Abstract
This article considers the changing nature of social work in England and Sweden in the context of neoliberal reforms, and the consequences of the ongoing shifts to marketisation and differentiation, managerialism and performativity. Drawing on secondary sources and some interview data from English and Swedish social workers, the article argues that social workers in England and Sweden face similar shifts as marketisation, differentiation, managerialism and its related performativity reshape the occupation, all related to the influence of the macro-context of neoliberalism. 'Evidence based practice' has become elevated as an important approach in line with increasing managerialism and performativity, affecting micro processes of everyday working life. Differences between the two countries lie largely in the timing of reforms and how social workers respond to them in organised ways - through mobilisation within the profession in England and through trades unions and local authorities in Sweden. The changes create uncertainty for social workers; while they are not merely passive victims of change they face difficult conditions in which to forge alternative models of professional practice. Contrary to what might have been expected, given the different social, political and historical legacies in Sweden and England of social democracy and liberalism respectively, comparing the social work occupation in these two countries finds many more similarities than differences in how marketisation, differentiation, managerialism and performativity impact on the occupation.
Highlights
At different times and in different ways both Sweden and England became increasingly subject to markets, along with the associated competition and risks, as well as a concern for individualization and the accountabilities of self-responsibilization which accompanied the regimes that followed
Managerialisation and performativity on the other, continuing with a discussion about the profession of social work in the context of managerial changes and evidence based practice. This latter discussion involves consideration, as indicated above, of some empirical data to illustrate the operationalization of managerial practices and mindsets from the private sector into the public realm at the meso level, since it is this that acts as the glue of wider political and economic forces, dubbed collectively neo-liberalism which operates at the macro level to embed processes of performativity through evidence based practice
In Sweden, semi-structured interviews were conducted with social work managers who dealt with individuals and families
Summary
At different times and in different ways both Sweden and England became increasingly subject to markets, along with the associated competition and risks, as well as a concern for individualization and the accountabilities of self-responsibilization which accompanied the regimes that followed. Political and historical legacies of the two countries led to a variation in the in the timing, extent and rigour of these developments; there was greater embeddedness of social democratic norms in Swedish civil society and the enhanced ability of public sector unions there to resist fundamental reform, leading Harvey (2005) to characterize the result as ‘circumscribed’ neo-liberalism. 7-8) argue that the elevation of scientific forms of knowledge over narrative forms provides a discourse of truth about the way things work in society and thereby legitimation for managerial over professional varieties of understanding and knowing, thereby neutralizing or foreclosing political debate They use Lyotard’s concept of performativity to describe the resulting practices. This latter discussion involves consideration, as indicated above, of some empirical data to illustrate the operationalization of managerial practices and mindsets from the private sector into the public realm at the meso level, since it is this that acts as the glue of wider political and economic forces, dubbed collectively neo-liberalism which operates at the macro level to embed processes of performativity through evidence based practice
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