Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-956mj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-28T22:28:40.943Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Manufacturing Responsibility: The Governmentality of Behavioural Power in Social Policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2017

Rik Peeters
Rik Peeters*
Affiliation:
Department of Public Administration, Centre for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE), Mexico City E-mail: rik.peeters@cide.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Responsibilisation is commonly associated with a neoliberal transfer of responsibilities from state to social actors. However, it also covers the construction of responsibility where it does not exist yet – where citizens need socialisation to manufacture responsibility so they become economically and socially active, healthy, and productive subjects. This article aims to bring more conceptual clarity in these practices. Based on an analysis of literature on contemporary welfare state policies, three different techniques are discerned: reciprocal governance in welfare state services; training and treatment of vulnerable citizens through support and structure; and choice engineering by working upon the unconscious and psychological triggers underlying decision making. These techniques of behavioural power seek responsibilisation by working upon people's understanding of responsibility as a moral imperative and upon the rational or psychological mechanisms that constitute the choices they make and the attitudes they have.

Keywords

Responsibilisationgovernmentalitybehavioural powersocial investment statemindpolitics
Type
Articles
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 51 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, J. (1995) Risk, London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Ascoli, U. and Ranci, C. (eds.) (2002) Dilemmas of the Welfare Mix: The New Structure of Welfare in an Era of Privatization, New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Batty, E. and Flint, J. (2012) ‘Conceptualising the contexts, mechanisms and outcomes of intensive family intervention projects’, Social Policy and Society, 11, 3, 345–58.Google Scholar
Beck, U. (1986) Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Bessant, J. (2000) ‘Regulating the unemployed: Australia‘s work‐for‐the‐dole scheme’, Journal of Australian Studies, 24, 64, 75–84.Google Scholar
Bovens, M. A. P. (1990) Verantwoordelijkheid en Organisatie. Beschouwingen over Aansprakelijkheid, Institutioneel Burgerschap en Ambtelijke Ongehoorzaamheid, Zwolle: W.E.J. Tjeenk Willink.Google Scholar
Brettschneider, A. (2008) ‘On the way to social investment? The normative recalibration of the German welfare state’, German Policy Studies, 4, 2, 19–66.Google Scholar
Cantillon, B. and van Lancker, W. (2012) ‘Solidarity and reciprocity in the social investment state: what can be learned from the case of Flemish school allowances and truancy?’, Journal of Social Policy, 41, 4, 657–75.Google Scholar
Cantillon, B. and van Lancker, W. (2013) ‘Three shortcomings of the social investment perspective’, Social Policy and Society, 12, 4, 553–64.Google Scholar
Corra, A. (2013) ‘Sturen op wederkerigheid’, in Bosselaar, H. and Vonk, G. J. (eds.), Bouwplaats lokale verzorgingsstaat: Wetenschappelijke reflecties op de decentralisaties in de sociale zekerheid en zorg. Den Haag: Boom Juridische Uitgevers, 63–74.Google Scholar
Crawshaw, P. (2012) ‘Governing at a distance: social marketing and the (bio) politics of responsibility’, Social Science and Medicine, 75, 1, 200–07.Google Scholar
Crawshaw, P. (2013) ‘Public health policy and the behavioural turn: the case of social marketing’, Critical Social Policy, 33, 616–37.Google Scholar
Dean, M. (1999) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society, London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Donzelot, J. (1991) ‘The mobilization of society’, in Burchell, G., Gordon, C. and Miller, P. (eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 169– 79.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. (1992/2005) Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Downes, D. and van Swaaningen, R. (2007) ‘The road to dystopia? Changes in the penal climate of the Netherlands’, in Tonry, M. and Bijleveld, C. (eds.), Crime and Justice in the Netherlands, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 31–70.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Ewald, F. (1991) ‘Insurance and risk’, in Burchell, G., Gordon, C. and Miller, P. (eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 197–210.Google Scholar
Ewald, F. (2002) ‘The return of Descartes's malicious demon: an outline of a philosophy of precaution’, in Baker, T. and Simon, J. (eds.), Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 273–301.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1976) ‘Nietzsche, genealogy, history’, in Bouchard, D. F. (1977) (ed.), Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 139–64.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1983) ‘The subject and power’, in Dreyfus, L. H. and Rabinow, P. (eds.), Michel Foucault. Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. With an Afterword by Michel Foucault, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 208–26.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2004) “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976, London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2007) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978, New York: Picador.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2008) The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978–1979, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fox, K. J. (1999) ‘Changing violent minds: discursive correction and resistance in the cognitive treatment of violent offenders in prison’, Social Problems, 46, 1, 88–103.Google Scholar
Garland, D. (1996) ‘The limits of the sovereign state: strategies of crime control in contemporary society’, British Journal of Criminology, 36, 4, 445–71.Google Scholar
Garland, D. (1997) ‘Governmentality and the problem of crime’, Theoretical Criminology, 1, 2, 173– 215.Google Scholar
Garland, D. (2006) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press .Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self Identity, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1998) The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (2009) The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, N. (2000) Transformation of the Welfare State: The Silent Surrender of Public Responsibility, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goddard, T. (2012) ‘Post-welfarist risk managers? Risk, crime prevention and the responsibilization of community-based organizations’, Theoretical Criminology, 16, 347–63.Google Scholar
Goodin, R. E. (2002) ‘Structures of mutual obligation’, Journal of Social Policy, 31, 4, 579–96.Google Scholar
Gradin Franzén, A. (2014) ‘Responsibilization and discipline: subject positioning at a youth detention home’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 44, 251–79.Google Scholar
Graham, S. (2010) Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Grüne-Yanoff, T. and Hansson, S. O. (eds.) (2009) Preference Change: Approaches From Philosophy, Economics and Psychology, Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Handler, J. (2003) ‘Social citizenship and workfare in the US and Western Europe: from status to contract’, Journal of European Social Policy, 13, 229–43.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. (1968) Punishment and Responsibility: Essays in the Philosophy of Law, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hemerijck, A. (2015) ‘The quiet paradigm revolution of social investment’, Social Politics, 22, 2, 242–56.Google Scholar
Houdt, F. van and Schinkel, W. (2014) ‘Crime, citizenship and community: neoliberal communitarian images of governmentality’, The Sociological Review, 62, 47–67.Google Scholar
Hunt, A. (2003) ‘Risk and moralization in everyday life’, in Ericson, R. V. and Doyle, A. (eds.), Risk and Morality, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 165–92.Google Scholar
Hurenkamp, M., Tonkens, E. and Duyvendak, J. W. (2012) Crafting Citizenship: Negotiating Tensions in Modern Society, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Juhila, K., Raitakari, S. and Hall, C. (eds.) (2017) Responsibilisation at the Margins of Welfare Services, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.Google Scholar
Kallbekken, S. and Sælen, H. (2013) “Nudging’ hotel guests to reduce food waste as a win-win environmental measure’, Economics Letters, 119, 3, 325–7.Google Scholar
Kampen, T., Elshout, J. and Tonkens, E. (2013) ‘The fragility of self-respect: emotional labour of workfare volunteering’, Social Policy and Society, 12, 3, 427–38.Google Scholar
Keller, K. (ed.) (2008) Encyclopedia of Obesity, Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Kemshall, H. (2002) ‘Effective practice in probation: an example of ‘advanced liberal’ responsibilisation?’, The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 41, 41–58.Google Scholar
Keymolen, E. and Broeders, D. (2013) ‘Innocence lost: care and control in Dutch digital youth care’, British Journal of Social Work, 43, 1, 41–63.Google Scholar
Korteweg, A. C. (2006) ‘The politics of subject formation: welfare-reliant women's response to welfare reform in the United States and the Netherlands’, in Marston, G. and McDonald, C. (eds.), Analysing Social Policy: A Governmental Approach, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 107–26.Google Scholar
Lemke, T. (2001) ‘The birth of bio-politics: Michael Foucault's lectures at the College de France on neo-liberal governmentality’, Economy and Society, 30, 2, 190–207.Google Scholar
Liebenberg, L., Ungar, M. and Ikeda, J. (2015) ‘Neo-liberalism and responsibilisation in the discourse of social service workers’, The British Journal of Social Work, 45, 3, 1006–21.Google Scholar
Mackenbach, J. P. and van der Maas, P. J. (eds.) (2008) Volksgezondheid en gezondheidszorg, Maarssen: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Marston, G., Larsen, J. E. and McDonald, C. (2005) ‘The active subjects of welfare reform: a street-level comparison of employment services in Australia and Denmark’, Social Work and Society, 3, 2, 141–57.Google Scholar
Maruna, S. (2004) ‘Desistance from crime and explanatory style: a new direction in the psychology of reform’, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 20, 184–200.Google Scholar
McDonald, C. and Marston, G. (2005) ‘Workfare as welfare: governing unemployment in the advanced liberal state’, Critical Social Policy, 25, 3, 374–401.Google Scholar
Miller, P. and Rose, N. (1990) ‘Governing economic life’, Economy and Society, 19, 1, 131–62.Google Scholar
Morel, N., Palier, B. and Palme, J. (eds.) (2012) Towards a Social Investment Welfare State?: Ideas, Policies and Challenges, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Morris, K. and Featherstone, B. (2010) ‘Investing in children, regulating parents, thinking family: a decade of tensions and contradictions’, Social Policy and Society, 9, 4, 557–66.Google Scholar
Murray, L. and Barnes, M. (2010) ‘Have families been rethought? Ethic of care, family and ‘whole family’ approaches’, Social Policy and Society, 9, 4, 533–44.Google Scholar
O'Connor, D., Lippert, R., Spencer, D. and Smylie, L. (2008) ‘Seeing private security like a state’, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 8, 203–26.Google Scholar
O'Malley, P. (1996) ‘Risk and responsibility’, in Barry, A., Osborne, T. and Rose, N. (eds.), Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Rationalities of Government, London: UCL Press, 189–207.Google Scholar
O'Malley, P. (1999) “Social justice’ after the ‘death of the social”, Social Justice, 26, 2, 92–100.Google Scholar
Palsson, G., Szerszynski, B., Sörlin, S., Marks, J., Avril, B., Crumley, C., Hackmann, H., Holm, P., Ingram, J., Kirman, A., Pardo Buendía, M. and Weehuizen, R. (2013) ‘Reconceptualising the ‘Anthropos’ in the Anthropocene: ontegrating the social sciences and humanities in global environmental change research’, Environmental Science and Policy, 28, 3–13.Google Scholar
Parr, S. (2009) ‘Family intervention projects: a site of social work practice’, British Journal of Social Work, 39, 7, 1256–73.Google Scholar
Parton, N. (2006) Safeguarding Childhood: Early Intervention and Surveillance in a Late Modern Society, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Peeters, R. (2013a) The Preventive Gaze: How Prevention Transforms Our Understanding of the State, The Hague: Eleven International Publishing.Google Scholar
Peeters, R. (2013b) ‘Responsibilisation on government‘s terms: new welfare and the governance of responsibility and solidarity’, Social Policy and Society, 12, 4, 583–95.Google Scholar
Peeters, R. (2014) ‘De poortwachterstaat als hoeder van de participatiesamenleving’. Christen Democratische Verkenningen, 79–86.Google Scholar
Peeters, R. (2015) ‘The price of prevention: the preventative turn in crime policy and its consequences for the role of the state’, Punishment and Society, 17, 2, 163–83.Google Scholar
Peeters, R. and Schuilenburg, M. (2016) ‘The birth of mindpolitics: understanding nudging in public health policy’, Social Theory and Health, 15, 2, 138–59.Google Scholar
Perri Six, Fletcher-Morgan C. and Leyland, K. (2010) ‘Making people more responsible: the Blair governments’ programme for changing citizens’ behaviour’, Political Studies, 58, 427–49.Google Scholar
Petersen, A. (1997) ‘Risk, governance and the new public health’, in Petersen, A. and Bunton, R. (eds.), Foucault, Health and Medicine, London: Routledge, 189–206.Google Scholar
Phelps, M. S. (2012) ‘The place of punishment: variation in the provision of inmate services staff across the punitive turn’, Journal of Criminal Justice, 40, 348–57.Google Scholar
Phoenix, J. and Kelly, L. (2013) ‘“You have to do it for yourself”: responsibilization in youth justice and young peoples situated knowledge of youth practice’, British Journal of Criminology, 53, 419– 37.Google Scholar
Pierson, C. (2004) The Modern State, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pintelon, O., Cantillon, B., van den Bosch, K. and Whelan, C. T. (2013) ‘The social stratification of social risks: the relevance of class for social investment strategies’, Journal of European Social Policy, 23, 1, 52–67.Google Scholar
Pomerleau, J. and McKee, M. (eds.) (2005) Issues in Public Health, Maidenhead: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Pratt, J. (2007) Penal Populism, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pykett, J. (2012) ‘The new maternal state: the gendered politics of governing’, Antipode, 44, 217–38.Google Scholar
Ronel, N. and Segev, D. (eds.) (2015) Positive Criminology, New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (1996a) ‘The death of the social? Re-figuring the territory of government’, Economy and Society, 25, 3, 327–56.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (1996b) Inventing Our Selves, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (1996c) ‘Governing ‘advanced’ liberal democracies’, in Rose, N., Barry, A. and Osborne, T. (eds.), Foucault and Political Reason, London and Chicago: UCL Press, 37–64.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (2000) ‘Government and control’, British Journal of Criminology, 40, 321–39.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (2001) ‘The politics of life itself’, Theory, Culture and Society, 18, 6, 1–30.Google Scholar
Rose, N. and Miller, P. (1992) ‘Political power beyond the state: problematics of government’, The British Journal of Sociology, 43, 2, 173–205.Google Scholar
Schuilenburg, M. (2015) The Securitization of Society: Crime, Risk, and Social Order, New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Schuilenburg, M., van Steden, R. and Oude Breuil, B. (2014) Positive Criminology: Reflections on Care, Belonging and Security, The Hague: Eleven International Publishing.Google Scholar
Shamir, R. (2008) ‘The age of responsibilization: on market-embedded morality’, Economy and Society, 37, 1, 1–19.Google Scholar
Shaver, S. (2002) ‘Australian welfare reform: from citizenship to supervision’, Social Policy and Administration, 36, 331–45.Google Scholar
Taylor-Gooby, P. (2008) ‘The new welfare state settlement in Europe’, European Societies, 10, 1, 3–24.Google Scholar
Thaler, R. H. (2000) ‘From homo economicus to homo sapiens’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14, 1, 133–41.Google Scholar
Thaler, R. H. and Sunstein, C. R. (2009) Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Tonkens, E. and Verplanke, L. (2013) ‘When social security fails to provide emotional security: single parent households and the contractual welfare state’, Social Policy and Society, 12, 3, 451–60.Google Scholar
Verhoeven, I. and Tonkens, E. (2013) ‘Talking active citizenship: framing welfare state reform in England and the Netherlands’, Social Policy and Society, 12, 3, 415–26.Google Scholar
Wacquant, L. (2008) Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Wakefield, A. and Fleming, J. (2009) The SAGE Dictionary of Policing, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Walters, W. (2004) ‘Some critical notes on ‘governance”, Studies in Political Economy, 73, 27–46.Google Scholar
Warburton, J. and Smith, J. (2003) ‘Out of the generosity of your heart: are we creating active citizens through compulsory volunteer programmes for young people in Australia?’, Social Policy and Administration, 37, 772–86.Google Scholar
Welsh, B. and Farrington, D. (eds.) (2006) Preventing Crime: What Works for Children, Offenders, Victims, and Places, New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, R. and Marmot, M. (eds.) (2003) Social Determinants of Health: The Solid Facts, Copenhagen: WHO.Google Scholar
Young, J. (1999) The Exclusive Society: Social Exclusion, Crime and Difference in Late Modernity, London: Sage.Google Scholar