In popular and political debate there is currently a theme which dominates discussion about the family and this is the theme of decline and destabilisation caused by the rise of individualism and lack of moral fibre. There is a wishful thinking intrinsic to these debates in which it is hoped that the family can be returned to an idealised state, unaffected by other social changes. Recent sociological work on the family interprets changes to family life rather differently and therefore offers an important counter-discourse. Although there are certain limitations to the new theoretical work on the family provided by Giddens and Beck, it is argued here that their work provides a broad understanding of change which is not reducible to individual motivations and moral decline. These perspectives are particularly important at a time when family law is engineering policies to change the very nature of post-divorce family life. Because these changes are based on a narrow understanding of change, it is suggested that they amount to harmful tinkerings which misconstrue the wider context within which families are being transformed.

The absence of considerations of technology in policy studies reinforces the popular notion that technology is a neutral tool. Through an analysis of the role played by computers in the policy processes of Australia's Department of Social Security, this paper argues that computers are political players in policy processes. Findings indicate that computers make aspects of the social domain knowable and therefore governable. The use of computers makes previously infeasible policies possible. Computers also operate as bureaucrats and as agents of client surveillance. Increased policy change, reduced discretion and increasingly targeted and complex policies can be attributed to the use of computer technology. If policy processes are to be adequately understood and analysed, then the role of technology in those processes must be considered.

Structured dependency theory has been useful in shifting thinking about status in old age from a negative concentration on individual characteristics to an emphasis on the structural factors which work against elderly people. However, structural dependency theory is itself capable of reinforcing ageist policy and practice. Postmodernism, as an approach to knowledge, moves us on from the premodern when the church was the ultimate authority, through the modern when scientific logic was the touchstone, to the present when there is no ultimate authority for the way the world is perceived. The revolutionary threat to ‘scientific’ research and received wisdom is greatest for the white, middle-class, mid-life, male academic establishment but offers wide possibilities to those who wish to research new fields in new ways. A postmodern approach to ageing research suggests that it would be helpful to concentrate on four themes: the critique of ‘grand theory’; the prioritisation of ‘low’ culture and understanding, as opposed to elite or ‘high’ culture; the recognition of diversity; and the value of personal views and emotions. Since postmodern thought excludes structural relations of power it is unlikely to be used in isolation by gerontologists or social policy analysts.

This article begins with a survey of some influential classifications of welfare states based on different dimensions of social policy. Advantages and shortcomings are pointed out in relation to each classification reviewed. It is argued that none of these single-dimension classifications is in fact adequate to understand past and current developments in European social policy. An alternative classification, which combines elements of the ones reviewed above into a two-dimension approach, is proposed. This two-dimension classification is then related to past developments and current debates in European welfare states. The strength of this approach is its ability to reflect social policy developments in terms of both the expansion/contraction of state welfare and the convergence/divergence of European social policies.

Contents

1 Social security and income maintenance

2 Health care

3 Education

4 Housing and environment

5 Personal social services

6 Law and the treatment of the offender

7 Unemployment and the labour market

8 Race relations

9 The voluntary sector

10 Local government

11 Gender

12 Demography