From social security to state-sanctioned insecurity: how welfare reform mimics the commodification of labour through greater state intervention

Abstract

Social security systems confront a central tension: how to reconcile welfare retrenchment with the political challenges with implementing these reforms. One way in which policy makers have responded to this tension is by repurposing existing institutions to serve new ends. We investigate the system of Universal Credit (UC) in the UK as an example of such a ‘conversion’. UC expands the mantra of ‘active citizenship’ to a much larger population than ever before. However, far from producing uniform outcomes, UC’s implementation has been marked by chaos and ultimately failure for individuals and communities. We argue that UC exemplifies a broader shift from social security to state-sanctioned social insecurity as policy reforms come to mimic the insecurities and risks commonly associated with the market