For the past decade, political scientist Sanford Schram has led the academic effort to understand how Americans and their political officials talk about poverty and welfare and what impact that discourse has on policy and on the global society.

In Welfare Discipline, Schram argues that it is time to take stock of the new forms of welfare and to develop even better methods to understand them. He argues for a more contextualized approach to examining welfare policy, from the use of the idea of globalization to justify cutbacks, to the increasing employment of U.S. policy discourse overseas, to the development of asset-based approaches to helping the poor.

Stressing the importance of understanding the ways we talk about welfare, how we study it, and, critically, what we do not discuss and why, Schram offers recommendations for making welfare policy both just and effective.

Sanford F. Schram is Visiting Professor and the Director of the Center on Ethnicities, Communities, and Social Policy at Bryn Mawr College. He is the author of three books, including Words of Welfare: The Poverty of Social Science and the Social Science of Poverty, which won the American Political Science Association's Michael Harrington Award.

"There are few, if any, better guides to the tortuous politics of welfare reform than Sanford Schram. His path-breaking contributions bear comparison to those of Piven and Cloward. I can think of no higher recommendation."—Jamie Peck, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Sandy Schram's Welfare Discipline provides a masterful overview of the key dimensions of recent welfare debates in the U.S.—globalization, gender, race, dependency, and asset-building strategies. He elaborates a powerful critique of current trends in welfare policy and develops a brave alternative based in compassionate liberalism. Welfare scholars will have to contend with this passionately argued book."—Fred Block, University of California, Davis

"This is a stylish and elegant book whose numerous fresh insights into the politics of welfare retrenchment represent a significant contribution to the existing literature. Persuasive, powerful, and provocative, it should be required reading for all students of welfare state development. One can only hope that it is equally widely read by those who make the policies and shape the discourses it so eloquently dissects."—Colin Hay, University of Birmingham, UK