| Abstract: | Over the last two decades the public sector has been eroded and its capacity to meet social objectives undermined. Social workers wishing to offer an effective critique face the question of whether or not post-structuralism can contribute to this end. This paper suggests that it can do so if it is prepared to engage with traditional questions relating to economic forces, the place of the state, systematic inequality and the nature of reform. This involves a willingness to recognise the insights of Marxist, feminist and social democratic schools. This paper illustrates this with reference to four issues: structural explanation; the state; global categories; and normative judgements. |
