Welfare Reform, Class Struggle and Crisis: A macro socio-historical and micro street-level investigation of British out-of-work welfare services

福利改革、阶级斗争与危机：对英国失业福利服务的宏观社会历史和微观街头调查

基本信息

批准号：
ES/W005859/1
负责人：
Jamie Redman
金额：
$ 10.82万
依托单位：
University of Sheffield
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2021 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FW005859%2F1
关键词：
Welfare Reform Class Struggle Crisis

项目摘要

Punitive welfare reform is an urgent and immediate social problem. Not only do punitive reforms continue to inflict harm, but history suggests that they are likely to intensify in the near future as policymakers look to combat a record high claimant count. These issues primarily persist because welfare reform is founded and legitimised upon erroneous assumptions about the nature/agency of poor people and a lack of understanding around the broader historical processes which drive its development. The core aim of this fellowship will be to present an original challenge to how contemporary welfare reform is understood and the foundational logic on which it is presently justified. In doing so, I will also make significant advances towards my long-term goal of acquiring a Leverhulme ECF. I will do this in the following ways:First, I will write an article which critiques and presents an alternative to the dominant model of the 'welfare subject'. Welfare reform is founded on a specific theory about the human nature and agency of urban poor populations (the 'welfare subject'). This theory claims that they are primarily predisposed towards anti-work/anti-social proclivities and behaviours, which have been nurtured by the availability of generous/permissive cash benefits. Advocating this theory, policymakers have sought to correct such behaviour by implementing a punitive shift in contemporary welfare reform. This article will develop a new position which rejects existing theories and provides a new model of the welfare subject. This model will draw on a plethora of evidence garnered through my PhD, as well as secondary data sets, to demonstratehow the urban poor are primarily predisposed to eschewing harm and self -preservation in response to political/economic/social conditions that routinely pose a threat to individual needs and interests. The model will also draw on knowledge from a range of disciplines, including philosophy, political economy, sociology and psychology.Second, I will address the ahistoricity of contemporary welfare reform debate via another article. I will demonstrate how the punitive shift in welfare reform is not historically new and has not been driven by a necessity to correct anti-work behaviour. Rather, I will reveal how it is instead intimately connected to, and determined by, wider processes of political, economic and social development spanning multiple centuries. This article will contribute towards an original, historically informed theory which shows how out-of-work welfare services are ultimately determined by both the balance of class forces and the condition of the labour market. A full articulation of this theory will be finalised in a future monograph.Third, I will challenge the 'anti-welfare common sense' typically found in everyday discourse around welfare reform. Anti-welfare common sense describes a tendency among politicians and mainstream media to manufacture pejorative narratives about poor people to secure electoral consent for punitive reforms. In a co-authored article, we analysed 480 claimant interviews, finding that anti-welfare common sense was dominant among out-of-work groups. I want to challenge pejorative narratives within these groups by setting up a participatory education network which will to encourage critical, alternative ways of thinking about key issues.Finally, I will challenge existing understandings of how reforms play out in street-level practice to policy-focused audiences. Previous work with the DWP revealed that policymakers are often unaware of how policies can become distorted in practice. This leaves question marks around whether policymakers understand the outcomes of their creations. Consequently, the workshop will seek to facilitate knowledge exchange among key stakeholders; enabling a greater understanding of how policy is made among practitioners, and a greater understanding of how policy is practiced among policy is practiced among policymakers.

惩罚性福利改革是一个紧迫而直接的社会问题。惩罚性改革不仅继续造成伤害，而且历史表明，随着政策制定者希望与创纪录的高索赔人数作斗争，他们可能会在不久的将来加剧。这些问题主要是因为福利改革是基于对穷人性质/代理的错误假设的建立和合法化的，并且对推动其发展的更广泛的历史过程缺乏理解。该团契的核心目的是提出对当代福利改革的理解以及目前合理的基础逻辑的原始挑战。通过这样做，我还将朝着获得Leverhulme ECF的长期目标取得重大进步。我将通过以下方式进行此操作：首先，我将写一篇文章，批评并介绍了“福利主题”的主要模型的替代方法。福利改革建立在关于城市贫困人口（“福利主题”）的人性和机构的特定理论之上。该理论声称，它们主要倾向于反工作/反社会的倾向和行为，这是由于慷慨/宽松的现金福利所培养的。提倡这一理论，决策者试图通过实施当代福利改革的惩罚性转变来纠正这种行为。本文将开发一个新的立场，该立场拒绝现有理论，并提供福利主题的新模型。该模型将利用我的博士学位获得的大量证据以及次要数据集，以证明城市贫困人口主要倾向于避免造成危害和自我保护，以应对政治/经济/社会状况，这些条件常规构成威胁满足个人需求和利益。该模型还将借鉴包括哲学，政治经济学，社会学和心理学在内的各种学科的知识。第二，我将通过另一篇文章解决当代福利改革辩论的有经。我将展示福利改革的惩罚性转变在历史上并不是新的，也不是由纠正反工作行为的必要驱动的。相反，我将揭示它是如何与多个世纪以来政治，经济和社会发展的更广泛过程紧密联系并确定的。本文将有助于一种原始的，历史知名的理论，该理论最终显示了阶级力量的平衡和劳动力市场状况。对该理论的全面表达将在未来的专着中完成。三分之二，我将挑战在围绕福利改革的日常论述中发现的“反福利常识”。反福利常识描述了政客和主流媒体的趋势，他们倾向于制造有关穷人的贬义叙事，以确保对惩罚性改革的选举同意。在合着的文章中，我们分析了480次索赔人的访谈，发现反福利常识在工作外团体中占主导地位。我想通过建立一个参与式教育网络来挑战这些群体内部的贬义叙事，该网络将鼓励关键的思考关键问题的关键，替代方式。我将挑战现有的对街道级别实践中改革如何进行的理解，以进行政策 - 集中的观众。以前与DWP的工作表明，决策者通常不知道政策在实践中如何扭曲。这留下了围绕政策制定者是否了解其创作结果的问号。因此，研讨会将寻求促进主要利益相关者之间的知识交流；在政策制定者中实践了对政策如何实践政策的更多了解，从而使对政策的制定方式有了更大的了解。