Welfare states face profound challenges. Widening economic and social inequalities have been intensified by austerity politics, sharpened by the rise in ethno-nationalism and exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, recent decades have seen a resurgence of social justice activism at both the local and the transnational level. Yet the transformative power of feminist, anti-racist and postcolonial/decolonial thinking has become relatively marginal to core social policy theory, while other critical approaches - around disability, sexuality, migration, age and the environment - have found recognition only selectively. This book provides a much needed new analysis of this complex landscape, drawing together critical approaches in social policy with intersectionality and political economy
