Setting the Scene

The individual has never been more important. In politics, education, the workplace, health and social care, leisure and almost every other sphere of public and private life the individual and his or her capacities are sovereign. Yet this importance and apparent power assigned to the individual is not all that it seems. As we shall argue here, it has gone hand in hand with a subtle authoritarianism that has insinuated itself into the government of the population. In this book we will be considering the ‘public sphere’ as broadly conceived, but we have a particular interest in health and social care. The trend towards individualism has been identified throughout the body politic in many nations, especially in the ‘developed world’, yet it is perhaps most conspicuous in health and social welfare, such that a kind of ‘governance through responsibility’ is enjoined upon the population.

This book documents and questions the current prevalence of individualized ways of thinking and healthcare solutions in contemporary policy in Europe and North America. Physical and mental health are conceptualized as never before as being to do with the individual's thoughts and actions. Yet this is certainly not the only way to think about health and leaves us poorly equipped to conceptualize, for example, the relationship between wellbeing and poverty or the strong connections between social cohesion, social capital and health.

Why This Book? Why Now?

The striking feature of individualism in health and social care policy is that it has colonized so much of the social fabric and so many of the ways in which we attempt to take care of ourselves and one another.