8th ESPAnet Conference 2010Social Policy and the Global Crisis:
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15. Public Futures
The financial crisis of 2008-9 has already had a significant impact on public finances and public services in many nations, but this impact intersects with, and exacerbates, trajectories of change that were already well established.
The politics and policies of public service reform have produced innovations in the organisational forms, policy objectives and state-citizen relationships of public services. Such changes threaten to erode or erase notions of the public as a collective entity of political subjects in favour of notions of the choice-making consumer, the active citizen and the responsible community (Newman and Clarke, 2009). However, the same crisis has also provoked a loss of faith in markets and a return to the idea of the state taking action – both nationally and perhaps globally – to limit the impact of global recession. There has also been a popular demand for greater protection against the risks and uncertainties of life in market societies. This stream raises questions about what sorts of publics are being imagined and represented as the objects and subjects of policy. We are interested in papers on one or more of the following questions:
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What has been the fate of publicness and public action in the aftermath of the recession?
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How will the publicness of public services be revised in another wave of 'reform'?
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What are the political consequences of a public who are primarily understood as bearing the burden of public debt?
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What are the policy implications of trying to serve publics who are increasingly uncertain, anxious ands sceptical?
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What are the emerging public expectations of states and markets in governing social life?
Reference:
Newman, J. and Clarke, J. (2009) Publics, Politics and Power: Remaking the public in public services. London: Sage.
Convenors:
| John Clarke | Janet Newman | |
| Professor of Social Policy Faculty of Social Sciences The Open University Walton Hall Milton Keynes MK7 6AA United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1908 654542 Fax: +44 (0)1908 654488 E-mail: john.clarke@open.ac.uk |
Professor of Social Policy Faculty of Social Sciences The Open University Walton Hall Milton Keynes MK7 6AA United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1908 654530 Fax: +44 (0)1908 654488 E-mail: j.e.newman@open.ac.uk |
Friday, 14:30-16:30 Room 06, Session 15.
Presentations:
1. Lavinia Bifulco: The desire of the State: what about publicness? Italy [abstract] [paper]
2. Anneli Anttonen and Jorma Sipilä: Universalism, the Nordic Welfare Model and Public Sector Change [abstract] [paper]
3. Matthias Knuth, Ian Greer: Governance, Employment, and the Quality of Public Services: Specifying the Linkages [abstract] [paper]
4. Zsuzsanna Kravalik: Freedom as the organizer of spontaneous elderly clubs. What kind of consequences for future services for elderly people? [abstract] [paper]
Contributed papers:
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Important dates
17 November 2009 = Call for stream convenors
18 December 2009 = Deadline for stream convenors
25 January 2010 = Call for abstracts
29 March 2010 = Deadline for abstract submission
3 May 2010 = Registration starts
6 June 2010 = Reduced fee application deadline
21 June 2010 24:00 (CET) = Early bird registration deadline
13 August 2010 24:00 (CET) - Deadline for submission of papers
16 August 2010 - Deadline for Registrations and payments
Registration fee is 160 Euros for early birds, 210 Euros for late birds. Central and Eastern European PhD students and professionals can apply for a reduced fee of 60 Euros at info@espanet2010.net until 6th June.
Registration opens on the 3rd May, early bird registration closes on the 21th June at 24:00 (CET).
Theme of the Conference
The theme of ESPAnet’s 2010 Annual Conference is the social consequences of the global financial crisis and its differential impact across Europe. The main questions for consideration include:
How is the crisis affecting already existing inequalities? How are different social classes and groups, especially those in poverty, affected by the crisis? What are the adaptable capacities of the different “worlds of welfare”? Does the intensifying social vulnerability lead to the re-structuring of the programs to provide more security? How far have new programs been developed, and how far have new questions of social policy and welfare been opened up by the crisis?
We would like to broaden the horizon of social policy analysis and see global environmental concerns taken into account: How far are responses to the crisis re-thinking the role of the national and international/global state and the role of the European Union in creating economically, socially and environmentally sustainable societies?