Introduction

Historical sociologists who have turned their attention to the major social phenomena of our times, such as religion, modernity and the creation of the welfare state, have opened up critical debates about the nature of “agency, power, structure, and modernity” (Orloff, 2005, p 224). Many such authors (see the volume edited by Adams et al, 2005, as a prime example) argue for the centrality of considering cultural and historical forces that have shaped the key institutions, processes, social relations and concepts of modernity. To this end, Orloff (2005) argues that social welfare programmes constitute political processes and bases for mobilisation. This is reminiscent of Clarke's (2004) treatment of Gramsci's concept of the “national popular” and the central role of culture in social policy analysis. Both Clarke (2004) and Orloff (2005) point to ways in which social policy entails a form of social regulation, which actively constructs social identities of gender, class, race and ethnicity. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) programme in the US is often cited as one such illustration (Clarke, 2004).

A central argument emerges here for taking culture seriously in the analysis of social processes, the welfare state included. According to Orloff (2005), this entails abandoning the weak utilitarian concepts that underpin current social policy thinking in favour of deeper analyses of the self, based on a cultural view of a much broader phenomenon denoted as social action. To a large degree, it is this intellectual orientation that has defined the subject matter of this book. Moreover, it is fair to argue that, regardless of all the political controversies surrounding social conservatism that religion throws up, the issues that a religious worldview prevents us from losing sight of are indeed the big moral questions that concern the very nature, existence and purpose of human life (and creation).

In stating that welfare states are an intrinsically Western political phenomenon, Orloff (2005, p 223) affirms that they “are only one possible institutional form for more widespread activities of reproduction”. In this view, social policy is very much a tool of social control and social reproduction, one that can suppress dissent and revolution (ironically, not unlike the religious opiate) through measured provision of social welfare assistance. The beginnings of the “welfare” state are to be found in the security-oriented mentality of the inter-war years within Europe.