Social Work and the Making of Social Policy

Bringing together international case studies, this book offers theoretical and empirical insights into the interaction between social work and social policy.

Moving beyond existing studies on policy practice, the book employs the policy cycle as a core analytical frame and focuses on the influence of social work(ers) in the problem definition, agenda setting, policy formulation and implementation of social policy. Twenty-three contributors offer examples of policy making from seven different countries and demonstrate how social work practitioners can become political actors, while also encouraging policy makers to become aware of the potential of social work for the social policy-making process.

Michael Lavalette is a Professor in the Department of Social Work, Care and Justice at Liverpool Hope Univeristy. He has published widely on radical social work and contemporary social movements. He is co-editor of Critical and Radical Social Work journal.

Ute Klammer is Professor and Director of the Institute of Work, Skills and Training at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Her main research interests are social policy, labour market and gender research.

Simone Leiber is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Her main research interests are social policy analysis, politics of welfare state reform, and social work as a political actor.

Sigrid Leitner is Professor for Social Policy at the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. Her main research interests are comparative social policy analysis, gender effects of social policy, and social work as a political actor.