In 2003, with the publication of the Green Paper on childhood, under the slogan «Every Child Matters», the British government announced the reform of the social assistance for children, young people and families. The policy is still at the initial stage of , implementation so it is not yet possible to assess its effects. In any case, the analysis of discourses constructed around it allows ascertaining the type of relationship created between value systems and policy mechanisms, beliefs behind the policies and hypothesised implementation tools. The arti-cle analyses, on the basis of documents available on the net, the intentions of the policy-makers responsible for the introduction of the new UK policy on childhood, focusing mainly on the conceptual and theoretical premises.only subscribers can see the full article

The essay starts from the enigma of the contemporary forms of populism expressed by the Uk’s coalition government: how do we interpret an unpopular populism? It highlights some principal features of the discourse and practice characterizing the Coalition’s policies, defining a somewhat unstable mixture of strategies aimed at legitimating the government itself and the austerity polices of cuts in public spending and reform of the public services. It suggests that the populist aspects are part of a wider repertoire, which speaks in particular the language of making a virtue of necessity and social authoritarianism. This mixture of austerity, populism and authoritarianism is linked to analyses of the past on Thatcherism and «authoritarian populism» in the Uk. The final section of the essay reflects once again on the enigma of an unpopular populism, bringing out how the Coalition’s populism does not seem to receive support. Does this mean that the Coalition project is to be interpreted as a political mobilization that has failed or as a demobilization that has succeeded?only subscribers can see the full article

The paper gives an overview of the historical evolution and characteristics of the s in Germany, the Uk and the Usa. The article also proposes an economic interpretation of differences between the three countries. Germany and the Uk, through different models, assure universal access to health services. In the Usa the residual role of public funding doesn’t manage to make up for shortcoming in the private sector, leaving almost a third of the population without any insurance or with insufficient insurance coverage. High health spending in the Usa, incrementing the diffusion of increasingly expensive new technologies and therapeutic approaches, can put universalistic systems under pressure. To maintain the present structure of European health systems, it is necessary to manage the diffusion of new technologies.only subscribers can see the full article