With growing concern that social policies should reflect consumer choice, how is consumer choice expressed? Will consumer choice be the same in all forums? Analysis of incentive structures in different decision-making processes suggests that different facets of consumerism assume greater relevance in different forums. Policies approved often differ systematically from policies prescribed because approval is expressed in collective decision-making processes. Predicted policy responses prove sensitive to the way in which choice is registered. If consumers are empowered, choice will be sensitive to the forum in which they are empowered.

The concern of this article is with the current debate about the reform of local taxation in the UK. In particular, the article examines the consideration given to issues of equity in the policy debate that has taken place through the government's ‘Balance of Funding Review’. It is argued that while the outcome of the reform process remains to be seen, the current debate indicates that decisions regarding local tax will serve as an illuminating example of the extent, and limits, of New Labour policy on tax and inequality more generally.

This paper considers work the authors have done with community projects to explore the meaning and usefulness of social capital. It sets out the model of social capital developed from this work, which has enabled the discussion and application of social capital to move from academia into local neighbourhoods and communities. It goes on to consider the relationship between social capital and social policy, and concludes that, whilst it is hard to ascertain whether social policy can directly develop social capital, it is however possible for policy to create environments which either allow for the enhancement of social capital, or harm it.

The current agricultural policy instrument of direct payments to farmers is also very much a form of social policy. This applies particularly for agricultural systems based on small family farms. Taking Switzerland as an example, the main weaknesses of the present system are outlined. A quantitative analysis reveals massive income differences among Swiss farmers, with the richest receiving more direct payments than the poorest. Potential improvements to the agricultural policy system are suggested by explicitly redefining direct payments as a social policy instrument.

In an article published in Prospect magazine, later reproduced in The Guardian, Goodhart (2004a) identifies a link between a decline in support for welfare and growing ethnic diversity. We argue that his analysis is flawed in terms of his comparative analysis, his definition of welfare, his ahistorical approach and his implicit conceptual framework of ethnic diversity. While he appears to conceal his political objectives behind the language of the third way, we maintain that it is time to wrest political language and activity away from those who claim to operate only on the basis of commonsense and a ‘what works’ philosophy.

In the past many of the leading figures in social policy writing had interests in history – for example Richard Tawney, T.H. Marshall, and Richard Titmuss. However, social policy has lost its ‘historical imagination’, with many students – Thatcher's children, and in a few years Major's children – not being exposed to social policy history, and with many publishers believing that anything before 1997 or even 2001 belongs to ‘history’ rather than ‘social policy’. The papers in this section were originally delivered to the ESPAnet conference in Copenhagen in September 2003. As will be evident, contributors take rather different views of how the historic past can help in understanding or informing policy formation and implementation, although what unites them is that historical understanding is important in social policy analysis.

Age discrimination has become a topical issue in Britain, and legislation is promised by the year 2006. It is often viewed as a recent problem, caused by the decline in older men's economic activity rates since the 1970s, by concerns over ageing populations in the future and by the need to extend working lives. Yet it has a long history, going back at least to the 1930s, with much research into older workers being conducted in 1950s Britain. Examination of this history helps us understand some of the difficulties inherent in the concepts of ageism and age discrimination.

This paper argues that agrarianism was a central force in shaping outcomes in Irish social insurance in the post-war period, as Irish policy makers sought to balance the needs of urban and rural Ireland, and the interests of diverse groups in the agricultural sector. Using the Beveridge Report as a policy template, Irish policy makers struggled to apply this model to very different Irish conditions, where the agricultural sector had a profound economic and ideological weight. The paper points to the need for political theories of the welfare state to encompass variation in the way in which agrarian interests are structured.

In this counterfactual article, the social consequences of a further period of Labour government from 1951 to 1964 are explored. It is contended that Labour would have retreated from a broad ranging ‘socialist’ strategy. However, its firm commitment to the welfare state would, in the absence of severe economic turbulence, have helped to embed a more deep-rooted ‘welfare’ culture in British society.

This article provides a historical analysis of particular policy initiatives undertaken in the US and the UK in the 1960s and 1970s and asks to what extent the lessons from these policy initiatives can be transferred to current policy development in the UK today. The focus of the discussion is local community-based interventions, aimed at combating poverty and exclusion. These are now generally referred to in the UK as Area Based Initiatives (ABIs).

This article analyses the impact of the past of the Portuguese social security system on possibilities for reform. First, some of the most relevant features of the Portuguese welfare state are compared with the Southern European model. Its particularities are emphasised suggesting that it may not be subject to the same path dependency. Then an historical description of its most relevant moments is made indicating the alternation of different welfare models in its policies. This gives rise to discontinuities that have been constant through its history and determined by some of the most permanent features of state and society.

There are few texts that cover social policy from its early origins, usually given with reference to the Poor Law in either 1598 or 1834, to the present. Texts generally divide up their material chronologically, by service area (usually the ‘big five’), or by a mix of both approaches.