Social Workers in Political Office: A Comparative Perspective on Recruitment, Career Patterns and Social Advocacy

The first book to provide systematic and comparative empirical insights into a major way that social workers engage with policy – by holding elected office – this book analyses how and why social workers engage in electoral politics in liberal democracies.

Idit Weiss-Gal is an associate professor and Head of the Bob Shapell School of Social Work at Tel Aviv University. She has published extensively on the professional ideologies of social workers, on social work as a profession and on policy practice among social workers.

​John Gal is professor and dean at the Paul Baewald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published extensively on social policy in a comparative perspective and on policy practice among social workers.

Dr Joanne Warner is a senior lecturer in social work at the University of Kent. She is a registered social worker, beginning her career in community development work and generic practice before becoming an academic. Her research focuses on sociocultural approaches to risk, particularly the way ‘risk work’ has shaped professional practice and the impact of cultures of inquiry and blame, and also everyday risks as experienced by service users.

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.