This chapter sets out the rationale, scope and organization of the book. It situates the two policy tensions of interest in the book within wider debates about the meaning of ‘care’ and appropriate policy and legal responses to societies’ care and support needs, in light of the growing demand for, and declining supply of, care and support. While the book is intended to contribute to international conversations currently underway, its main focus is on policy in ‘liberal’ welfare states. The principles proposed in the book are designed to respond to the shortcomings of both long-standing features of these systems (including the provision of modest ‘safety net’ benefits for those who cannot resort to the family or market) and more recent effects of neoliberal reforms that had led to the withdrawal and marketization of services and the prioritization of paid work participation as the essential activity of citizenship. Case studies of recent policy reforms in two broadly liberal welfare states – Australia and the UK – explore the care policy tensions and application of the principles in this wider context later in the book, and this chapter also includes an explanation of the purpose of these case studies and the case study methodology.

This chapter discusses the contributions and limits of the approach described in this book and summarizes the book’s main themes. These themes include the necessity and value for multiple constituencies of a more coordinated, rights-based approach to the design of care and support policy and the challenges of pursuing rights-based reform in Australia, England and the other liberal welfare states, especially in light of the ongoing processes of neoliberal marketization, individualization of responsibility, prioritization of ‘active’ citizenship and, in much of the world, the now entrenched resource constraints associated with austerity. Ultimately, I argue that the principles can make a practical contribution to efforts to build solidarity between care and support constituencies, challenge prevailing norms of citizenship that prioritize independence and paid work participation and establish care and support as accepted and valued activities of citizenship.