Expect increase in public disorder as spending and service cuts bite, warns social policy expert

The coalition risks losing public confidence in an era of increased public disorder, a leading thinker on social policy has warned.

Peter Taylor-Gooby predicts more riots, strikes and demonstrations as spending cuts and a far-reaching restructure of public services begin to make permanent changes to the nature of UK society.

In an article for the journal Social Policy and Society, published by Cambridge University Press, Peter Taylor-Gooby, Professor of Social Policy at the University of Kent, forecasts increasing social unrest of the type seen in the summer of 2011. His findings are based on a detailed analysis of demonstrations and major strikes in 26 countries with welfare states over 25 years from 1980 to 2005.

Researching strikes, riots and demonstrations all over Europe and as far from home as Japan, the US and Australia, Taylor-Gooby examined the social policy changes happening at the time of spikes in disorder and found a strong link between policies designed to restrict the welfare state and levels of citizen dissatisfaction with government that resulted in action on the streets.

He said: “This research reveals that spending cuts, privatisation and the increases in poverty that come with cutbacks to the welfare state lead to the undermining of a government’s legitimacy in the eyes of many of its citizens. This represents a serious threat to the peace and cohesion of our society as the effects of spending cuts and a reduced welfare state are increasingly felt by those who are either already disadvantaged or becoming so through lack of work and reduced public services.”

He added: “The Coalition seems prepared to risk both losing legitimacy and witnessing increasing unrest in order to pursue its agenda of cutting the deficit at all costs.”

Taylor-Gooby’s study is one of the few to compare actual civil unrest with concurrent social policy changes, using authoritative statiscs from international agencies. Previous studies have relied mainly on testing people’s attitudes and feelings toward their government at a time of cuts and restructures. He identifies five factors that tend to generate social disorder:

• spending cuts

• privatisation of services

• greater poverty

• a more work-centred benefit and labour market regime

• increasing variation in the provision of services across a nation

Taylor-Gooby writes: “Increased poverty is the leading factor in national policy that tends to increase social disorder. Privatisation, which reduces access to services for most people, comes next. Cuts in public spending are also associated with disorder. Increased poverty and privatisation are likely to have real effects in damaging social order.

“The Coalition might well wish to review its primary stated objective of eliminating the deficit through punitive cuts and privatisations. Opposition parties might want to take note that more egalitarian and inclusive social measures can win them friends at election time.”

Social Policy and Society is an international academic journal sponsored by the UK Social Policy Association. The journal publishes original articles on developments in the social sciences, topical debates and issues within social policy.

Peter Taylor-Gooby is internationally renowned in the field of new social risks, an area of study which he helped to pioneer.  He has advised both the UK and European governments on welfare reform and building public trust and his work has been influential across Europe and East Asia. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and Academician of the Academy of Social Science and was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to social science.

The full paper is available to read online at: http://journals.cambridge.org/taylor-gooby

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

About the UK Social Policy Association

The SPA is the professional association for teachers, researchers, students and practitioners of social policy. The association promotes the study of social policy and advances the role of social policy research within policy making, practice and wider public debates. Founded in 1972, it offers a wide range of services for all involved or interested in the subject and its development, both in the UK and internationally.

http://www.social-policy.org.uk/

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