Bureaucratic encounters “after neoliberalism”: Examining the supportive turn in social housing governance

Abstract

It is well established that encounters between welfare bureaucracies and their clients have been reconfigured under neoliberalism to address the problem of “welfare dependency.” Contemporary bureaucratic encounters therefore entail measures to activate clients’ entrepreneurial/self‐governing capacities, and conditionality/sanctioning practices to deal with clients who behave “irresponsibly.” Despite the dominance of the neoliberal model, recent research has identified a counter‐trend in the practices of housing services away from entrepreneurializing and punitive strategies and towards a more supportive approach. This paper examines this counter‐trend and its implications for neoliberal welfare governance. To do this, it presents findings from research into social housing governance in Queensland, Australia, where the neoliberal focus on welfare independence, conditionality and sanctioning has been tempered by a new supportive approach focused on assisting vulnerable clients to maintain and benefit from access to welfare/housing support. Following Larner, we argue that this shift signals the emergence of an “after neoliberal” governmental formation, wherein key features of neoliberal governmentality are replaced by, or redeployed in the service of, progressive initiatives that address neoliberalism’s failings at the street level, but leave broader neoliberal policy settings undisturbed. We also challenge recent sociological accounts that construe supportive welfare practices as a function of an all‐encompassing neoliberal project, arguing instead for appreciation of the contingency of these developments and the progressive political affordances that they entail.

Neoliberalism and vulnerability in social housing

“…They do so while personally living through the same economic and social pressures that have brought their tenants to seek support from the inadequate safety net of social housing. While many frontline social housing and shelter workers in Canada have reported burnout, moral injury and lack of support (Lane & Schiff, 2016; Olivet et al., 2010; Poskitt, 2019), in the UK, professional fulfillment and job satisfaction is most often found in housing workers who practice resistance to the structural violence that social housing is built upon and enacted through (Clarke et al., 2020). In doing so, they subject themselves to the risk of competitive capitalism—losing their career and income, and any economic security they may currently enjoy, to their values.…”

Shadow care infrastructures: Sustaining life in post-welfare cities

“…More recent scholarship disputes this characterisation, pointing to a messier and more uneven process of welfare reform. Scholars working from a poverty management framework have identified how voluntary sector organisations often advance alternative normative and practical ends, even when operating within state regulatory and funding frameworks (Baker and McGuirk, 2019; Clarke et al, 2020; DeVerteuil, 2015; Power and Bergan, 2019; Trudeau, 2012; Williams et al, 2016). Notably, DeVerteuil et al (2019) specify the voluntary sector as a complex entanglement of relationships.…”

“…Rather than a simple erosion of the welfare state they give rise to what DeVerteuil (2015: 6) terms ‘incomplete, uneven and emerging’ post-welfare cities. These are places where older and established forms of welfare persist alongside emerging forms of provision and care, including those that variously enact, respond to and resist neoliberal logics (Clarke et al, 2020; Evans and DeVerteuil, 2018a; Power and Bergan, 2019).…”

Einleitung

“…Sie heben hervor, wie sich insbesondere in der sozialpolitischen Praxis genuin nicht-neoliberale Praktiken herausgebildet haben, die die Unzulänglichkeiten neoliberaler Politik einzudämmen und zu korrigieren suchen, ohne dass sich dies notwendigerweise in Modifikationen der politischen Ziele und Programme auf übergeordneter Ebene niederschlägt. Diese partiellen Korrekturen auf der Ebene der ‚street-level-operations' seien jedoch in ihrer Genese und ihren Effekten missverstanden, wenn man sie als bloße Bemäntelung oder Verwässerung des neoliberalen Projekts deute(Clarke et al 2020). Noch weitergehend plädieren andere Autor*innen für eine "Dezentrierung" der Governance, welche die "spannungsreiche Koexistenz"(Bevir und McKee 2016, S. 209) verschiedener Technologien des Regierens anerkennt, um dadurch auch dem Stellenwert und den Eigenlogiken von nicht-neoliberaler Politik und Praxis Rechnung zu tragen.…”