Promoting social goals through economisation? Social investment and the counterintuitive case of homelessness

IF 4.3 2区 管理学 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE
F. Laruffa
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Within the welfare state literature, critics of social investment have argued that its economic logic replaces ‘social’ considerations (for example, focused on rights/needs) and that this could reinforce the marginalisation of vulnerable populations, as they are unattractive ‘human capital’. Against this background, this article focuses on the counterintuitive case of the social investment approach to homelessness promoted by the European Commission. Through the comparison with previous EU initiatives in the homelessness field, the analysis reveals that while social investment partially replaces values-based logics with the economic rationale, it involves the same ‘solutions’ as values-oriented approaches, that is, preventing/combating homelessness can be justified interchangeably following an ‘economic’ or a ‘social’ logic. To explain this paradoxical result, the article draws from the political economy literature, which shows how disadvantage can be transformed into an investment object. Overall, this study suggests understanding social investment as a paradigm that attempts to promote the ‘social’ through its economisation.
通过节约促进社会目标?社会投资和反直觉的无家可归案例
在福利国家的文献中,社会投资的批评者认为,它的经济逻辑取代了“社会”考虑(例如,关注权利/需求),这可能会加强弱势群体的边缘化,因为他们是没有吸引力的“人力资本”。在此背景下,本文重点关注欧盟委员会推动的社会投资方法解决无家可归问题的反直觉案例。通过与欧盟之前在无家可归领域的举措进行比较,分析表明,虽然社会投资部分地用经济原理取代了基于价值的逻辑,但它涉及与以价值为导向的方法相同的“解决方案”,也就是说,预防/打击无家可归可以根据“经济”或“社会”逻辑互换。为了解释这一矛盾的结果,文章借鉴了政治经济学文献,展示了劣势如何转化为投资对象。总体而言,本研究建议将社会投资理解为一种范式,试图通过其经济化来促进“社会”。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
7.90
自引率
12.80%
发文量
32
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