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Members of the Welfare State Reform project at St. Antony's College, Oxford, are organising an interdisciplinary panel at the International Political Science Association's (IPSA) World Congress in Montreal, Quebec in July 2014. We warmly welcome papers from social policy, politics and international relations, social theory, philosophy, theology, ethics (political, social and medical), history, and other subjects with an interest in understanding the wider implications of the contemporary managerialist, economy-driven overhaul of the welfare state, summarised in the term New Public Management. 

C a l l   f o r   a b s t r a c t s   (D e a d l i n e : 5. Oct. )
Panel 6 - The Moral and Ethical Implications of Contemporary Administrative Welfare State Reforms
Reforms consist of social movements that represent a vision of what ought to be.
Hence, this interdisciplinary panel investigates the moral and ethical
implications of contemporary welfare state reforms. We are interested in New
Public Management reforms in sectors such as the healthcare system, labour
administration and public education. Some routes of enquiry may include:
1.) The intellectual history, norms, and systematic dissemination of NPM. Papers
may touch upon questions such as: what are the convictions, principles and
normative roots of NPM reforms? How do they play out in concrete cases?
What are alternatives they exclude? To whom and why have NPM ideas been
attractive? How do NPM reforms impinge upon relationships and conceptions of
well-being?
2.) Normative presuppositions of theoretical analysis. Papers may investigate
the normative implications of analytical frameworks applied to NPM, e.g.
concepts of democracy, accountability or political representation. What do these
frameworks imply? Are there alternative frameworks that may enhance the
understanding and analysis of reforms? Authors may critically investigate the
practical tasks or political responsibilities of social scientists, or the theoretical
relationship between the normative and the factual, using illustrative case
studies from their areas of expertise.
3.) The ethics of inter-personal relationships in administrative welfare state
reforms. Authors may look at questions such as: How do welfare state reforms
relate to what may be perceived as intrinsically moral relationships, e.g. between
doctor/patient; student/teacher? How do organisational structures embody these
relationships? Are these relationships transformed, and if yes, how?

How to submit an abstract: please email your abstract to [log in to unmask] by  5. Oct 2013. Proposals should not exceed 1500 characters (around 250 words). Authors should be prepared to present their paper in no more than 15 minutes at the conference.