Per H. JensenActivation in the Human Resource Management

Society: Job plans and citizenship – a new dispositif?

University of Hamburg, Centre for Globalisation and Governance, May 15-16, 2009

• Why is it so difficult to determine:

• (a) what activation is all about

• (b) what are the new directions of activation policies

It is necessary to distinguish between several dimensions of change:

- direction of change: Retrenchment or something else?

- level of change: Change in discourses, paradigms, expenditures, institutions, or outcomes?

- dynamic of change: Abrupt or incremental? Conflict or consensual?

- degree of change: Transformative or non-transformative?

• What we see also depends on how researchers define the phenomenon:

• Broad definition: activistic labour market policies (Halvorsen & Jensen 2004)

• - Risk: to overlook the novelty of employment policies emerging from the late 1980s onwards

• Narrow definition: the way in which unemployed are being activated (lädemel & Trickey 2001)

• - Risk: to overlook other policies such as social and tax policies

• How has the political system formulated the aim of activation?

• In Denmark, aims have continously been:

• (1) to increase employment within the group of unemployed

• (2) prevent social marginalisation – prevent loss of citizenship

• Both aims were present when the activation discourse entered the scene in Denmark in the early 1990s

• Actually, activation was anchored in two different discourses:

• - structural unemployment discourse (unemployment benefits)

• - social solidarity discourse (social welfare benefits)

• Structural unemployment discourse – aim is was labour market integration

• Target group: unemployment benefit recipients• Purpose of activation: to improve occupational and

geographical mobility by means of education, jobtraining etc. Human capital rather than work-first programme.

• Represents a continuation of active labour policies rooted in the early 19960s

• Relatively soft: in the late 1990s, less than 1 per cent of all recipients of unemployment benefits forfeited their rights to benefits.

• Social solidarity discourse was propagated by leading Social Democrats

• Activation was seen as a solution to total exclusion from society

• Target group: receipents of welfare benefits• Activation aim: to improve the life conditions of

welfare clients• Labour market integration was not an ultimative

goal

• If employment or education is not a realistic goal, the aim of activating welfare beneficiaries is to stabilize and improve the general life situation of the individual. Activities that help to organize the time structure of the beneficiaries in a similar vein as the time structure of wage earners are regarded to be a virtue unto itself. The Ministry of Social Affairs has stated: Activation provides for ‘people entering into meaningful (work) communities . . . i.e. participation in communities in this context is a goal in itself, as it is regarded as being good for the individual / even if it fails to lead to self-maintenance’ (Ministry of Social Affairs 2000)

• Clients where hardly ever deprived their benefits – when not showing up.

• Still, a strong critique developed:– Activation represents a changing relationship between rights and

obligations– Not all activation projects had a high standard

• Jobs were meaningless seen from the point of view of the clients• Jobs could acutally be meaningfull seen from the point of view of society

(TV)

Critique resembles the critique of active labour market policies of the 1970s: it was argued that the unemployed were ”outlawed” and treated as out-casts

Critique is nothing else but moralisation!What is the foundation of the moralisation? How to judge ”good” versus

”bad” policies – why are rights good and obligations bad? What is the right balance?

• Activation programmes have changed in accordance with changes in the unemployment rate – that is, the probability of getting a job. In March 2008, unemployment was 1.9 per cent

• Since 2005, activation programmes have been tightened

• Present day unemployed have little resemblance with the group of unemployed persons ten years ago – today, unemployed suffer far more from social problems, they have lower formal qualifications, and they are generally a weaker group

• Still, aim of activation is 1) to increase employment within the group of unemployed, and 2) to prevent marginalisation (loss of citizenship)

• Question: does activation support ”full” citizenship? Does activation support ”the good life”?

• Citizenship has at least three dimensions:• A. Rights/obligations:• Does social rights (welfare benefits) provide

sufficient resources to secure the autonomy of the individual

• B. Participation• Does activation give access to participate in the

labour market• C. Identity• Does activation improve self-esteem

• Recent study of the effects of activating long term recipients of welfare benefits

• A) In general, people enrolled in activation projects does not suffer from economic hardship

• Ad B (participation) and C (identity – self-esteem)

Improved some or a lot

Neither improved nor hurt

More likely worsened

N

Employment opportunities

38 % 52 % 10 % 401

Effects on self-esteem

43 % 38 % 19 % 401

• Questions asked:

• Given the fact that you have participated in activation, do you think that it has had a positive or negative impact on your chances of getting a job?

• Do you think that participating in ’activation’ has strengthened or weakened your self-conciousness

• Not an argument for or against activation

• Purpose so far, aim has been to present the contextual framework of activation in Denmark

• The real novelty in the 1990s – I will claim – was not activation, but how activation policies were implemented

• Prior to activation, a JOP-PLAN (JP) must be elorated, which states the purpose of activation, and the instruments which are to be employed in order to reach the purpose

• A JP takes the form of a written contract, signed by the client and the system (social worker)

• The JP has been criticized• - the relationship between the system and client

is an asymmetrical power relations• - social workers manipulates clients• - social workers conduct pastoral power

• A moralistic standpoint• If truth, the social workers are breaking the law

and they need some re-education

• Thus, in the final part of my presentation I will

• A. discuss the JP as a new technology in the organisation of social policy

• B. Overcome moralisation by anchoring the JP phenomenon in basic notions about society – the postindustrial or human ressource managment society, or the active society

• The JP must be based on the clients needs and abilities; i.e. the system is not allowed – in a paternalistic way – to tell you what to do

• A JP is preconditions by that clients actually reflect on their own place in the social space – A JP enforced self-reflexivity on clients

• The JP is developed during a meeting and through a dialogue between the system and the client – the social worker functions as a coach

• The JP requires decentralization and individualisation of political competences and power

• A JP represent a turn in social policy• What we see rising in the horison is an

administrative citizenship – in addition to the economic, social and political – which allow clients to act as reflexive and self-regulating decision-makers

• Clients become co-owners of social policy: they are involved in defining and finding solutions to their problems – problems are not a-priori given

• Citizens become their own case worker

• What we see is a shift from passive to active citizenship

• In the active society active citizens are active in a two-fold sense: (1) Citizens become activated by (2) being active citizens

• Requirement: that the citizen is responsible for herself, flexible and mobile

• Dimensions of the administrative citizenship:• - Rights are expanded – the JP has become a

policy-forming as well as a policy-implementing arena

• - New forms of participation have become available: the client participate in the exercise of authority

• - The JP involves a new type of identity production – the client is an object which is formed or constructed anew by the client as a subject

• Contracts based on future oriented dialogous is not isolated to JP.

• Practically in you find it in most areas of life

• You find it everywhere in social policy (Vulnerable families etc.)

• You find it on the ordinary labour market

• On the ordinary labour market the technology is used in the form of employee development interviews

• Institutionalised – in my work place, for instance – as an annual interview with management

• Represents a general phonomenon

• Structural homology between JP and employee development interviews

• - the form and machinery of the interview is generalised

• - trend towards individualisation and system-induced reflexivity

• - the HRM-interview has become a generalised condition for the actual participation in society

• Common traits:• - dialogous taken place everywhere and it is all about

future-oriented risk assessment• Power?

– There is a bottom line as to what we can talk about– The client is expected to have a desire to become integrated on

the labour market/employee is expected to have a desire to get further in her carrier

– Employer can stop the interview and say: your are fired/you dont get any benefits

– BUT: the citizen/client/wage earner possesses an expertice – they are experts in their own lives and conceptions about the future – which the employer/case worker is dependent on, if there is to be any contract

• Concluding remarks:

• The JP/JP-interview represent a new way of being a citizen in the post industrial society

• Transition from panopticon to synopticon• - disciplining has been internaliyed in the

individual as self-discipline• - serveillance and citizenship has been

privatised

Industrial society HRM society

Subjectivity Position in the coordinate system

Constant reflexion

Self-technologz Know thyself Care for thyself

Policial competencies Central and hierarchical De-central, almost individual

Steering Rule-steering Managment by objectives

Casework form Judicial decision/commando

Dialogue and negotiations – coaching

Basic political concepts Rights and obligations Participation

Citizenship External framework, which ensures participation

Participation creates ist own externalities

• From a sociological point of view – what are the consequences?

• Trend: from notions of collectivity to individualisation – unversal categories and the collective language disappers

• Marginalisation and exclusion disappers• New demarcation lines emerges: self-entrepreneur or

irrelevant• You are irrelevant if you are not willing to engage in a

constructive dialogue about your future prospects – unwilling to become activated

• Thank you