On occasion it makes sound sense to undertake a retrospective review of a late colleague's contribution to his or her subject area. This applies to Robert Pinker, Professor of Social Administration at the London School of Economics, who died at the age of 89 in February 2021. Over a long life he made a major impact on working for press freedom and to social work studies, but this article concerns his work on social policy, and particularly on the idea of welfare pluralism, a many-faceted idea the exploration of which powered two pathbreaking books Social Theory and Social Policy (1971) and The Idea of Welfare (1979). In the twentieth century many states including the United Kingdom had greatly expanded their welfare provisions for their citizens, and, in some, an academic subject area, often called social administration or social policy had grown in response. Pinker started writing in the 1960s, dissatisfied with the conventional approach of Richard Titmuss and others, almost exclusively concerned with the state and welfare. He made the case for a radical rebalance toward including everyday experiences of obligations and how familial informal welfare practices are strengthened, weakened or modified by formal social services. However, ahead of his time, Pinker was arguing for an enhanced sociological imagination in the study of social policy and on the very idea of "welfare". This article has sections reflecting the facets of Pinker's thinking about welfare pluralism, including "social policy's past", "exchange and stigma", "taking informal welfare seriously", "divergent views of altruism", "comparative studies", "on a mixture of means to welfare" and "aspects of Pinker's legacy". The idea of welfare pluralism is now familiar. But Pinker's crucial pioneering role, depth of understanding of the issues and grasp of their intertwining is seldom recalled. This article should help to meet the need for his contribution to be reinserted into the mainstream of sociological thought on welfare, so enriching new research.

This chapter focuses on some substantive sociology which, it is argued, is of particular relevance to social work education and practice. Sociologists of religion are not concerned to improve religious experience; similarly, the sociology of welfare is defined as such by a concern not with improving welfare, but with understanding welfare relations as social relations. A focus on 'social problems' and how to solve them is characteristic of the studies undertaken within the subject of social administration. The arguments of the previous two paragraphs about relationships between social administration and the sociology of welfare apply with only minor changes if 'social administration' is replaced by 'social work education and practice'. The interests both of sociology in general and of social work would be well served by extensive research into these matters. Healthy flesh is appearing on the skeletal outlines provided by Dingwall as a result of several studies.

This article attempts to retrieve important aspects of Spencer's sociology from the general neglect and misrepresentation which threatens to overwhelm it all. It does touch in passing on many such highly dubious contentions as that he was a “social Darwinist,” but the prime focus is to deal with three linked themes. First, the article examines the significance of his attribution to individuals of “social self-consciousness” as part of sociality, thus distancing it from Durkheim's influential but suspect reading of Spencer's individuals as egoistic. Second, it rescues his concept of “the social organism” from misinterpretation. His own writings show it to be a more rigorous and suggestive attempt to configure the morphology of “the social” than commonly assumed. Third, it reconstructs the status of his contrast between “militant” and “industrial” social forms as a contrast between different but more general forms of social life that those descriptions in fact register. With the focus on these three linked themes the article improves the historical accuracy of our understanding of Spencer's sociology. It also repositions key aspects of it as not alien, quaint and a spent force, but ontologically challenging and possibly prescient for debates about the meaning of “the social” today.

This article presents new insights into Spencer's theoretical sociology as he applied it to the professions and professional institutions, which he discussed extensively, particularly in his Principles of Sociology. The first part of this article notes the main conceptual insights which he established and aligns them within the wider context of a re-reading of Spencer's sociology. Particular attention is paid to the “social organism” and the spontaneous cooperation of social individuals in society (with each possessing “social self-consciousness”). This part also reappraises Spencer's account of the emergence of “professionals” and their distinctive “cunning, skill, and acquaintance with the nature of things,” which professionals have brought to bear on what has been experienced in the ordinary social lives of people as complexity or the unfamiliar in the world. The subsequent discussion focuses on, first, a retrieval of Spencer's theoretical stance on the activities of the professions, and on work and conditions in general, and, second, on reviewing some of the major resonances which his work has with practical problems and the associated theoretical issues concerning the sociological understanding of professional/service-user interaction in social life today.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses Richard Titmuss's role in the making of British social policy studies after World War II. He begins with his impressions of Titmuss and his early experiences, and how his thoughts on the ends and means of social policy developed to maturity. In 1950, Titmuss published Problems of Social Policy, a study of the impact of war on British civil society and the response of the social services. During that same year, he was appointed to the Chair of Social Administration at the London School of Economics. Pinker considers a number of distinctive and often controversial features that characterised Titmuss's collectivist and unitary approach to the discussion of social policy and social problems. He also talks about the ‘conditional’ as opposed to what Titmuss claims is the open-ended nature of altruism and reciprocity in everyday life by focusing on on Titmuss's 1970 book The Gift Relationship.

One writer has described welfare pluralism as ‘a vital, but relatively neglected, part of social policy’ (Powell, 2007: 2). Pinker, however, did not neglect it. The third section explores some of the key arguments for pluralism in social policy in the UK which Pinker has highlighted since the 1980s. In this section in particular, space considerations have meant that it is a necessity that some of the many interesting essays by Pinker on pluralism have to be summarised here rather than reprinted.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker considers the more recent debates about community care as a key policy idea for social care by focusing on the recovery and cultivation of community that were on display in London in the 1880s in the Settlement Movement, and, in particular, at Toynbee Hall. Toynbee Hall, according to Pinker, was representative of the cross-currents of ideology and interest which were to transform the state–civil society relations in the formulation of British social welfare policies during the twentieth century. Pinker discusses some general issues with respect to formal social services and informal care in Britain. He also describes the community care programme at the University of Kent that focused on the decentralisation and specialisation of social work services for elderly people living in the community. Finally, he comments on the Griffiths proposals for community care and their implications for local authority personal social services.

The role of charity as a provider of relief was notably little discussed in the comprehensive English Poor Law Report of 1834. By contrast, however, the debate at the time in Ireland over whether any kind of Poor Law at all was desirable ranged much more broadly, with the respective roles of statutory and voluntary provision hotly contested. In fact, beyond the confines of the English Report itself, the topic of the place of charity in relief was exercising plenty of minds on both shores of the Irish Sea. This article examines aspects of the intellectual importance accorded to the role of individual charity and wider voluntary action in welfare provision across the British Isles by some of the central figures in the English and Irish Poor Law debates in the 1830s. It is a study of how justifications were forged to underpin charitable activity and specific policy proposals as advanced by the main proponents of Christian political economy from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries, including William Paley, Thomas Robert Malthus, John Bird Sumner, Edward Copleston, James Ebenezer Bicheno, Thomas Chalmers and Richard Whately. The discussions of Irish circumstances and problems furnish new insights into the substance and reach of a philosophy of charity' which was firmly in place by the 1830s.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker explains the main reasons for his dissent to the Report of the Working Party on the Role and Tasks of Social Workers, also known as the Barclay Report. The working party, headed by Peter Barclay, was established in 1980 ‘to review the role and tasks of social workers in local authority social services departments and related voluntary agencies in England and Wales and to make recommendations’. The Barclay Report argued that social work was necessary, but urged a new emphasis on ‘community social work’. Pinker was opposed to the neighbourhood social care model proposed by Roger Hadley and the community social work model. He argues that the report's proposal was a prescription for managerial chaos. Pinker concludes with a discussion of the implications of the Barclay Report for the education and training of social workers.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker examines how civil war influences T.H. Marshall's hypothesis that the civil, political and social rights of citizenship developed under conditions of peace. Using the examples of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Pinker discusses the conditions in which the advancement of welfare or well-being is likely to be seriously disrupted by focusing on Marshall's theory of citizenship and welfare. Marshall describes three key elements in the status of citizenship: civil rights, political rights and social rights. Pinker traces the history of the often conflictual relationship between England and Ireland in order to address a gap in Marshall's theory of citizenship and welfare, rendering it open to criticism. He suggests that civil wars ‘are not fought over the conventional issues of social welfare. Ordinary people are not prepared to kill or be killed in the cause of better social services’.

Social policies concerned with the areas of social care and of social work as a profession have always been topics on which Pinker has made significant contributions. His writings more frequently and in more detail dealt with what are often referred to as the ‘personal social services’ than those of, say, ...

In this chapter, Robert Pinker considers the ways in which different generations of students perceive the history of social policy as well as the different vantage points in time from which each of us look back on our own lives. Pinker first discusses some of the scholars who had influenced his approach to the study of social policy from the 1950s onwards, including Richard Titmuss, T.H. Marshall, Brian Abel-Smith, and O.R. McGregor. He then describes the academic context in which he started his career and wrote Social Theory and Social Policy and explains his interest in developing theories and models of social welfare for purposes of historical and comparative research. Pinker also talks about the variety of topics he explored in his research, such as the moral dynamics of welfare institutions.

This book looks at the concept of stigma in the context of social welfare. The idea of 'social welfare' is commonly identified with the 'social services'. Both terms are regrettably unclear. 'Welfare' can be taken to mean 'relief'; a 'welfare recipient' is someone who receives a monetary allowance. Secondly, 'welfare' refers to individual well-being; in economics, 'social welfare' refers to the overall well-being of a society. Thirdly, it signifies a pattern of organised activities equivalent to the social services (Butterworth, Holman, 1975, 15). This is the principal use of the term in studies of social administration. Social welfareis an omnibus term used to cover a wide range of activities in society. These activities are concerned with the maintenance or promotion of social well-being. (Ibid, 14) This is a very wide concept. 'Social well-being' covers anything that could be argued to be good for society. All collectively provided services, Titmuss writes, are deliberately designed to meet socially recognised needs (1955, 39). ('Need' is used to signify those things which are deemed essential for the well-being of individuals or groups.) But not all services provided on this basis are social services: the army is an obvious example. The needs that are dealt with are of a specific kind. The services which are most commonly accepted in Britain as being social services are health, housing, education, social security and social work. They have in common, not only that they provide for needs, but that people receive directly a good or a service from them and are therefore dependent. Titmuss refers to states of dependency which are recognised as collective responsibilities (1955, 42-3). These include injury, disease, disability, old age, childhood, maternity and unemployment. People in these circumstances rely on socially provided goods and services, and it is this reliance which is the distinguishing characteristic of social welfare and the social services. Eyden writes that A social service is a social institution that has developed to meet the personal needs of individual members of society not adequately or effectively met by either the individual from his own or his family's resources or by commercial or industrial concerns. (in Byrne, Padfield, 1978, 1) This definition implies, firstly, that the social services respond to individual need; and secondly, that they do so only when other methods have failed. This is true of some services, but not of others: education, or health, are accepted as social services, but are provided without regard to other resources which could meet the need. Greve (1971), by contrast, cites a definition of a social service from a UN report: lt is an organized activity that aims at helping towards a mutual adjustment of individuals and their social environment. This objective is achieved through the use of techniques and methods which are designed to enable individuals, groups and communities to solve their problems of adjustment to a changing pattern of society, and through co-operatlve action to improve economic and social conditions. (Greve, 1971, 184-5) The definition, Greve notes, makes three points. The first is that the provision of social services is not simply a transaction in which a passive person receives bounty (in the form of cash, kind or counselling) from the rest of the community. Nor, as many still think, is a social service concerned to get people to adjust unilaterally to society or to their possibly squalid environment. ... society must also adjust to the individual. (Ibld, p 185 ) The second point is that social services help groups and communities, not only individuals. Eyden suggested that social services were individual and residual. But dependency is not necessarily a feature of individuals: a group or community may be collectively dependent. The third point is that there is a 'positive, developmental function' pursued through'co-operative action'.This is a good definition, but it has its weaknesses. Its essential flaw is that it is prescriptive rather than descriptive. It puts great emphasis on self-determination either by enabling people to meet their needs, or by cooperative action - when the relationship may be one of passive dependency. It emphasises mutual adjustment, whereas the reality may be a matter of social control. The concept of dependency does not in itself imply either adjustment or control, or determine a developmental function; but it is consistent with them, as it is consistent with other policies. A social service can be defined as a social institution which is developed to provide for those conditions of dependency which are recognised as collective responsibilities. This is a restricted definition, but I believe it reflects the actual use of the term. Housing, health, social security, education and social work are social services because they deal with conditions of dependency. Urban planning, road building, libraries and the police force do not. This is the distinction between social and public services. The distinction may seem irrational, and in some ways it is. The study of social policy has moved increasingly towards treating them on an equivalent basis; but 'social policy', which takes in any policy affecting relations in society, is a wider concept than a study of the social services. The distinction is not completely arbitrary; states of dependency do present a distinctive set of problems, and those problems are central to this study. 'Social welfare' is not used quite synonymously with 'social services', although the terms are very close: references to 'social welfare services' can be found (e.g. Reisman, 1977, 50), which seem to mean, not services to promote welfare, but rather services which perform the function called 'social welfare'. Social welfare can be defined as organised activity to improve the condition of people who are dependent. Stigma and social welfare Stigma is an important concept in the study of social administration; it has been described as the central issue (Pinker, 1971, 136). A stigma marks the recipient of welfare, damages his reputation, and undermines his dignity. It is a barrier to access to social services, and an experience of degradation and rejection. The imposition of stigma, Pinker writes, is the commonest form of violence used in democratic societies. (1971, 175). Although some sociologists have tried to claim it for their own (e.g. Lemert, 1972, 15), 'stigma' is not an academic term; people who are embarrassed or ashamed of their dependency on social services use the word to describe their feelings. An unemployed miner talks about the stigma of going up to the dole every week, I think it's awful. (cited Gould, Kenyon, 1972, 21) A tenant of a 'sink' estate says, It is stigmatised ... You felt ashamed to say you were from Abbeyhills, because of the stigma. (Flessati, 1978) A person who had been committed to a mental institution for three days ln 1935 wrote to a Royal Commission more than twenty years later asking to get my name off your registers so that I no longer bear the stigma of being a certified person. (Cmnd.169, 1957, 97) And a recipient of Supplementary Benefit complains, It's shame, the stigma of it. Richardson, Naidoo, 1978, 27) 'Stigma' is a part of common speech; and, like many other common words, it has no precise definition, but is used in a way that assumes other people will understand it. Exposition of the concept has been limited, and the idea has been accepted, for the most part, uncritically. References to 'stigma' ln studies of social administration tend to be made in passing; they are asserted, without the benefit of reason or evidence. I have built up an argument, in many places, on the basis of references like these - a short passage from one book, a phrase from another - in order to illustrate both the way the idea is used, and some of the underlying assumptions made about it. The result is, I hope, rather more than a selective review; it is an attempt to clarify the different uses of the word, to establish whether a coherent concept can be constructed, and to see what the implications of the idea of stigma are for social policy.

Pinker’s best known book is Social Theory and Social Policy, published in 1971. Its primary task was to review the problematic assumptions and methods in the study of social policy which Pinker found in the new academic subject of what was then called ‘social administration’. Later, in 2000, Pinker gave a lecture offering a bird’s-eye view of some of the formative influences he experienced as a Research Officer and student from the mid-1950s at the London School of Economics, which gave him his abiding interest in the broad field of social policy studies....

In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses the complex relationship between social theory and social policy in democratic societies, focusing on the work of the philosophers Hilary Putnam and Karl Popper. Pinker first considers the distinction between scientific theory, normative theory and ideology and whether it is possible — or desirable — to design and implement rational social policies in the fractious world of democratic party politics. He then examines the interrelationships between policy making, policy research and public opinion and goes on to describe behavioural and structural models of poverty, as well as how poverty relates to liberal individualism, social inequality, socialism and collectivism. Pinker argues that the development and testing of theories is an essential element in the conduct of social research. He also comments on the work of Amartya Sen on the capability approach and its relevance to poverty analysis.

This book examines Robert Pinker's selected works on social policy and welfare pluralism, past and present. Pinker began writing on social policy in the 1960s, undertaking research work on issues such as the development of health care within the poor law. He published books devoted to social policy, including Social Theory and Social Policy (1971) and The Idea of Welfare (1979), along with various articles on complementary topics. Pinker's main concern was to rethink the study of social policy, arguing that ‘theory’ should not be confused with ideology or rhetoric. His ideas were primarily built around such themes as stigma, conditional altruism, access to land and property, giving and receiving, and migration and civil war. In Social Theory and Social Policy, Pinker highlighted the distinction in social life between ‘givers’ and ‘receivers’. He also made explicit the areas of study under the heading of ‘sociology of morals’.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker reflects on the implications of the largely unexpected outcome to the 2015 general election in the UK that termined the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition and saw the return of single party government by Conservatives for the first time since 1992. He first considers the social policy proposals set out in the Conservative and Labour Party 2015 election manifestos before discussing how the government clarified its post-election policy intentions in three keynote speeches as it prepared the ground for the Chancellor's presentation of his July Budget. He then analyses the Chancellor's position on tax credits, Labour's response to his budget proposals, the concurrent progress of its leadership election campaign and its eventual outcome. Pinker concludes with an assessment of the ways in which these events, and their ideological ramifications, might affect the prospects for health and social care in the UK over the next five years.

Since Sociology was established in 1967, the journal has assumed a significant role in shaping the discipline. In the interim years it is often said that the very practice of sociology has now spun out' beyond the dedicated departments that were once the centres of sociological practice. This raises questions as to the relationship between sociology and other disciplines, questions that are compelling and arguably distinct from a welcome recognition of sociology's undoubted intellectual hybridity. The extent to which this is a productive tension or one that requires a resolution is an ongoing conversation to which this special issue speaks. In this introductory article we take what we consider to be an innovative route that is guided by the theme of Bringing Sociology Home' whilst simultaneously recognising the enormous strengths brought by the multidisciplinary developments of the last 50 volumes. We set out the terrain before introducing a mixture of short and substantive papers from contributors, as well as interviews, with scholars who have made a contribution to the study of the discipline of sociology both inside and beyond the pages of the journal.