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This chapter explores some general issues in the book which looks at the positioning of social control practices in welfare arrangements for disadvantaged households, and identify some of the political underpinnings. There is a tentative hyposthesis promoted that identifies how a 'new behaviourism' in the UK social policy has been running since the 1990s through to the current Coalition era. The analysis indicates that the close interweaving of support with disciplinary interventions that persisted historically in some practice areas has been reinvigorated and reinterpreted through contemporary politics, particularly in low-income and vulnerable groups. There is a specific case study regarding disability and social control, demonstrating how this group are having a harder time under the Coalition government.

The chapter begins by surveying the social, economic and political developments that led to the decline of American liberalism in the 1960s in the face of a conservative revival. It argues that, largely under the influence of the New Left, feminism, and identity politics, one response of American liberalism was to reconfigure classical liberal individualism. A principal feature of this process was the creation by psychologists of an alternative parenting 'style' to the so-called 'permissiveness' (and individualism) of the Spock years. In explaining this transition, the chapter discusses the interrelationships between the collapse of liberalism, the reaction against authority, and the emergence of the 'new behaviorism'. It argues that these were instrumental in the creation and popularization of an alternative to the alleged failure of 'permissive' parenting (which was held to have weakened liberalism), namely that of psychologist Diana Baumrind's 'authoritative' style, which created a contractual 'interdependence' between parents and children, thereby stigmatizing an 'unconditional' approach to child rearing.

This chapter considers the foundations of parental narcissism. The chapter begins by referencing the shift from the 'Me' decade to the 'Me' millennium, so as to contextualise two critical political developments: the coming of the New Right and the failure of the Labour Party to counter its influence. The chapter shows how the New Right set about creating the economic and social agenda, not least through Sir Keith Joseph's cycle of deprivation thesis and his growing interest in 'parent education' as an antidote to  1960s permissiveness. The chapter then proceeds to examine the cultural remoralising of Britain that begin to occur in the 1970s with particular reference to the Labour Party's retreat from liberal social democratic principles to those of a more authoritarian character. The rightward (and authoritarian) drift was gradually confirmed by the introduction of the 'new behaviourism' into British psychology and particularly into health visiting and social work, which served to problematise children's behaviour in favour of parental convenience.