Social quality - looking for a global social policy

Global (social) policy, human rights discussions and the UN-strive for Human Development and Human Security are all caught in two fundamental traps: The one is that they take a specific model of existing “developed countries” – i. e. advanced capitalism – as sole ideal without seriously reflecting other advanced models. A possible alternative – if imagined – is at most proposed by romanticised imaginations of a good society, in many cases referring to some kind of innocent ‘goodness’ of indigenous ways of life. The other trap is – not far from the said alternatives – a reference to abstract and isolated concepts of justice, freedom etc., referring to moral statements, however, isolating them from wider systematic socio-economic and politico-judicative thinking. The present volume attempts the difficult task of combining from a socio-philosophical perspective political economy and social law in order to develop an understanding of public responsibility for social quality in a global ambit. Special features of the volume are an introduction into the social quality approach, an excursus looking at Islam societies, and an excursus, looking at Asian understandings. Der Autor ist adjunct professor an der Universitaet Kuopio, Finnland (ab 1.1.2010 University of Eastern Finland) und adjunct senior lecturer an der Universitaet Cork, Ireland