What We Can Learn from the World’s Happiest Country (Agenda, 2020, with Annika Koljonen). He is a patron of the road crash charity RoadPeace (www.roadpeace.org).
Tony Fitzpatrick taught in several British universities for twenty-five years. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, his most recent books are How to Live Well: Epicurus as a Guide to Contemporary Social Reform (Edward Elgar, 2018), A Green History of the Welfare State (Routledge, 2017), International Handbook on Social Policy and the Environment (Edward Elgar, 2014), Climate Change and Poverty (Policy Press, 2014).
Jane Jenson is Professor Emerita in the Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1979. Her research focuses on comparative social policy in Europe and the Americas, with particular attention to the narratives surrounding the social investment perspective, and including the consequences for gender relations and women’s status. A recent book is Reassembling Motherhood: Procreation and Care in a Globalized World (Colombia University Press, 2017, co-edited with Yasmine Ergas and Sonya Michel).
Edward A. Koning is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Most of his research investigates the politics of immigration in Western democracies. Recent work includes Immigration and the Politics of Welfare Exclusion (University of Toronto Press, 2019), and articles in leading academic journals Comparative European Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies and Journal of Public Policy on anti-immigrant politics, institutionalist theory, public opinion on immigration, and citizenship policy.
Francesco Laruffa is Research Fellow at the University of Geneva, where he worked for the EU-funded project Rebuilding an Inclusive, Value based Europe of Solidarity and Trust through Social Investments (Re-InVEST), rethinking social investment from a capability perspective. In Geneva, he is also a member of the Overcoming Vulnerabilities – Life Course Perspectives (NCCR-LIVES) and the Centre for the Study of Capabilities (CESCAP). His research interests include the normative dimension of welfare reform, theories of social justice, neoliberalism and critical theory.
Kate Pickett is Professor of Epidemiology; Deputy Director, Centre for Future Health; Associate Director, Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, all at the University of York. She was UK NIHR Career Scientist from 2007 to 2012, a fellow of the RSA and a fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health. She is co-author, with Richard Wilkinson, of the best-selling and award-winning The Spirit Level (Penguin, 2010) and The Inner Level (Penguin, 2019). She is also co-founder and chair of the Equality Trust (www.equalitytrust.org.uk), global ambassador for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and member of the Club of Rome.
Alan Walker is Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology at the University of Sheffield. He has been researching and has published extensively on aspects of ageing and social policy for more than 40 years and has also directed several major national and European research programmes and projects including Mobilising the potential of active ageing in Europe (MOPACT) (www.mopact.group.shef.ac.uk) and the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme. Recent works include The New Dynamics of Ageing (Volume 1 and 2, Policy Press, 2018) and The New Science of Ageing (Policy Press, 2014).
Richard Wilkinson is Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology, University of Nottingham; Honorary Professor at University College London; Honorary Visiting Professor, University of York, and medallist of the Australian Society for Medical Research. He is co-author, with Kate Pickett, of the best-selling and award-winning The Spirit Level (Allen Lane, 2009) and The Inner Level (Allen Lane, 2018). He is also co-founder and patron of the Equality Trust, and global ambassador for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (https://wellbeingeconomy.org).
Fiona Williams is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the University of Leeds and Honorary Professor in the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. Her research broadly covers gender, ‘race’ and migration in social policy theory, analysis and praxis. Her writing also focuses on care and the ethics of care. Recent work includes ‘Care: Intersections of Scales, Inequalities, and Crises’ (Current Sociology, 2018), and a new book Social Policy: A Critical and Intersectional Analysis (Polity, 2021).
The idea for this book originated from the L5418 Global Social Policy: Global Challenges developed at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. The book is for all those who seek to make this world a better place to live in. Sincere gratitude to all those who have commentated on the proposal and earlier drafts. A special thanks to everyone at Policy Press for their help with this volume, especially Laura Vickers-Rendall, Amelia Watts-Jones and Millie Prekop.
The editor and publisher wish to thank the following for permissions to reproduce materials and copyright materials:
▪A PRECARIAT CHARTER: FROM DENIZENS TO CITIZENS by Guy Standing, London: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Copyright © 2014.
▪Cambridge University Press material is reproduced here with permission from CUP.
▪INEQUALITY: WHAT CAN BE DONE? By Anthony Atkinson, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
▪Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development material is reproduced here with permission from the OECD.
▪SEVENTEEN CONTRADICTIONS AND THE END OF CAPITALISM By David Harvey, London: Profile Books, Copyright © 2017.
▪The Equality Trust website material reproduced here is Creative Commons.
▪The Political Quarterly material is reproduced here with permission from Wiley & Sons.
▪World Health Organization material is reproduced here with permission from the WHO.
▪United Nations material is reproduced and reprinted here with permission from the UN.
While the idea of ‘sustainability’ appears to be a relatively recent addition to the discursive field of social policy, it is also true that the ‘social’ of social policy has long been interested in issues to do with sustainability, relating to core principles of social justice, equality, welfare and wellbeing, for example, and the possibilities of democracy and being able to live in a safe environment with respect for the natural world. Yet we need a lot more work on sustainability in social policy that reflects and engenders the present struggle for sustainability, and exposes the socio-political and moral conflicts as well as the global governance debates and dilemmas facing the whole of humanity in our globalized world. It is now widely accepted that for a society to be considered sustainable, it must address environmental, ecological, economic and social concerns. Work on sustainable welfare is growing and the trend is sure to continue, complementing more longstanding concerns and debates in this field about the nature of ‘warfare states’, ‘welfare states’, ‘patriarchal welfare states’ and ‘workfare states’.
It is also true that the ‘social’ of social policy, as a field of study, has arguably not received the critical attention it deserves – a gap that this timely volume aims to fill as the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the world into a crisis like no other. The global social crisis runs deep, as we shall see. The effects of global warming, the global ‘climate and environmental emergency’, the ‘migration crisis’, global financial crisis and the latest global health and economic crisis still unfolding reveal the extent of our highly interconnected world, and the scale of the post-national political challenges, nationalism and populism and the withdrawals from international commitments. Global institutions are severely challenged and are struggling to cope with the ongoing