Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden From Relief to Income Maintenance [Paperback]

Lacking its own distinct methodological identity, social policy has grown up under the wing of a number of cognate disciplines, most notably sociology.This book is an attempt to shift the study of social policy away from a predominantly sociological perspective and into the realm of political science. The policies chosen for analysis are British and Swedish old-age pensions and unemployment insurance programmes, and the techniques and concepts used are derived from pressure-group theory, systems analysis, political theory and political history. Mr Heclo begins his study by identifying certain preconditions forpublic welfare policies in both countries, emphasizing particularly economicgrowth, population stability and humanitarian reaction against the tradition ofpoor relief. He then proceeds to a comparative analysis of inputs, processing,outputs and feedback in the growth of social policy over the past hundred years.Drawing on a wide range of mainly secondary sources, he examines the role ofelectorates, parties, interest groups, politicians and free-lance intellectuals andhe concludes with an analysis of social policy as part of a 'process of sociallearning' - a process which he sees not merely as the product of power relationshipsbut as 'a form of collective puzzlement on society's behalf.Many illuminating parallels are drawn between the British and Swedishsystems. In both countries the electoral significance of social welfare is found tobe slight. In both countries the civil service is singled out as the most powerfulforce in policy formation - if not in the actual initiation of policies at least intheir drafting, scope and subsequent modification. In both countries thereappears to have been a high level of ideological discontinuity, policies which wereoriginally sponsored by the 'left' later re-emerging as policies of the 'right' andvice versa. In both countries purely negative influences, such as ignorance,inertia and failure to correct unintended consequences, l#S