Abstract
New mechanisms of conditionality enacted through current reforms of the UK welfare system are framed within contested narratives about the characteristics, rationalities and conduct of welfare users. In the problem figuration of welfare reform the orientations and conduct of welfare recipients have been conceptualised and depicted across a spectrum ranging from cynical manipulators gaming the system and subverting the original ethos of the welfare state to vulnerable individuals experiencing compounded disadvantage. This paper aims to strengthen the conceptualisation of cynical manipulation and vulnerability and to empirically investigate how narratives of these ideas are deployed by key stakeholders in the welfare system and the extent to which manipulation or vulnerability are present in the orientations and conduct of individuals in receipt of welfare support.
Highlights
The reform of the welfare system in the UK, including the enhanced use of conditionality, is situated within a particular problem figuration (Van Wel, 1992) and rationalities of government (Foucault, 1991) about the characteristics, rationalities and conduct of welfare recipients
This paper aims to strengthen the conceptualisation of cynical manipulation and vulnerability and to empirically investigate how narratives of these ideas are deployed by key stakeholders in the welfare system and the extent to which manipulation or vulnerability are present in the orientations and conduct of individuals in receipt of welfare support
UK governmental and many media discourses have emphasised the potential cynical manipulation of welfare mechanisms by individuals gaming the system to claim benefits to which they are not entitled or who fail to actively engage sufficiently in actions aimed at ending or reducing their dependency on welfare support. These rationalities are challenged by an alternative problem figuration which emphasises the structural causes of reliance upon welfare and the multiple forms of vulnerability experienced by many welfare recipients;forms of disadvantage that, it is argued, are compounded by new regimes of conditionality and fiscal sanction
Summary
The reform of the welfare system in the UK, including the enhanced use of conditionality, is situated within a particular problem figuration (Van Wel, 1992) and rationalities of government (Foucault, 1991) about the characteristics, rationalities and conduct of welfare recipients. UK governmental and many media discourses have emphasised the potential cynical manipulation of welfare mechanisms by individuals gaming the system to claim benefits to which they are not entitled or who fail to actively engage sufficiently in actions aimed at ending or reducing their dependency on welfare support. These rationalities are challenged by an alternative problem figuration which emphasises the structural causes of reliance upon welfare and the multiple forms of vulnerability experienced by many welfare recipients;forms of disadvantage that, it is argued, are compounded by new regimes of conditionality and fiscal sanction. Claims for the primacy of manipulation or vulnerability as defining characteristics of welfare recipients are widespread, there is, to date, limited empirical evidence about the extent to which these orientations and conduct are present among this population
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