Global Social Policy Responses to the Economic Crisis

This chapter is set within the analytical framework developed in Deacon 2007, which argues that global social policy and governance is characterised by a struggle between agencies for the right to shape social policy and the content of that policy. In this context, it reviews the responses made by international organisations (UN system, World Bank, IMF etc) to the global economic crisis in terms of what they imply for global and national social policy. The chapter focuses on three related issues central to the responses made by International Organisations to the global economic and social crisis: the renewed focus engendered by the crisis on a Global Social Floor or Social Protection Floor; the global funding of social expenditure; and the renewed call for the establishment of an Economic Security Council to ensure better that the UN, as distinct from the IFIs, is at the heart of global economic and social governance. It thus reviews the renewed debate on global governance reform triggered by the crisis.