Inclusion and Exclusion: New Trends in Conditional Welfare and Activation Trajectories

Dear Colleagues,

Welfare systems are constantly undergoing structural transformations. Contemporary social policy and (post?)-welfare models are today characterized by theirs implementation of new forms of welfare, focusing on conditional or disciplinary welfare with increased threats of benefit withdrawal if recipients fail to comply with specific requirements. Changes include a major transfer of the costs of unemployment from the state to individuals as the expansion of activation policies goes from a more limited group of job-ready unemployed individuals to include a much broader and more marginalized group, including the so called ‘hard to employ groups’, who are gradually becoming objected to activation requirements (Berkel 2020, 197).

Placing such conditions on welfare recipients in return for the provision of benefits has undermined the concept of universal welfare rights (Watts & Fitzpatrick 2018; Dwyer 2008). These transformations, sometimes described as punitive and sanctionable (Wright, Fletcher & Stewart 2020), pose significant questions about the future organization of welfare systems and their inherent processes of inclusion and exclusion.

This issue aims to provide a platform that challenges and extends conventional perspectives on unemployment trajectories among welfare recipients. A critical policy perspective on social inclusion and exclusion calls for a nuanced understanding of these concepts and advocates for transformative social policies that address the root causes of exclusion and promote greater equality, justice, and inclusion within labor market.

We welcome submissions that focus on the multidimensional nature of social exclusion and inclusion and ask for critical studies of the second wave of activation policies from the perspective of processes of inclusion and exclusion, spanning over critical policy analysis, the lived experiences of vulnerable unemployed individuals targeted by activation policies, and their encounters with institutions, with a particular focus on youth, ethnicity and migration, gender and sexuality, disability, and class. Such analyses will be connected to questions of politics, economy, and welfare boundaries.

Please submit your proposals and any questions to Special Issue editors by 15 June 2024. Notification of acceptance will be provided by 30 June 2024. Final papers are due on 30 September 2024 for peer review.

References

• Berkel, R. (2020) ‘Making Welfare Conditional: A Street-Level Perspective’, Social Policy & Administration, 54/2: 191–204.
• Dwyer, P. (2008). Twelve: The conditional welfare state. In Modernising the welfare state. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.
• Watts, B., & Fitzpatrick, S. (2018). Welfare Conditionality (1st ed.). Routledge.
• Wright S, Fletcher DR and Stewart ABR (2020) Punitive benefit sanctions, welfare conditionality, and the social abuse of unemployed people in Britain:  transforming claimants into offenders?  Social Policy Administration 54: 278–294.

Prof. Dr. Katarina Giritli Nygren
Dr. Sara Nyhlén
Guest Editors

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• work fare
• hard to employ groups
• activation
• conditional welfare
• inclusion
• exclusion