Pawns or Pioneers? The Logic of User Participation in Anti‐poverty Policy‐making in Public Policy Units in Belgium

Since anti‐poverty policy‐making in Belgium is embedded in a logic of user participation, social policy has shown interest in employing users with experience of poverty as experts in public policy units in order to implement and monitor anti‐poverty policies. In this article, we discuss this recent development as a relevant case for contemporary public service delivery in the European context. In the light of the ambiguous practices of user participation in Belgium, the enacted logic of involving service users in public service delivery is discussed, and potential risks and opportunities identified: do these individuals function as pawns or as pioneers? In search of opportunities for the implementation of anti‐poverty policies, we explore different ways in which public policy units can act upon the participation of employed service users in public service delivery. On the level of public service delivery, we argue that the participation of expert users risks their use as a mere blind, de‐responsibilizing those who work in public policy units in providing high‐quality services and being responsive to all service users including those living in poverty. On the level of these individual experts, we argue that the employed service users risk becoming pawns, acquiring a tragic‐optimistic outlook on life. We conclude that enabling service users to participate as pioneers requires the joint and mutual responsibility of the employed service users and those who work in public policy units for implementing and monitoring anti‐poverty strategies rather than exclusive responsibility assigned to individual service users.     

Social workers' emotional labour with families in poverty: Neoliberal fatigue?

This study examines the emotional labour of social workers serving families living in poverty. Based on in‐depth interviews and focus groups, the study concentrates on frontline social workers' emotions when faced with increasing levels of poverty, growing caseloads, and neoliberal social policies in Israel. Findings highlight 3 interrelated aspects of the emotional labour of social workers involved with impoverished families: (a) the emotional flooding social workers experience in their professional routines, (b) the various practices of emotional labour they use to cope with the emotional backlash of their encounters with these families including emotional numbness, emotional Othering, and emotional splitting, and (c) confirmation of the harmful influence of institutional policies on their emotional well‐being and ability to respond effectively to the increasing demands of their clients. Based on Hochschild's theory of emotional labour, we maintain that social workers' emotions should be studied in the context of a specific social, institutional, and political background.     

The State, Institutional Transition and the Creation of New Urban Poverty in China

Since the 1990s, the introduction of a market economy and the process of rapid urbanization have been accompanied by a new urban poverty related to lay‐offs and unemployment as well as by large‐scale rural–urban migration, which is different from the traditional urban poverty of the ‘Three Nos’ (no relatives or dependants, no working capacity and no source of income). This article focuses on new urban poverty in China under market transition and discusses the causes of poverty creation. Instead of considering Chinese new urban poverty only as a result of market mechanisms, it argues that the state as the manipulator of institutions and policies does matter in the creation of new urban poverty, and that the cleavages between the old and new institutions further intensify it. Specifically, the following aspects of the creation of new urban poverty are examined in detail: the adjustment of industrial policy, the reform of state‐owned enterprises, evolution of the household registration system, and the transformation of the welfare state.     

Closing the gap: the growing divide between poverty research and policy in Australia

This paper reviews major developments in Australian poverty research in the 50 years since the Melbourne poverty study established the Henderson measurement framework. It focuses on the limitations of the dominant, but narrow income (poverty line) approach used in Australia, contrasts it with the deprivation approach pioneered and refined in the United Kingdom, and shows how this provides more compelling evidence that poverty exists. Against the background of recent developments in international poverty research, the paper identifies existing gaps in Australia, and explores what needs to be done to address this situation. It then draws on international experience to examine how anti‐poverty policy has evolved, focusing on the role of poverty targets in producing better data and promoting debate between policy makers, researchers and community sector practitioners about developing better measures. Australia lags behind these developments: a new approach is needed that engages researchers, policy makers, and other key stakeholders in positive dialogue aimed at setting a new framework for poverty measurement and an achievable anti‐poverty policy agenda.     

Balancing Efficiency and Legitimacy: Institutional Changes and Rural Health Organization in China

The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the institutional arrangements within which China's rural health facilities are embedded and of the contribution of policy to the creation of these arrangements. Information collected through field observations and in‐depth interviews with the managers, staff and patients of a township health centre indicates that with the gradual evolution of markets, encouraged by state policies, health care in rural China took on more of the characteristics of a commodity. In order to adapt to this change, the health centre and its employees are adjusting their behavioural norms and reconstructing an institutional network within which daily activities of simultaneously fulfilling public health responsibilities and pursuing economic gain are legitimized. This article focuses on the interwoven relationship between politics and markets at the micro level and examines the negotiations between stakeholders in constructing new institutional arrangements. It also describes how health sector managers are creating regulations to influence the performance of their facility. The article argues that while government policies play a crucial role in shaping the direction of development, institutional arrangements strongly influence the attempts by rural health organizations to implement them. It concludes that it is critical to take institutional factors into account in analyzing China's rural health‐care reforms.     

Poverty‐aware social work practice: service users' perspectives

In recent years, there has been an increase in scholarly writing on the theory and practice of critical social work with people living in poverty. Yet there is a lack of research on the experiences and perspectives of service users regarding this kind of practice. This paper presents a qualitative study that explored the practice of a special poverty‐aware social work programme in Israel, through the experiences of women who took part in it. Using an interpretative interactionist approach, in‐depth interviews with nine women were held three times over a 2‐year period. Findings reveal a high degree of satisfaction with the programme on the part of the women. The satisfaction was derived from four main experiences: the experience of visibility, the experience of the active partnership in the fight against poverty, the experience of close, hierarchy‐challenging relationships, and the experience of responsiveness to material and emotional needs. The findings are discussed in terms of three principles of practice: intervention in a real‐life context, relationship‐based intervention and the focus on both the material and emotional needs and their fulfilment.     

Poverty Reduction: The Missing Piece of Pension Reform in Latin America

Employment‐based pension plans constitute the main form of pension provision in Latin America. Although recent pension reform in the region has focused on strengthening these, old‐age poverty remains high in most countries in the region, with older people over‐represented among the poor. The article argues that ensuring old‐age support for poor and vulnerable groups involves a different set of priorities and options for pension reform, namely a strong focus on tax‐financed public cash transfer programmes. Cash transfer programmes focused on poor older people are the missing piece of pension reform in the region. The article examines the experience of the handful of countries with such programmes in place, and draws the lessons for the future of social policy in the region.     

Increasing Poverty in Japan: Social Policy and Public Assistance Program

Until quite recently, the problem of poverty was largely “invisible” in Japan, since the poverty rate was relatively low and issues surrounding poverty received little attention. However, the recent financial and economic crisis caused such an increase in the poverty rate that it could no longer be ignored. When the government announced a poverty rate for the first time in 2009 (15.7% for the year 2007), the nation was shocked. Poverty is now widely discussed and “visible” in Japan, and Japanese policy makers have been forced to formulate and implement strategies to help the poor. The contribution of changing international and national economic and social conditions to increased poverty, including population changes in Japan, is also noted. This paper aims to provide an overview of the poverty situation and the nature of social policy that addresses poverty. It describes in particular the national public assistance program, which is a major public income‐support program and is considered as the ‘last safety net’ available for the poor in Japan. In conclusion, the paper explores the key problems faced by the program and discusses the challenges associated with tackling a dramatic increase in poverty.     

Social work,poverty, and child welfare interventions

The relationship between children's material circumstances and child abuse and neglect raises a series of questions for policy, practice, and practitioners. Children and families in poverty are significantly more likely to be the subject of state intervention. This article, based on a unique mixed‐methods study of social work interventions and the influence of poverty, highlights a narrative from practitioners that argues that, as many poor families do not harm their children, it is stigmatizing to discuss a link between poverty and child abuse and neglect. The data reveal that poverty has become invisible in practice, in part justified by avoiding stigma but also because of a lack of up‐to‐date research knowledge and investment by some social workers in an “underclass” discourse. We argue, in light of the evidence that poverty is a contributory factor in the risk of harm, that it is vital that social work engages with the evidence and in critical reflection about intervening in the context of poverty. We identify the need for fresh approaches to the harms children and families face in order to support practices that engage confidently with the consequences of poverty and deprivation.     

Governing Deviance in Public Space through Mayoral Orders: Fields Mismatch and Metropolitan Turbulence

This article addresses the issue of policy change and its consequences on the organizational field and institutional context, looking at the role of an instrument transfer process. We adopt a political sociology approach to policy instruments to account for the impact that the introduction of a securitarian instrument, the mayoral order, had on the implementation process of a social policy. Through a genealogy of the instrument we identify a constitutive, normative and cognitive dimension. Our aim is to explain the interaction between these institutional dimensions, the re‐definition of the organizational field of the policy, and the dynamics of metropolitan politics. Following a synthesis of the policy process and the institutional arrangements where the policy is implemented, we show how the instrument transfer triggered a division within the organizational field, and the rise of institutional tensions amongst local authorities. In the conclusion, we identify the institutional dimensions of the instruments and the policy implementation scale as elements that are to interact with public‐private relationships and institutional arrangements, and that have an impact on implementation process and policy outcome.     

Targeting Social Assistance: Dibao and Institutional Alienation in Rural China

China's Dibao (Minimal Living Security System) is the world's biggest cash social assistance system serving 52 million people. However, Dibao is less effective at alleviating poverty in rural areas than should it be. The analytic concepts of targeting and institutional alienation (the mismatch between stated goals and true functioning) are applied in a village case‐study to understand why. It appears that Dibao reaches some people considered self‐evidently to be needy, but funds are diverted for purposes of rural governance and social control (reward, punishment and deterrence) and personal gain. Although culturally framed, the concepts and findings potentially have relevance to the global South and North.     

Modernization and Devolution: Delivering Services for Older People in Rural Areas of England and Wales

The modernization of public services, with its emphasis on managerialism, choice, co‐production and outcome focused service delivery, has been implemented to a certain extent in both England and Wales. Indeed, the welfare states in both countries share a great deal, particularly in relation to policy objectives and the expectations of citizens. Devolution has chiefly meant that the instruments used to deliver policy have separated, although it remains unclear whether this amounts to formal divergence. What is also unclear is to what extent have the experiences of those living within the policy environment in both countries separated or diverged? This article addresses this question using qualitative data composed of interviews with policy actors in six rural areas of England and Wales. By focusing on the discourses of people involved in modernizing and providing services for older people in rural areas, we bring out the impact of modernization for older people. What we show is that modernization engages both service users and the wider population who may one day become service users. But the emphasis on these groups unfolds in different ways in England and Wales. In England, where there has been a commitment to a customer citizen, policy at the local level has emphasized re‐enablement, community development and individual responsibility. In Wales, where modernization has focused on collaboration and citizenship, local policies have focused on service users, and on engagement with the voluntary sector. In effect, the policy environment provides a different context for the experience of ageing in both countries.     

Trust as a Means of Bridging the Management of Risk and the Meeting of Need: A Case Study in Mental Health Service Provision

Shifts in public policy towards an increasing focus on risk have been deemed problematic at a number of levels, particularly the tendency for concerns over reputational risk to institutions to trump the interests and needs of service‐users. This article explores the tension between these two dimensions, of risk and need, in a case study of local mental health services – a setting where conflicting objectives to manage risk and meet need are apparent. Media‐driven pressure to ward against the ‘risk’ represented by service‐users tends towards more coercive policy which may obstruct the meeting of need, which in turn may undermine service‐user engagement and hinder risk management. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with service‐users, professionals and managers, the article explores the process of trust and its facilitative role in meeting need and managing risk. Findings suggest that while existing foci on risk are at times counter‐productive, trust plays a significant role in service‐users' initial and ongoing engagement, communication and co‐operation with professionals. Yet inherent obstacles to trust within mental healthcare contexts remain, due to cultural pressures on professionals, the nature of the illness experience and negative past experiences of in‐patient care.     

需求取向社区贫困家庭志愿服务的探索

贫困救助是我国社会服务的永恒主题,城市最低生活保障制度和农村五保制度为解决贫困问题提供了制度保障。但是,贫困是一个复杂的持续性的社会问题,社会保障政策的公共性与弹性要求以及社会的不断变迁,使得贫困救助需求的差异性和变化性难以得到有效满足。社区志愿服务以其贴近居民生活的服务特点,可以有效地填补社会救助政策的漏洞。本文描述了社区贫困家庭的现状及其特点,揭示了当前社区服务和社会政策存在的缝隙;立足社区贫困家庭的需要,提出了社区贫困家庭志愿服务应该提供的主要服务内容,寄望建设一个符合中国社会文化情境和具体家庭需求的社区贫困家庭志愿服务。     

Dialogues or polemics: Social science expertise and welfare reform in Quebec

The development of social assistance and poverty reduction policies has been informed by social scientific knowledge. Social scientists, however, are not of one mind on such matters. They tend to be divided along disciplinary and ideological lines and may even foster political divisions and conflicts. This article draws on the author's experience as an academic policy adviser to the Quebec government to analyse from up close the institutional context that facilitates knowledge utilisation in the policy process. Two reform processes are considered: the first one, between 1995 and 1998, was less collaborative and led to divisions, and the second, between 1997 and 2009, involved more interactions with the civil service and proved more fruitful. In both cases, experts were divided, as were politicians and civil servants, but their capacity to reach a consensus was fostered, in the second case, by better support and collaboration from the government.     

Service Users' Perspectives on the Benefits System in Israel: A Participatory Action Research

This article presents a position paper on Israel's benefits system. It was produced in the framework of a participatory action research with the collaboration of welfare services users and social welfare policy practitioners, academics, social practitioners, and social activists. Some 78 persons living in poverty, from various population groups, were asked, in group settings, to describe their experiences with the benefit system and services, their coping strategies, their perceptions and attitudes towards these services, and their recommendations for ways to improve them. The position paper which emerged from this process served as the basis for discussions between service users, social welfare policy practitioners, researchers, social activists and social practitioners at an academic conference. Issues such as benefits cuts, eligibility, and definitions of poverty are discussed and recommendations are presented.     

需求取向社区贫困家庭志愿服务的探索

贫困救助是我国社会服务的永恒主题,城市最低生活保障制度和农村五保制度为解决贫困问题提供了制度保障。但是,贫困是一个复杂的持续性的社会问题,社会保障政策的公共性与弹性要求以及社会的不断变迁,使得贫困救助需求的差异性和变化性难以得到有效满足。社区志愿服务以其贴近居民生活的服务特点,可以有效地填补社会救助政策的漏洞。本文描述了社区贫困家庭的现状及其特点,揭示了当前社区服务和社会政策存在的缝隙;立足社区贫困家庭的需要,提出了社区贫困家庭志愿服务应该提供的主要服务内容,寄望建设一个符合中国社会文化情境和具体家庭需求的社区贫困家庭志愿服务。     

Poverty,Government Policy and Public Opinion in Britain and Israel: A Comparative Analysis

What are the effects of public opinion on social welfare policies? To what extent is increased financial strain associated with stronger support for anti‐poverty policies? This article tests welfare state theory by comparing poverty, government policy and public opinion on poverty in the UK and Israel, based on rich and detailed comparable survey data on the conditions of the poor in both countries. The results show that, despite similar levels of income poverty and inequality, the poor have a considerably lower standard of living in Israel than the UK. There is considerably greater public support for the poor in Israel but limited government action to end poverty, whereas in the UK there is more limited public support for the poor but significant government action on poverty and exclusion. In both countries there appears to be only a limited connection between social solidarity with the poor and the political elite's rhetoric and action.     

Poverty and material deprivation among European workers in times of crisis

Many EU countries are faced with abysmal public debts and high unemployment, and may have to reduce their social expenditure and deregulate their labour market, which should lead to an increase in ‘working poverty’ (i.e., an increase in the number of working men and women who live in a low‐income household, or in a household that cannot afford certain goods and services considered essential for a decent life, respectively). However, working poverty remains an under‐analysed phenomenon in Europe. Moreover, the vast majority of existing definitions used in Europe are based on a relative income poverty line and the EU's official definition of ‘in‐work’, which raises concerns about the robustness of existing findings. This article first examines how the socioeconomic situation has evolved in seven EU Member States that have fared differently. In addition, the article examines whether the use of non‐monetary poverty indicators and of an encompassing definition of ‘working’ has an impact on the conclusions drawn. An attempt is made to identify the main macro‐level determinants of changes in ‘working poverty’ and to better understand their impact at the micro‐level.     

Public Service Quality Improvements: A Case for Exemption from IRB Review of Public Administration Research

Should the exemption from Institutional Review Board (IRB) evaluations currently in place for quality improvements research be extended to public administration research that addresses questions of improving the quality of public service delivery? As a means to both reduce the level of disdain held by a group of social science researchers for IRBs and to reduce the cost of review for minimal risk studies, I argue here that much of the current public administration research should also be exempted from normal processes of review by IRBs on the basis of their similarity to Quality Improvements (QI) research, a category of studies already granted exemption. This argument dovetails provisions currently in place for studies of public service and public benefit, but reframes these exemptions in the language of “quality improvements,” which may be a more comfortable language for IRBs concerned to demonstrate compliance for review of all fields. To expedite this argument into the practices of IRBs, I included a checklist that researchers could use to self-identify their studies as QI, not research as such.