Unemployed citizen or 'at risk' client? Classification systems and employment services in Denmark and Australia

TY - JOUR

T1 - Unemployed citizen or 'at risk' client?

T2 - Classification systems and employment services in Denmark and Australia

AU - Larsen, Jørgen Elm

AU - Caswell, Dorte

AU - Marston, Greg

PY - 2010/8

Y1 - 2010/8

N2 - The paper explores recent developments in Australian and Danish unemployment policies with a special focus on the technologies used to classify and categorize unemployed people on government benefits. Using governmentality as our theoretical framework, we consider the implications of reducing complex social problems to statistical scores and differentiated categories - forms of knowledge that diminish the capacity to think about unemployment as a collective problem requiring collective solutions. What we argue is that classification systems, which are part and parcel of welfare state administration, are becoming more technocratic in the way in which they divide the population into different categories of risk.

AB - The paper explores recent developments in Australian and Danish unemployment policies with a special focus on the technologies used to classify and categorize unemployed people on government benefits. Using governmentality as our theoretical framework, we consider the implications of reducing complex social problems to statistical scores and differentiated categories - forms of knowledge that diminish the capacity to think about unemployment as a collective problem requiring collective solutions. What we argue is that classification systems, which are part and parcel of welfare state administration, are becoming more technocratic in the way in which they divide the population into different categories of risk.

U2 - 10.1177/0261018310367674

DO - 10.1177/0261018310367674

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0261-0183

VL - 30

SP - 384

EP - 404

JO - Critical Social Policy

JF - Critical Social Policy

IS - 3

ER -