“Running on Empty”: Australia’s Neoliberal Social Security System, 1988–2015

Watts, Rob

doi:10.1057/9781137535320_4

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Economically rationalist policies have created a workforce in which a growing number experience a precarious existence, characterised by unemployment, casualisation and underemployment (Beer et al, 2016;Benach et al, 2014;Campbell, 2008;Healy, 2016;Watts, 2016;Western, 2007). Full-time work has declined and, increasingly, people are employed in part-time and casual work.…”

Section: Casualisation and Underemployment: The Side Effects Of Efficmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the increasingly precarious nature of work is causing significant societal problems, particularly for marginal communities. Furthermore, the welfare provisions to support people who have become disenfranchised through this process have been continuously eroded by Australian governments since the 1980s (Watts, 2016).…”

Section: Casualisation and Underemployment: The Side Effects Of Efficmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the years following the Second World War, welfare had been developed as a safety net to support people in such a situation, emphasising respect and dignity as basic human rights to be protected (Watts, 2016). In recent decades, this approach has shifted, as policies have increasingly sought to stigmatise, control and blame welfare recipients, whose rights as citizens have been eroded (Watts, 2016). Welfare has been constructed as a cost to the taxpayer, which governments must seek to minimise (Department of Social Services, 2015; NCOA, 2014; Porter, 2016).…”

Section: Welfare As a Cost To Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Who wouldn’t want more efficiency? Analysing the construction of efficiency as a ‘truth’ within policy discourses

O’Keeffe

2018

Journal of Sociology

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The discourse of Australian public policy refers regularly to the concept of 'efficiency' as though the meaning of this term is self-evident and shared by all stakeholders in the policy process. Efficiency is constructed as a primary objective of policy, as an ambition which is unequivocally 'good'. This focuses discussion on what policy change is needed to maximise efficiency, rather than the more pertinent question, of 'Why efficiency?' This article examines how efficiency is described and justified in a collection of Australian policy documents produced in the past 25 years by government departments, agencies and inquiries, and by mainstream lobby groups and consulting firms. These policy documents portray efficiency as essential in raising consumers' living standards. In turn, living standards are narrowed, centring on satisfaction of consumers' wants through markets, by firms. I build on Pusey's argument that efficiency injures, rather than improves, quality of life for many people. Measures in the interests of maximising efficiency, such as casualisation, outsourcing and disaggregation of jobs, have contributed to an increasingly insecure existence for many, particularly those on society's margins. As a result, I argue that rather than seeking to maximise efficiency for the betterment of society, efficiency is pursued in spite of society.

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Section: Casualisation and Underemployment: The Side Effects Of Efficmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Casualisation and Underemployment: The Side Effects Of Efficmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Welfare As a Cost To Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Who wouldn’t want more efficiency? Analysing the construction of efficiency as a ‘truth’ within policy discourses

O’Keeffe

2018

Journal of Sociology

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“…We believe that in order to avoid terminological issues we should use the term "social security system" for a set of phenomena and actions that ensure the welfare of different categories of the population via allowances, benefits, privileges, and other government payments, as well as expenses of employers [11,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Safety of Society for Developing Countries to Meet Sustainable Development Standards: Indicators, Level, Strategic Benchmarks (with Calculations Based on the Case Study of Ukraine)

et al. 2020

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The paper is devoted to identifying the level of social safety of society, taking into account the indicators of shadow economy, and developing its strategic scenarios as a component of sustainable development of Ukraine by 2030. The authors used the modern methods of normalisation, threshold vector determination, and dynamic weight coefficients in order to identify the level of social safety of society. The authors developed the structure and a list of indicators considering three components of social safety: The standard of living, the demographic component, and the quality of life. This method allows determining the list and severity of threats, comparing the dynamics of integral indices with integral thresholds in one scale, identifying the state of security, and defining strategic goals and strategies. The suggested approach is universal and can be used by any country, region, economic activity, or business to develop evidence-based medium-to-long-term sustainable development scenarios.

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“…The Cass Review was influential on welfare policy and ensuring job seekers' take 'active steps' became central to welfare 'service' provision (Watts, 2016). This shift in Australian welfare policy was contingent on other trends in political and economic thought that were (and still are) occupying policy discussions both in Australia and in other Global North countries.…”

Section: Activation As a Remedy: Making 'Supply' The 'Problem' Of Unementioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming 'unemployed': Mapping and (re)constituting subjectivity within jobactive

Stambe¹

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This project utilised a Foucauldian-inspired critical psychology perspective to rethink how it is possible to study unemployment. The study drew on critical psychology, governmentality studies and critical methodology to reconsider how research can reconnect the economic, political, institutional, material and affective factors that coordinate to produce a particular form of unemployment. This PhD examined the problem of research methods in psychology and governmentality studies, particularly in relation to how to research unemployment. By drawing on key insights of this literature, and returning to first principles of a Foucauldian-inspired poststructuralist study, this research utilised a quasiethnographic design to trace how elements are held together in policy and everyday practices in an employment service provider in South East Queensland. The study was motivated to examine the conditions of possibility for unemployed subjectivities outside of the dominant psychological and policy explanations. Here, the research attended to the broader processes, materialities, and the daily social practices that (re)produce unemployment as a certain type of problem, and in doing so, also (re)produce unemployment as a certain object. In an attempt to maintain (meta)theoretical coherence, this study also attended to the way unemployment was produced as a certain type of problem through the enactment of research methods. The objective was to research unemployment and unemployed subjectivity in ways that do not (re)produce 'psycomplexified' understandings of unemployment which are often taken as 'self-evident' in employment services as well as research. In short, this PhD explored how it is possible to not think about unemployment as we have so far (Fryer, 2019). This study extended on the latest methodological debates in governmentality studies by attuning research focus to the how methods, especially the interview, are implicated in the power-knowledge nexus. In governmentality studies, quasi-ethnographic methods are presented as innovative ways to hold together macro and micro governing practices. This study used a critical reading of policy, interviews and observations in one Employment Services provider in South East Queensland to highlight how the unemployed are produced as such through the practices used to govern them. Namely, I discuss how unemployment is produced as a problem of the unemployed who require reformation into an affective subject ready to withstand the ebbs and flows of the market.

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“Running on Empty”: Australia’s Neoliberal Social Security System, 1988–2015

Cited by 6 publications

References 27 publications

Who wouldn’t want more efficiency? Analysing the construction of efficiency as a ‘truth’ within policy discourses

Who wouldn’t want more efficiency? Analysing the construction of efficiency as a ‘truth’ within policy discourses

Social Safety of Society for Developing Countries to Meet Sustainable Development Standards: Indicators, Level, Strategic Benchmarks (with Calculations Based on the Case Study of Ukraine)

Becoming 'unemployed': Mapping and (re)constituting subjectivity within jobactive

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“Running on Empty”: Australia’s Neoliberal Social Security System, 1988–2015

Cited by 6 publications

References 27 publications

Who wouldn’t want more efficiency? Analysing the construction of efficiency as a ‘truth’ within policy discourses

Who wouldn’t want more efficiency? Analysing the construction of efficiency as a ‘truth’ within policy discourses

Social Safety of Society for Developing Countries to Meet Sustainable Development Standards: Indicators, Level, Strategic Benchmarks (with Calculations Based on the Case Study of Ukraine)

Becoming 'unemployed': Mapping and (re)constituting subjectivity within ​​​​​​​jobactive

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Product

Resources

About

Becoming 'unemployed': Mapping and (re)constituting subjectivity within jobactive