Social Policy across Borders: Commonalities, Convergence and Paradoxes in Connectivity, 1850-1975

Description

Deadline for Registration: 5 September 2008

Programme and Registration
Please click on the appropriate links on the right hand side of the page. The standard fee is £25 and £15 for students.

Convenors:
Martin Daunton (Trinity Hall, Cambridge)
Julia Moses (St John's College, Cambridge)

Foreign models play a critical role in contemporary debates about social policy. Politicians, journalists and experts frequently cite foreign models when seeking viable alternatives or when merely framing political arguments. The origins and functions of these policy models, however, remain little understood. In the current climate of increasing global connectedness, it is now the time to understand better how and why policy models travel across borders.

This conference will explore the widespread domestic, transnational and international communication about social policy since 1850. During this period, international communication about policy has become increasingly possible due to media innovations and new modes of travel. It has also been during this period that states, international organisations and networks of experts have begun to adopt or advocate expansive social policies. This conference aspires to bring together a variety of new findings on how foreign and international ideas about social policy have been assimilated, transformed or rejected in this process of communication. It thereby seeks to serve as an illustrative platform for further research into this important area.

An international group of established scholars and advanced post-graduate students from a variety of disciplines have committed to explore global connections about social policy, including those between extra-European and European states, transnational networks of experts and colonies and metropoles, amongst others. In addition, participants will explore the role of transnational and international fora, including the League of Nations, the World Health Organisation and similar bodies, in this exchange.

 

Sponsors 

This conference is being organised with support from the British Academy, the Trevelyan Fund with the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge, the Royal Historical Society, the McArthur Fund, and CRASSH.

 

 

 

For administrative enquiries please contact mm405@cam.ac.uk