Social Security and Social Control Book

"Social Security and Social Control" takes a look at social security policy and demonstrates how the disciplinary effects of social security and relief programmes are more extensive, pervasive and subtle than is commonly supposed. Based on his academic research, drawing particularly upon the post-structuralist ideas of Foucault, and aided by 12 years' practical experience as a front-line advice worker at a centre in Brixton, South London, Hartley Dean reinterprets the historical development of the British Poor Laws and the modern social security system. Thus he provides a new context within which to analyze the latest social security reforms and the significance of poverty as a contemporary phenomenon in advanced Western societies. Also included is a unique case study of the Social Security Appeal Tribunal. The development of the tribunal system is presented as a commentary upon the disciplinary mechanisms inherent within the social security system as a whole. The book concludes with a reappraisal of the most recent debates about social security policy and about alternative social security systems.Read More