosely defined. This article considers the relationship between the ‘life chances’ agenda and persistent questions about the relationship between childcare and social justice. It unpacks the notion of ‘fair life chances’, considers problems associated with how life chances are measured, suggests that childcare will hold a pivotal place in any coherent ‘life chances’ agenda, and offers a defence of the crucial value of a child-focused analysis as part of the wider articulation of such an agenda. The chapter concludes with a proposal that we address childcare as a ‘relationship good’ – a uniquely valuable form of relationship, the distribution of which should be treated as a basic matter of social justice.
Fiscal welfare and its contribution to inequality
Authors: Sinfield Adrian
Published: January 2019

The tax reliefs and related subsidies of fiscal welfare contribute significantly but virtually invisibly to maintaining and reinforcing inequality. This chapter examines their support to occupational and personal pensions, the largest area of social spending through the tax and National Insurance systems. The benefits go to less than half the working-age population and disproportionately to those paying higher rates of tax, their employers and the pensions industry. It is a major example of ‘means-enhancing’ redistribution as opposed to the means-testing of much welfare state provision. The particular and considerable value of National Insurance exemptions deserves far more attention than government or independent analysts have given it. Official statistics need to integrate fiscal with public spending and include the impact of fiscal welfare in their distributional analyses. Democratic policymaking needs to take account of it in tackling and reducing inequality across the whole society.
Making markets in employment support: does the variety of quasi-market matter for people with disabilities and health conditions?
Authors: Carter Eleanor
Published: January 2019

Welfare-to-work services have been a key area of experimentation in quasi-marketised public service delivery. This chapter develops and extends a conceptual framework for unpacking variation in the formulation of quasi-markets and finds that there are important differences in the type of market adopted by two British employment support schemes: Work Programme and Work Choice. A novel quasi-experimental analysis is then used to investigate the implications of the alternate market formulations for those with health conditions and disabilities, by comparing the employment and earning outcomes for a matched group of participants on the two schemes. The findings suggest that the promises of innovation and performance improvement allied to the provider-directed Work Programme are not met. Employment and earnings outcomes are significantly and sizeably lower for the Work Programme than for Work Choice. The hybrid market position of Work Choice – which leans towards a provider-directed arrangement but retains important levers for both the state- and user- preferences – emerges as an important mediator of programme participant experiences.
What is ‘impact’? Learning from examples across the professional life course
Authors: Haux Tina
Published: January 2019

The inclusion of research impact in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework in the UK (REF2014) was greeted with scepticism by the academic community, not least due to the challenges of defining and measuring the nature and significance of impact. A new analytical framework of the nature of impact is developed in this chapter and it distinguishes between policy creation, direction, discourse and practice. This framework is then applied to the top-ranked impact case studies in the REF2014 from the Social Work and Social Policy sub-panel and the ESRC Early Career Impact Prize Winners in order to assess impact across the life-course of academics.