An essential introduction to rights-based approaches in social policy, this text critically explores how social rights underpin human wellbeing. It discusses social rights as rights of citizenship in developed welfare states and as an essential component within the international human rights and human development agenda. It provides a valuable introduction for students and researchers in social policy and related applied social science, public policy, sociology, socio-legal studies and social development fields. Taking an international perspective, the first part of the book considers how social rights can be understood and critiqued in theory – discussing ideas around citizenship, human needs and human rights, collective responsibility and ethical imperatives. The second part of the book looks at social rights in practice, providing a comparative examination of their development globally, before looking more specifically at rights to livelihood, human services and housing as well as ways in which these rights can be implemented and enforced. The final section re-evaluates prevailing debates about rights-based approaches to poverty alleviation and outlines possible future directions. The book provides a comprehensive overview of social rights in theory and practice. It questions recent developments in social policy. It challenges certain dominant ideas concerning the basis of human rights. It seeks to re-frame our understanding of social rights as the articulation of human needs and presents a radical new 'post-Marshallian' theory of human rights.

An essential introduction to rights-based approaches in social policy, this text critically explores how social rights underpin human wellbeing. It discusses social rights as rights of citizenship in developed welfare states and as an essential component within the international human rights and human development agenda. It provides a valuable introduction for students and researchers in social policy and related applied social science, public policy, sociology, socio-legal studies and social development fields. Taking an international perspective, the first part of the book considers how social rights can be understood and critiqued in theory – discussing ideas around citizenship, human needs and human rights, collective responsibility and ethical imperatives. The second part of the book looks at social rights in practice, providing a comparative examination of their development globally, before looking more specifically at rights to livelihood, human services and housing as well as ways in which these rights can be implemented and enforced. The final section re-evaluates prevailing debates about rights-based approaches to poverty alleviation and outlines possible future directions. The book provides a comprehensive overview of social rights in theory and practice. It questions recent developments in social policy. It challenges certain dominant ideas concerning the basis of human rights. It seeks to re-frame our understanding of social rights as the articulation of human needs and presents a radical new 'post-Marshallian' theory of human rights.

With authoritarian states and global culture wars threatening human rights, this volume weighs hopes the for effective human rights advocacy.

This pioneering volume explores the long-neglected history of social rights, from the Middle Ages to the present. It debunks the myth that social rights are 'second-generation rights' – rights that appeared after World War II as additions to a rights corpus stretching back to the Enlightenment. Not only do social rights stretch back that far; they arguably pre-date the Enlightenment. In tracing their long history across various global contexts, this volume reveals how debates over social rights have often turned on deeper struggles over social obligation – over determining who owes what to whom, morally and legally. In the modern period, these struggles have been intertwined with questions of freedom, democracy, equality and dignity. Many factors have shaped the history of social rights, from class, gender and race to religion, empire and capitalism. With incomparable chronological depth, geographical breadth and conceptual nuance, Social Rights and the Politics of Obligation in History sets an agenda for future histories of human rights.

"This book develops a very particular concept of sociality: a holistic way of understanding how human beings have come to care about and collectively provide for their welfare as a species and to recognise each other's needs in terms of shared social rights. It tells not so much a success story as a hopeful story. It provides a new way of looking at how our rights to life's essentials have been in the past, are now and can in the future be understood. It is, potentially, a book for anyone interested in the human condition but will be especially interesting for those engaged in human service provision, community action, social development, welfare law and political debate, and particularly useful to students of social policy and human rights. It is a radically revised edition of Social Rights and Human Welfare, first published in 2015. It provides modified, re-organised and updated versions of chapters from that book while offering a wholly new underlying narrative through which further to develop and apply the author's alternative theory of social rights. It is a book about the connections between social rights and human welfare; between theory and practice; between debate and reality in the spheres of human service provision and human livelihoods"--

With international human rights under challenge, this book represents a comprehensive critique that adds a social policy perspective to recent political and legalistic analysis. Expert contributors draw on local and global examples to review constructs of universal rights and their impact on social policy and human welfare. With thorough analysis of their strengths, weaknesses and enforcement, it sets out their role in domestic and geopolitical affairs. Including a forward by Albie Sachs, this book presents an honest appraisal of both the concepts of international human rights and their realities. It will engage those with an interest in social policy, ethics, politics, international relations, civil society organisations and human rights-based approaches to campaigning and policy development.

At a time when the future of the welfare state is the object of heated debate in many European countries, this edited collection explores the relationship between this institution and social rights. Structured around the themes of the politics of social rights, questions of equality and social exclusion/inclusion, and the increasing impact of market imperatives on social policy, the book explores the effect of transformations in the welfare state upon social rights and their underlying rationalities and logics. Written by a group of international scholars, many of the essays discuss a number of urgent and topical issues within social policy, including: the social rights of asylum seekers; the increasing marketization and consumerization of public welfare services; the care of the elderly; and the obligation to work as a condition of access to welfare benefits. International in its scope, and interdisciplinary in its approach, this collection of essays will appeal to scholars and students working in the fields of law and socio-legal studies, sociology, social policy, and politics. It will also be of interest to policy makers and all those engaged in the debate over the future of the welfare state and social rights.