International social welfare in a changing world

About this book

This book focuses on the increasing populations of homeless, displaced and marginalized people and on the expanding role of international agencies, international non-governmental organizations and bilateral programs providing relief, rehabilitation and social development services to them. Economic liberalization and the evolution of the global market, the collapse of the communist system and the rise of xenophobic nationalism, the militarization of the nation-state, the pauperization of large parts of Africa and Asia, and war are forces changing the political economy of the world, producing political and economic restructuring within and between states. New patterns of political, economic and social integration, fragmentation and disintegration have followed in the wake, leaving growing numbers of people dispossessed of the means to survive. International, multi-national and cross-national social welfare programs and services have developed to respond to the needs of pauperized people throughout the world.