This study investigates how young, well-educated, unemployed people are governed and how they govern themselves through affective capacities, focusing here on shame and passion. The empirical material consists of field observations made at an unemployment fund and in-depth interviews with 33 young unemployed people in the Danish welfare state. Inspired by governmentality studies including recent contributions concerning affectivity, I analyse how affect, emotions, and feelings are pivotal instruments of governmentality. On the one hand, unemployed people are encouraged to cultivate a passion for their profession and display this passion in their quest for a job. On the other hand, they are encouraged to feel ashamed for receiving unearned money from the state. The study applies the theoretical framework from governmentality studies and combines it with concepts in Ahmed (2014) in order to unfold the affective sides of governing young unemployed people. The study contributes theoretically by developing Ahmed's idea of "sticky emotions" in an explicit psychological manner by identifying an embodied and a phenomenological dimension. It concludes that shame and passion influence unemployed people differently in relation to their subjective life courses as well as in relation to their social and societal circumstances and that people deal with the stickiness of unemployment shame in different ways. Some get rid of it by sticking it to other unemployed groups and some by dis-identifying with their formal status and instead conducting themselves as freelancers. The study begins to fill in the gap of how the more diffuse sides of governing can be made psychologically identifiable and in doing so it sheds light on the intimate relationship between politics and psychology.

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In this paper, we investigate how young unemployed people make sense of their situation in the face of adversity. Drawing on Cultural Life Course Theory and a new line of research on imagination, this multiple-case study examines the role of imagination for young unemployed people. Based on three in-depth interviews with young academics, we find that the ability to imagine a better future is pivotal for these young people in dealing with unemployment. We integrate the theoretical concept of imagination with Bronfenbrenner's theory of ecological system. The integrative framework provides a multi-leveled analysis that examines how imaginations work at various levels and how these interact. Imaginations originate from subjective ideas about the future, developed biographically and in dialogue with others as well as societal discourses. We utilize Stern's concept of experience when investigating how the individual has to relate to what we term the ''polyphonic choir of imaginations'' consisting of various and sometimes contradictory voices about what it means to be unemployed. Neoliberal policies introduced in the Danish welfare state and neoliberal ideas are singled out as particularly influential. This paper highlights the importance of taking into account temporality in the sense that visions about the future greatly impact how people deal with unemployment here-and-now.

This case study investigates the affective governing of young unemployed people, and it concludes that getting money in the Danish welfare state comes with an “affective price”. In the quest for a job, unemployed people have been increasingly responsibilized in order to live up to the ideal of the active jobseeker. Consequently, when faced with unemployment, they are encouraged to work harder on themselves and their motivation. Based on an interview study with young unemployed people (N=39) and field observations made at employment fund agencies in Denmark (2014–15), I explore how young unemployed people are governed by and through their emotions. By supplementing governmentality studies (Foucault et al. 1988, 2010) with the concept of “affective economy” from Ahmed (2014), I discuss how young unemployed people who receive money from the Danish state are placed in a situation of debt. The paper unfolds how this debt becomes visible as the unemployed people often describe feeling under suspicion for not doing enough, for not being motivated enough. Through an abundance of (pro) activity, they have to prove the suspicion of being lazy wrong, and through managing themselves as active jobseekers, they earn the right to get money from the state. Here motivation, passion and empowerment are key currencies. I discuss the intricate interplay between monetary and affective currencies as well as political implications in the context of the Danish welfare. The article contributes by making visible the importance of taking affective matters into account when investigating the complex relationship between politics and psychology.

In this article, we examine how employees experience different types of work commitment at an IT consultancy company using agility to give staff greater autonomy and decision-making latitude. We analyze its agile practices through an in-depth case study comprising interviews and non-participative observation of managers and employees, concluding that the company aims to increase autonomy and decision-making latitude by introducing agile approaches to project management, but thereby risks eroding its employees’ commitment. Indeed, the new social dynamics engender new professional insecurities and decision-making passivity and appear to lack a clear organizational purpose, thus challenging certain aspects of employee commitment.