The history of welfare states is marked by divisions between capital and labour and these divisions are replicated at the international level. At the heart of these divisions is enduring class interests which accord different priorities to social and economic factors. That these divisions exist is neither surprising, nor necessarily a problem; the problem, this paper argues, is the increasingly high priority given to business interests by ever more powerful international governmental organisations. This paper presents an analysis of power in the global economy before investigating the social policy preferences of key international capital and labour organisations. It argues that international class mobilisation has failed to produce very much of a compromise on the part of capital, and that, if anything, international social policy discourse is today even closer to business than it has ever been.

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.

Recognised as a global concern by the UN, and increasingly acknowledged as a gendered crime and welfare issue in such diverse settings as the UK and China, domestic violence provides an important window on the development of policy and action in a global context. Focusing specifically on England and China, and mainly on the latter, the article highlights the need for gender to be an integral aspect of global social policy analysis, examines the impact of international organisations (governmental and non-governmental) on domestic violence policy development, and demonstrates the importance of country context in constructing and implementing global policy frameworks.

On the surface, the wheelchair appears a simple machine: its function seemingly apparent and its workings relatively uncomplicated. Yet, despite this apparent simplicity, the wheelchair is a complex artefact imbued with a myriad of social as well as technical relations that act simultaneously to exclude and include, confine and liberate, shape and be shaped. The wheelchair's inextricable links to injury and illness have certainly shaped its definition as a medical device. Such a definition has labelled the occupier as passive or ill and shaped a wider understanding of the machine as a prison. Wheelchair users, however, perceive the machine as a means to independence: it enables rather than disables. We present evidence here to suggest that this is not a recent phenomenon as we show how wheelchair access has been on the political agenda for disabled people for most of the twentieth century. The paper also examines the role of the wheelchair in the development of this movement, and we suggest that, as the design of the wheelchair improved, so the demand for better access increased. The final section of the paper looks at how poorly the state and its agents understood the issue of access.

There has been exhaustive scrutiny of the policies of the Bretton Woods institutions and the United Nations Population Fund. UNICEF, despite a prominent role in agenda setting for children's welfare in developing countries, has not been subject to comparable scrutiny. This paper argues that the Country Programmes promulgated by UNICEF to improve children's welfare reflect ethnocentric conceptualisations of the family. As a case study, Ghana's Country Programme 2001–2005 is considered in detail. Anthropological studies are adduced to highlight underlying ethnocentric assumptions around social organisation. The ramifications of these assumptions are then considered.

Care is an important analytical concept in social policy because of what its social organisation reveals about social formations and the nature of welfare states. To date, social policy analyses of care have focused on the social (re)organisation of care within nation states, which are largely treated as ‘sealed’ entities. Consequently these analyses neglect to examine the impact of transnational processes on the socio-organisational shifts observed. This article outlines the contours of a global political economy (GPE) of care with a view to elucidating the transnational dimensions to care restructuring. It focuses in particular on domestic care labour because of the extensive internationalisation of domestic services and its significance for the social relations of production and the division of labour. The discussion reflects on analytical issues for the academic study of social policy and care raised by a GPE approach.

1 Key texts A basic introduction to political philosophy, covering social justice and related issues well is: Kymlicka, W. (2002), Contemporary political philosophy: an introduction, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

A. Hall and J. Midgely (2004), Social Policy for Development, Sage, London, 288 pages.

I. Gough and G. Wood (2004), Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Cambrdige University Press, Cambridge, 363 pages.

E. Rieger and S. Leibfried (2003), Limits to Globalization, Blackwell, Oxford, 402 pages.

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.

This article argues the case for the integration of a global perspective within social policy as a means of enriching teaching and learning methods and experiences. We review the various ways in which such a perspective is currently integrated into social policy degrees and address some of the opportunities and challenges for teaching and learning that it involves. We consider current thinking on curriculum development, which, we contend, can facilitate the integration of a global perspective into social policy analysis and the alignment of the various factors influencing student learning.

In addition to the references listed at the end of the articles and those discussed in the review article included in this themed section, there are a number of more general texts examining globalism and transnationalism as they relate to social policy. The selection we provide below is ordered alphabetically.