Understanding Global Social Policy

Product Description
As a field of study, global social policy has grown in strength and remit since the late 1990s and offers a fresh set of perspectives on contemporary debates within social policy. This book is the first student-aimed textbook that engages comprehensively with this field of study, examining the key theoretical and policy debates and issues. Written by an international team of leading social policy analysts, it examines the impact of the prefix ‘global’ on the construction of social policy as a field of study, explores how the globalising strategies of state and non-state actors intersect with social policy concerns and evaluates their impacts on social welfare. Understanding global social policy emphasises the role of supranational organisations and international actors in social policy formation and highlights the ‘bottom-up’ transnational pressures and forces as well as the ‘top-down’ ones associated with intergovernmental fora and organisations. Focusing on policy processes, content and impacts, it historicises current developments and debates in global social policy. Designed with the needs of students in mind the book will be invaluable to undergraduate and postgraduate students of social policy, sociology, health studies and development studies.
Review

Nicola Yeates has brought together an impressive, coherent collection of contributors providing comprehensive coverage of developments in global social policy across a wide range of policy areas. The relationship between globalisation and social policy is one that is rapidly evolving and differentiated. This collection successfully captures these dynamics while at the same time providing empirical substance to developments at a particular point in time. Patricia Kennett, Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

About the Author
Nicola Yeates is Professor of Social Policy at The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. She has published widely on issues of globalisation and social policy, including on global migration, social protection and employment (see Open Research Online (www.oro.open.ac.uk). She is a former Editor-in-Chief of Global Social Policy (Sage) and Vice-Chair of the Social Policy Association, and is Chair of the Editorial Board of Social Policy and Society (CUP)