Exploring the World of Social Policy : An International Approach

This bold new textbook represents a significant step forward in social policy teaching by combining comparative and global perspectives.

Introducing readers to a wide spread of international challenges and issues, the book shows how insights into policy can be generated using a comparative and multidisciplinary approach. Global in its canvas and analytical in its method, the book:

• explores the economic, social and political contexts of social policy;

• examines in detail its institutions and fields of practice;

• illustrates the field’s main ideas, themes and practices, drawing on a rich international literature and using pertinent and thought-provoking examples.

Authored by two highly respected and experienced academics, this book demonstrates the rewards of studying social policy from an international perspective by avoiding the constraints of a single-nation focus. Clear, authoritative and wide-ranging, it will be essential reading for students of social sciences taking courses covering social policy, social welfare and comparative policy analysis.

Michael Hill is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Newcastle University and a Visiting Professor at the University of Brighton. Having written on many aspects of the policy process and social policy, he is author of The Public Policy Process, Implementing Public Policy (with Peter Hupe), Understanding Social Policy (with Zoë Irving) and editor of Studying Public Policy (2014). In 2009 he was given the Social Policy Association’s lifetime award.

Dr Zoe Irving is a Senior Lecturer at the University of York and a member of the Executive Committee of the UK Social Policy Association. Published works surrounding Social Policy, gender employment and economic crises.