social quality bridging asia and europe 2009外文电子书籍.pdfVIP

DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIETY Volume 38 | Number 2 | December 2009, 209-235 The Social Quality Approach: Bridging Asia and Europe* ALAN WALKER | University of Sheffield This paper sets out to achieve three aims. First of all it provides a basic introduction to the concept of social quality. This includes an outline of its architecture- constitutional, conditional and normative factors — and of the four key impulses that led to its development: ontological, methodological, sociological and normative. Then, secondly, it compares the East Asian and European social models. Although such summary accounts risk over-simplification, this section is critical to gain a broad understanding of the similarities and differences and prepare for the third and final part. Thus the third aim is to begin a discussion of how the European social quality approach might be applied to East Asia. The paper does so by working through the social quality architecture outlined earlier. The paper ends with a discussion of the role of political ideology in shaping stereotypes about Asia and Europe. Keywords: Social Quality, Europe, East Asia, Social Models, Social Policy *Originated as a key note lecture to the conference ‘Social Quality in Asia and Europe: Searching for Ways to Promote Social Cohesion and Social Empowerment’, Nanjing University, China, 24th October, 2008. DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIETY Vol. 38 No. 2 December 2009 Introduction This article introduces the concept of social quality and examines the extent of its applicability to Asian societies. This is an important issue because the concept was developed in Western Europe and the idea that it might be applied to other regions arose only subsequently. The article starts with an outline of the current state of play with regard to social quality theory: the concept is an organic one and still in development. It can, in other words, adapt in certain methodological respects, to