This open access book analyses the global diffusion of social policy as a process driven by multiplex ties between countries in global social networks. The contributions analyze links between countries via global trade, colonial history, similarity in culture, and spatial proximity. Networks are viewed as the structural backbone of the diffusion process, and diffusion is anlaysed via several subfields of social policy, in order to interrogate which network dimensions drive this process. The focus is on a global perspective of social policy diffusion via networks, and it is the first book to explicitly follow this macro-quantitative perspective on diffusion at a global scale whilst also comparing different networks. The collection tests the network structures in terms of their relevance to the diffusion process in different subfields of social policy such as old age and survivor pensions, labor and labor markets, health and long-term care, education and training, and family and gender policy. The book will therefore be invaluable to students and researchers of global social policy, sociology, political science, international relations, organization theory and economics.

Bringing together contributions from a diverse range of international scholars, A Research Agenda for Public Attitudes to Welfare draws upon past and contemporary research methods used to study citizens’ attitudes to welfare. It highlights the rapidly growing research potential within the field, examining both new and understudied social policies to map out a comprehensive agenda for future research.

The movement of policy is a core feature of contemporary education reform. Many different concepts, including policy transfer, borrowing and lending, travelling, diffusion and mobility, have been deployed to study how and why policy moves across jurisdictions, scales of governance, policy sectors or organisations. However, the underlying theoretical perspectives and the foundational assumptions of different approaches to policy movement remain insufficiently discussed. To address this gap, this book places front and center questions of theory, ontology, epistemology and method related to policy movement. It explores a wide diversity of approaches to help understand the policy movement phenomena, providing a useful guide on global studies in education, as well as insights into the future of this dynamic area of work.

Extensively updated, this second edition of the Advanced Introduction to Social Policy provides a concise overview of the field that takes newer realities into account as well as taking insights from the traditional social policy canon. Daniel Béland and Rianne Mahon draw on both classic and contemporary theories to illuminate the broad processes that are putting pressure on existing social policy arrangements and raising new research questions.

International institutions and agencies from the Global North are no longer the sole initiators of development norms and best practices. The proliferation of exports and imports of social, economic and policy management models have called for a rethinking of South–South relations. To date, most studies have focused on the drivers and strategies of international initiatives made by emerging powers; none have analysed the impact of these initiatives on the receiving country’s institutions, and on the structures of international organisations. In this book, Carolina Milhorance examines the content, process and consequences of the internationalisation of Brazil’s rural public policy instruments. Brazil earned wide international recognition in the early 2000s for its agricultural modernisation and social policies; its increasing influence illustrated the specific political interests of coalitions that are embedded in domestic and international struggles. Drawing on extensive field research – including more than 280 interviews – conducted in Brazil, Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi, France and Italy, Milhorance analyses the effects of the internationalisation of Brazilian policy solutions on national and local political systems in recipient countries, highlighting specifically the case of Mozambique. Relying on a new theoretical approach to International Relations – one based on public policy analysis and international political sociology – she moves beyond a debate about conventional notions of international power. New Geographies of Global Policy-Making will be of interest to scholars and researchers of international relations, public policy analysis, political sociology, comparative politics, and Latin American studies.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This thoroughly original book provides a comprehensive overview of the development of welfare arrangements and their wider context in Western Europe. Using the concept of social modernity, Ingo Bode investigates current challenges to these arrangements and examines prospects for progressive welfare reform.

Featuring contributions from leading international scholars of social policy, this dynamic Research Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of conceptual and methodological developments in leave policy research, as well as state-of-the-art findings on leave policy determinants and outcomes globally. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.