Assets in the Context of Welfare Theory: A Developmentalist Interpretation

Although asset policies and programs are seldom linked to wider theoretical debates in social welfare, this paper contends that an understanding of these debates contextualizes asset interventions and clarifies underlying values and ideological beliefs. Contrasting different normative perspectives in contemporary social welfare theory, the paper suggests that developmentalism offers a congenial normative framework for asset programs. In this way, the wider goals of asset programs and their value implications may be explicated and comprehended