ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a social policy framework for thinking about intercountry adoption (ICA), drawing on theories of welfare regimes and globalization. Typologies of fundamental welfare approaches, or ‘regimes’, originated in analyses of nation-state policies, but nowadays have additional value as models for understanding globalization. The framework shows how ICA interacts with national child and family welfare policies in receiving and sending countries; and beyond that, how it links with wider, global social policy. Looking at ICA in this way highlights the tensions and ambiguities of its policy contexts and consequences, and the possibilities of a more radical approach. Romania’s ban on ICA is discussed as an example. The model also sheds light on the dilemmas that ICA raises for social work policy and practice under the different welfare approaches.
