Policing Norwegian Welfare: Disciplining and Differentiating within the Bottom Rungs

Abstract

Policing is a disciplining means for using welfare services to govern welfare recipients towards a desired behaviour or goal. We apply Foucault's (1977) definition of institutional discipline as a means for exploring how the distinctions made by state and local welfare authorities in Norway when policing recipients may take shape according to normative perceptions of ethnicity and deservingness. More particularly, we explore the regulating understandings and activities linked to the inclusion and exclusion of eligibility to welfare benefits and services and the form of the services offered. Our focus lies at

A New Service Class in the Public Sector? The Role of Femonationalism in Unemployment Policies

“…Researchers have explored the configuration of crime control and migration control, conceptualised as 'crimmigration' (Barker, 2017), which is leading to the increasing criminalisation of migrants. Parallel to this, and to some extent embedded within one another, it is possible to clearly distinguish an increasing merge between social policy and labour policy, with higher demands towards racialised citizens participating in labour and language activities in order to obtain social assistance (Dahlstedt & Lalander, 2018;Gubrium & Fernandes, 2014). While it is the Swedish Public Employment Service that is responsible for implementing the government unemployment policies, the municipality is becoming a central actor within the unemployment area as municipalities are responsible for the unemployed that are dependent on social assistance (Vikman & Westerberg, 2017).…”

Stories told: integrational processes as experienced by immigrants with African backgrounds living in Norway

“…Since 1964, Norwegian welfare has been directed towards work activation and reducing dependency on welfare state benefits (Gubrium and Fernandes 2014). When studies from the 1990s showed that large groups of immigrants were highly dependent on social welfare, debates emerged as to whether the benefits provided for this group supported their efforts to become self-sustained (Djuve 2011).…”

“…In 2002, the Norwegian government passed the introduction law (Norwegian Government 2003), which included a mandatory introduction programme for groups of newly arrived immigrants to secure their participation in work and social life. Immigrants from Western countries were not included (Gubrium and Fernandes 2014). Participants in the programme are entitled to an individualized educational plan and each is assigned a programme advisor.…”

“…On one hand, the programme adopts an individualized approach to the problem of and solutions to worklessness, and on the other, assumes the need for a broad group of people to learn about Norwegian social and cultural issues. Gubrium and Fernandes point out that this combination ethnicizes worklessness (Gubrium and Fernandes 2014). The Norwegian system for the approval of foreign education is described as complicated and as having shortcomings (Lunde and Rogstad 2016).…”