Social Policy on the Cusp: Values, Institutions and Change

Two eminent Deans Emeritus in two different continents unravel contemporary social and public policy issues that are seldom discussed in traditional textbooks. In a new Dickensian era, uplifting people's lives amidst faltering social institutions and massive cultural meltdowns, policy discourse is a crucial obligation; it's a discipline that entails pragmatic vision and prescient planning. Social Policy on the Cusp is a modest attempt to unravel the nexus of nihilism that thwarts even...
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Two eminent Deans Emeritus in two different continents unravel contemporary social and public policy issues that are seldom discussed in traditional textbooks. In a new Dickensian era, uplifting people's lives amidst faltering social institutions and massive cultural meltdowns, policy discourse is a crucial obligation; it's a discipline that entails pragmatic vision and prescient planning. Social Policy on the Cusp is a modest attempt to unravel the nexus of nihilism that thwarts even civilization-nations' efforts to promote inclusive diversity. Brij Mohan and Guy Backman have analyzed certain aspects and issues in American, European and Asian contexts that unravel intersectionality of problems, people, and policies. Brij Mohan, a policy gadfly, examines the human condition using Nietzschean, Foucautean and Gandhian thoughts that expose the hidden malaise of unhappiness, angst and anger in a globalized world. Social policy as a euphemism, he contends, sustains chaos and resentment without transforming oppressive systems. His five chapters offer penetrating insights into the problems that a therapeutic culture breeds. With an uncanny sagacity, he examines coloniality and post-colonialism as a womb that spells paroxysms of despair. Guy Bäckman has contributed five chapters, which are based on his research and findings on poverty and inequalities that plague the world today. The vision of a better, cohesive world has guided the design of the empirically oriented chapters in Part Two. Social policy, through the use of advanced technology and algorithmic solutions, promotes transformative policy actions based on preferred values and goals rooted in cultural conditions. In a new political economy, it could become the instructions we write to ourselves to navigate a society that is smarter, safer, and more just. Two invited contributions by Stan Weeber, USA and Eleni Makri, Greece, further narrate the tales of "smart city" and "workplace discrimination" in light of the failed public policies in a new brave world.