This book analyses the legitimacy deficits in democratic welfare work using Habermas’ theories of communicative action, law and morality. Based on their underlying intersubjective perspectives, legitimacy problems can be identified and corrected, e.g. lack of confidence, dignity, respect, broken expectations, ignorance or mistrust of its administration. In modern societies with their many different contexts, a mutual understanding of facts, norms and expressions has become even more important in order to act constructively in daily life. These needs have increased the tension between the individual and the system, which becomes especially evident when globalised and individualised service users ask for welfare services. Therefore, professionals must develop an ability to understand how these legitimacy problems arise and how they can be dealt with democratically. This book responds to these needs, and will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners working across democratic welfare, social policy, social work, and sociology.
Author(s): Anita Kihlström
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 94
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Contents
1 Introduction: Legitimacy Deficit
1.1 An Illustration
1.2 A New Dependency
1.3 Communicative Challenges
1.4 Purpose and Outline of the Book
References
2 A Social Paradigm
2.1 What Is the Social?
2.2 Threatening, Empty, Civilizing or Playful?
2.3 A Risk for Oversocializing?
2.4 The Social as Regulating Communicative Actions
2.5 Summary
References
3 Communicative Legitimacy
3.1 Intersubjectivity as Mutual Understanding
3.1.1 Mead’s Intersubjectivity
3.1.2 Habermas’s Reconstruction to Mutual Understanding
3.1.3 Habermas’s Clarification of “the Generalized Other“
3.2 From Everyday Life to Systems
3.2.1 Social and System Integration
3.2.2 Everyday Horizons, the Lifeworld
3.2.3 System
3.3 Morality and Law
3.3.1 From Moralizing to Social Policy
3.3.2 Different Assignments for Morality and Law
3.3.3 The Legitimacy Gap
3.3.4 Discourse Theory of Morality4
3.3.5 Moral Feelings
3.3.6 Human Rights as Modern, Universal Values
3.4 Welfare Administrations
3.4.1 Power
3.4.2 The Client’s Role
3.4.3 The Professional’s Role
3.4.4 The Citizen’s Role
3.5 Summary
References
4 Conclusions: Legitimacy Challenges
4.1 Help and Control
4.2 Solidarity and Justice
4.3 Individual Freedom and Collective Will
4.3.1 Individualization
4.3.2 Collective Will
4.4 Recommendations for Welfare Work Professions
4.4.1 Professional Knowledge Requirements
References
Index
