Dear Member
This undoubtedly will be a very long message so if you are not interested
in the debate on the current and future situation of academic social policy
please delete now.
For everyone else this is a response to Prof. Spicker in the latest SPA
news. For everyone who is new to the debate or who don't receive the SPA
newsletter, I'll try to summarise quickly.
The SPA has set up a working group on the future of social policy to
address some fundamental concerns over the future of social policy. This
party has now met and passed on recommendations to the SPA Executive, who
will, presumably, comment on these in due time and open up a serious
debate. That is not to say that one has not already started!
I wrote a piece called 'Social Policy: A case of follow what we say, not
what we do', which pretty much sums up the approach I took. Among other
concerns I expressed concern about the 'hollowing out' of social policy as
sub-disciplines broke away and sister disciplines took up interest in
social policy areas. I was concerned about the apparent lack of co-
ordination and co-operation or the 'joined-upness' of social policy and I
suggested we need to reconceptualise and reorganise social policy to
survive and prosper under the present circumstances. I gave several
concrete suggestions including the promotion of the social policy
undergraduate degree as the degree of choice for anyone in the public or
voluntary sector and social policy providing more vocational training for
all sectors of the economy.
Prof. Spicker has responded to the debate with a piece called 'Social
Policy under threat' and my thanks because Prof. Spicker does much to
establish the opposite pole marking out the spectrum of debate. I believe
he reads this mailbase so I don't want to summarise the response and in any
case you will be able to get the gist from the following.
There was so much to disagree with it is helpful to begin with the things I
did agree with. It appears that even at this early stage, the debate has
fallen into a predictable pattern. Both positions find consensus in that
they believe social policy is facing significant problems liable to
significantly affect its performance and indeed survival as at present. In
short both agree, to varying extents, that social policy is in some need
of 'baling out'.
Entirely with tradition, disagreements concern what defines social policy
and what should be done about the problems.
He begins by reminding me that I said 'social policy has never been well-
defined' and refuting it with 'yes it is'. So in true pantomime fashion I
would like to restate that, oh no it isn't. The reason for Spicker's
rejection is his conception of what social policy is all about. Spicker is
clear that for him, "social policy is not concerned with every aspect of
well-being. While the areas studied [such as communications, consumerism
and the environment] make perfectly good sense for people with a general
interest in politics or society, they do not touch very directly on the
kind of issues which have generally been considered in the field of social
policy".
Spicker is quite simply wrong on both counts.
He talks about social policy in terms of what it has studied, not about
what is at the heart of the discipline itself. The living, breathing heart
of social policy is without any doubt, at least for me, welfare, aka well-
being and many other things. It is the reason I came into the discipline
and will be the reason I leave if ever it should not be the case.
Spicker argues against the inclusion of such things outside 'traditional'
social policy like environmental policy by asking the over used and frankly
ridiculous statement that social policy would then mean it's about
everything and therefore nothing. I have come across this answer many
times and the logical answer is this;
Social Policy is obviously something, therefore it cannot be nothing, ergo
it must be everything. That for me is exactly right, welfare is about
everything because everything can be done in a way that either promotes
welfare or not. To use Prof. Spicker's examples, agriculture, industrial
production and defence can all be operationalised in such a way that human,
animal and environmental welfare can be better secured. I am incredulous
that anybody cannot see the direct significance of environmental policy to
welfare and social policy, the equation is as simple as it is obvious and
goes like this;
environment=life
life=welfare
Therefore,
no environment=no life
no life=no welfare
Arguing over the finer points of social security is of little use to
society in the face of environmental destruction, welfare is about
priorities.
So when Spicker says " The redefinition of the subject area has undermined
the case for the independent study of social policy", and " If Social
Policy is to survive, it has to be distinct from both", I say rubbish and
we are already distinct.
The branching off and work by other disciplines is necessary and vital
since the difficulties of eliminating social problems and promoting welfare
is complex. However the role of social policy must be to modernise with
the times consistent to our goal of welfare. In other words to ensure the
co-ordination and co-operation of social science to productively work
towards a more welfare orientated society. Digging the ditches deeper and
the walls higher will accomplish nothing.
The fact that welfare has no boundaries is exactly what makes social policy
so unique and so singularly well-placed to take on the role of co-ordinator
in the pursuit of welfare and this is of course no coincidence.
Furthermore no one, perhaps, has blended together theory and practice as
well as those identifying themselves with social policy. What is great
about social policy is that it is concerned to understand the process and
structure, as with political science and public policy, but also the
outcomes, which is, at present perhaps, our greatest strength.
We must recognise that globalisation, the environment, in short,
postmodernisation, means that problems such as immigration, crime,
prosperity, the environment increasingly require collaboration not only
between disciplines but between countries. While we excel at understanding
the consequences and complexities at ground level we must integrate that
into it's overall global context.
Since I am going on a bit I will finish by saying that not for second have
I ever deluded myself into thinking I was training to become a scientist.
While I may possess some abilities associated with scientists, such as data
collection, interpretation and statistical techniques, first and foremost I
see my role as a social policist as an agent of social change. We work to
not only understand social problems better but to provide and effect
solutions. The sooner we reorganise our resources around this the closer
to our goal we will get.
If you have made it this far I would really like to ask that you post your
feelings so we can get some idea of where people stand and what people
think. Even a few lines of input is useful from anyone- whether or not you
closely identify with the 'social policy community'.
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