Gregory White

BA (Hons) History and Politics (University of Leicester)
MA Global Social Policy (University of Sheffield)
MA Sociological Research (University of Sheffield)

email: gregory.white@sheffield.ac.uk

Thesis title / scope of research

"Responsibility and justice: investigating ethical approaches in global social policy"

My project aims to question the field of development in delivering social justice and human rights – both in terms of ethics and moral language. In global politics, ethics is central to understanding the evolution and development of policy initiatives. Indeed, just as an individual´s ethics shape their personal ideas, approaches and outlook, ethics might also be said to shape an institutions approach to a range questions – such as those in human rights discourses.

I intend to question what role ethics plays in global social policy, and, how this has evolved. In addition I am focusing on how we might make sense of the historical, theoretical or philosophical roots of key ethical concerns in global social policy. Key to this research will be contextual analysis of documents. This will be conducted using qualitative methods that analyse use of language in policy documents. The methodology here will develop our understanding of how over time, and between institutions, there has been mention of ethics.

The overall aim is to detect any trends of ethical language and whether it can be categorised in a framework.

The project is funded by the ESRC.

Supervisor(s)

• Dr Kevin Farnsworth
• Dr Zoe Irving

Other experience / research interests

My research interests include:

• Normative ethics and moral language
• Global justice
• Human rights
• Global social policy
• Development and redistribution
• Globalization and global governance