Globalisation, social science and social policy

introductory overview of GSP as a field of academic study and as a political practice of social actors. It is concerned with the ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of GSP. The chapters span a wide range of areas and issues, uncovering the multifaceted scope of GSP, why it is needed, what and who is involved in making it, how it is enacted, what its consequences and impacts are, and what challenges lie ahead. This edition contains a mix of updated chapters from previous editions as well as newly commissioned ones, written by world-leading scholars in GSP.

The remainder of this chapter introduces the book as a whole. It discusses the significance of the prefix ‘global’ and what this implies. It distinguishes key features of GSP as a field of academic study and research and as political practice. After a brief introduction of each of the chapters, it concludes with a summary of key points, guidance on using the book, questions for further discussion and further resources.

Globalisation, social science and social policy

Social policy as a subject of academic study and research has given rise to a rich interdisciplinary field of study with a distinctive body of theory, concepts and methods that has underpinned timely, relevant and useful research with and for communities, social movement organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and governments. Traditionally, it strictly followed the tenets of methodological nationalism – the idea that domestic welfare institutions, policies and programmes of social action and their outcomes are the only meaningful subject of study and research, and that they are wholly shaped by social relations and interactions among domestic actors within national (or sub-national) spheres of governance. Global social policy challenges this methodological stance on the basis that it renders invisible the ‘extra-national’ and ‘transnational’ realms in which social policies are made, contested and implemented. GSP’s methodological transnationalism aims to uncover the contours and textures of these extra-national and transnational realms – the institutions and actors, the relations between them, and the outcomes of their interactions (see Box 1.1).

Box 1.1: Contrasting methodological approaches in social science and social policy

Methodological nationalism: • Emphasises the institutions, actors and processes forging, sustaining and reconfiguring links and ties within countries. • Focuses on the ways in which domestic politics, policy actors, policies and institutions influence national welfare states, welfare systems and social policies.

Methodological transnationalism: • Emphasises the institutions, actors and processes forging, sustaining and reconfiguring links and ties cutting across countries. • Focuses on the ways in which ‘extra-national’ global politics, policy actors, policies and institutions both influence and are influenced by national welfare states, welfare systems and social policies.

The conscious embrace of methodological transnationalism by GSP analysis opens up new ways of studying the social organisation of welfare and the processes by which welfare institutions are made and remade (see Box 1.2). GSP looks for:

• the direct and indirect impacts of transnational forces and relationships on countries’ welfare systems and their outcomes; • the ways in which states and other social actors vie for influence over the course of global social policy-making in cross-border spheres of governance; • how the ‘national’ and ‘transnational’ realms are intermingled and co-constituted.

Box 1.2: Global social policy

A GSP perspective challenges the idea that the social organisation of welfare is determined uniquely or primarily by local and national structures of power. It directs attention to modes of political organisation, social action and economic and cultural forces traversing countries and structurally linking welfare systems around the world. Broadly, GSP examines:

• How social policy issues are being perceived to be global in scope, cause and impact. • Responses by state and non-state actors to global social policy issues. • Structural social and economic changes affecting the social organisation and relations of welfare, such as: – cross-border flows of people, goods, services and ideas; – transnational forms of collective action, including multilateral and crossborder modes of governance. • The impacts of these changes on systems of financing, regulation and provision of social welfare and on access to welfare services and human welfare outcomes around the world.

Processes of globalisation and the remaking of social relations on a global scale are central to GSP (see Box 1.3), although the ways in which they are doing so are diverse. Whatever one’s ‘take’ on globalisation, there is broad agreement that it engenders far-reaching social and economic change while also requiring and/or enabling new sorts of responses to social issues. But this raises further questions: which social problems come to be defined as ‘global’ ones? What sorts of problems are they defined as being – and for whom? And what types of response ensue? (See Box 1.4.)

Box 1.3: Globalisation

There is a great deal of controversy over the concept of globalisation and its onset, causes, effects and universal applicability. Its core idea is that the conditions of human existence are characterised by dense, extensive networks of links and ties routinely transcending national borders in ways that produce relations of interconnectedness and interdependence. These links and ties manifest in the form of:

• flows of capital, goods and services; • the international integration of business activities and economies on global or world-regional scales; • flows of images, ideas, information and values through media and communications; • worldwide spread of ideologies such as consumerism, individualism and collectivism; • international movements of people for leisure, work, medical treatment and personal safety; • global political institutions, movements and action.

A principal consequence of globalisation is that events happening in one part of the world quickly produce effects in other parts of it, as seen in the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–09 and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–. Travel technologies enable the transmission of viruses, people and goods around the world in a matter of hours; communication technologies enable information to be circulated worldwide within seconds.

If modern technologies help shape a sense of the world as a single, shared place, culture and politics still matter. Whereas early studies of globalisation emphasised the convergence and ‘flattening’ of local and national cultures, social systems and welfare states, more emphasis is now placed on how these cultures and systems are ‘remade’ by global forces, with distinctive national features being retained despite convergent pressures.

The study of globalisation processes builds on significant traditions of thought that understand the world as a single global system. For example, the development of ecology as a science has seen ecological processes as planetary in scale, with changes in ecological conditions in one part of the planet affecting other parts of it. Here, the impact of human activity on ecological systems is also seen to have a planetary impact, in that toxic chemicals and pollution released in one locality are transported to and ‘land’ in other proximate and distant parts of the world. Similarly, climate change is an intrinsically global phenomenon, requiring a similarly scaled response to protect planetary health and the lives of all those who live on it.

Box 1.4: Defining a global social policy problem

A question for students of GSP is, which social issues are defined as GSP ones? And how? George and Page (2004, p 2) argue that there are four criteria in the definition of a global social policy problem:

1. The cause of a problem should be found in global rather than national processes. 2. Such problems can easily spread across national borders. 3. The problem is increasingly difficult to resolve at national level. 4. International organisations can assist nation-states in dealing with the social problem at hand.

Processes of global social problem definition are complex, as is the formulation of responses through GSP. Some social problems are more global than others, and the content of GSP responses vary in their degree of ‘globality’. This raises the prospect of comparative analysis in the study of GSP and the question of how GSP definition processes vary, depending on the issue and according to different constellations of factors.

The global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–09 and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020– are examples of how events in one part of the world rapidly reverberate to other parts of it, jeopardising jobs, incomes, health and the wellbeing of populations on a mass scale worldwide. In the GFC, massive economic shocks were transmitted rapidly around the world by a globalised financial system and globally integrated supply chains facilitated by extensive international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic is an intrinsically global issue; like other highly infectious viruses, its transmission depends on close physical proximity and its spread is accelerated by high volume,