Which capital do you mobilise? How bureaucratic encounters shape jobseekers’ social and cultural capital in France and Germany

Abstract

Based on participant observations in the French and German public employment services (PES), this article proposes a new way of analysing bureaucratic encounters following Bourdieu’s capital theory. We show that caseworkers who are supposed to support jobseekers into employment, force the allegedly needy jobseekers to accumulate capital, but only in its cultural or social form, and never both at the same time. While there are national differences in the accumulation process, the findings highlight the coexistence of two different strategies: accumulation of cultural capital for a long-term and stable return to employment or accumulation of social capital for a short-term and temporary access to employment. Caseworkers attribute different importance to each type of capital, which results in an uneven distribution that reproduces inequalities through social policy services.

The Fate of Social Modernity

“…This also holds for commercial firms con-tracted by public authorities. Within what this book refers to as 'welfare sectors', collective agency frequently becomes involved in balancing different institutional logics in situated and individual ways (see Hustinx et al 2014;Fossestøl et al 2015;Clouet et al 2022;Orupabo 2022;Murphy 2023) when implementing institutional frameworks in a context of partial autonomy.…”

“…Throughout the entire universe, the European mainstream from the 2000s onwards has been the development of performance management techniques and private contracting models (Greer et al 2018a). Involved organisations have been instructed, or have committed themselves, to follow fine-grained operational prescriptions (such as pre-defined staff-user ratios) and to apply standardised (IT-based) case management tools -notwithstanding considerable variety concerning how agents interact with benefit claimants and jobseekers (Kupka and Osiander 2017;Clouet et al 2022). In some jurisdictions, the lion's share of work (re-)integration activity lies with the municipalities where the responsible bodies have a certain flexibility in the interpretation of national guidelines (see e.g., Dall 2020;Bakkeli et al 2022).…”

“…While this may not be the whole story about employment services in the past, such verdicts indicate that self-reference may be highly relevant to organisations from the field of labour administration. At the same time, as Clouet et al (2022) demonstrate in their study on 'bureaucratic encounters' in French and German employment service agencies, actions within these organisations tend to rely on negotiated relationships in which case managers, while following formalised procedures, arbitrarily deal with the (alleged) social and cultural capital of jobseekers when proposing job search activities or training opportunities. In the above study, the outcome of the encounter often depended 'on a caseworker's discretionary decision', hence case managers acted as capricious '"gatekeepers" for investments in capital accumulation' (ibid: 705; 710).…”

“…This configuration has, first of all, been discussed with respect to organisations responsible for job placements and job search assistance. The above-cited study of Clouet et al (2022), exploring negotiated relationships and bureaucratic decision-making in French and German jobcentres, bears witness to the fact that agents in these organisations cannot but carve out their own ways of dealing with the diverse characteristics and ambitions of users. Agents must establish rapport with the latter and respond to the dilemma that extant regulatory frameworks want benefit claimants to take action while adequate job opportunities, as well as training programmes, may be rare -which entails a propensity to make jobseekers 'invest in social capital' (ibid: 707) with uncertain outcomes.…”

Moderating Role of Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations in the Relationship between Community Leadership and Social Capital in Rural Malaysia

“…Everyone wants to reach their full potential, feel a sense of belonging, and participate in their community [33]. Therefore, bridging SC would be imperative in strengthening the links between diverse groups, effectively supporting the interests of the community as a whole instead of the needs and demands of any specific segments within the community [34].…”