Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:28:16.687Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Constructing Inequality: Deserving and Undeserving Clients in Austrian Social Assistance Offices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2014

CARINA ALTREITER  and
BETTINA LEIBETSEDER
CARINA ALTREITER
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Vienna, A-1090 Wien, Rooseveltplatz 2, Vienna email: [email protected]
BETTINA LEIBETSEDER
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and Social Policy, Johannes Kepler University, A-4040 Linz, Altenbergerstrasse 69, Linz email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The social constructions formed of target groups, which are used to justify the allotment of benefits and obligations, are now being discussed in organisations at street level. Using qualitative interview data from eight municipalities, the article examines how the local social construction of deservingness constrains frontline work. In comparing everyday practices for checking eligibility and altering a recipient's behaviour, the study found four distinctive administrative practices. Standardised administrations represent their clients as deserving, and engage with the recipients in a service-oriented way. Semi-standardised administrations aim at rightful payment, but construct deserving and undeserving groups, subjecting the latter to behavioural change. Disciplining administrations create all clients as undeserving and emphasise control. Poor relief administrations withhold social rights for the undeserving and provide paternalistic support for the deserving. Local conceptions of (un)deservingness severely affect social citizenship and are thus crucial to understanding and detecting the impact of social policy reform.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 127 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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

Blomberg, H., Kroll, C., Kallio, J. and Erola, J. (2013), ‘Social workers’ perceptions of the causes of poverty in the Nordic countries’, Journal of European Social Policy, 23: 1, 68–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brodkin, E. Z. (1990), ‘Implementation as policy politics’, in Palumbo, D. J. and Calista, D. J. (eds.), Implementation and the Policy Process: Opening up the Black Box, New York: Greenwood Press, pp. 107–18.Google Scholar
Brodkin, E. Z. (2011), ‘Policy work: street-level organizations under new managerialism’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21: suppl_2, i253–i277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brodkin, E. Z. (2013), ‘Street-Level organizations and the welfare state’, in Brodkin, E. Z. and Marston, G. (eds.), Work and the Welfare State: Street-level Organizations and Workfare Politics, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 17–34.Google Scholar
Chunn, D. E. and Gavigan, S. A. M. (2004), ‘Welfare law, welfare fraud, and the moral regulation of the “never deserving” poor’, Social and Legal Studies, 13: 2, 219–43.Google Scholar
Eardley, T., Bradshaw, J., Ditch, J., Gough, I. and Whiteford, P. (1996), ‘Social assistance in OECD countries’, Research Report 46, Department of Social Security, London.Google Scholar
Flick, U. (2000), ‘Design und Prozess qualitativer Forschung’, in Flick, U., Kardorff, E. v. and Steinke, I. (eds.), Qualitative Forschung: Ein Handbuch, Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, pp. 252–65.Google Scholar
Hasenfeld, Y. (2010), ‘Organizational responses to social policy: the case of welfare reform’, Administration in Social Work, 34: 2, 148–67.Google Scholar
Heidenreich, M. and Aurich, P. (2014), ‘European worlds of employment and social services: the local dimension of activation policies’, International Journal of Social Welfare, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Henman, P. and Marston, G. (2008), ‘The social division of welfare surveillance’, Journal of Social Policy, 37: 2, 187–205.Google Scholar
Hölsch, K. and Kraus, M. (2004), ‘Poverty alleviation and the degree of centralization in European schemes of social assistance’, Journal of European Social Policy, 14: 2, 143–64.Google Scholar
Ingram, H., Schneider, A. L. and de Leon, P. (2007), ‘Social construction and policy design’, in Sabatier, P. A. (ed.), Theories of the Policy Process, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 93–126.Google Scholar
Jensen, P. H. and Lolle, H. (2013), ‘The fragmented welfare state: explaining local variations in services for older people’, Journal of Social Policy, 42: 2, 349–70.Google Scholar
Kazepov, Y. (2010), Rescaling Social Policies: Towards Multilevel Governance in Europe, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Kelle, U. and Klug, S. (2010), Vom Einzelfall zum Typus. Fallvergleich und Fallkonstruierung in der qualitativen Sozialforschung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.Google Scholar
Künzel, S. (2012), ‘The local dimension of active inclusion policy’, Journal of European Social Policy, 22: 1, 3–16.Google Scholar
Larsen, C. A. (2008), ‘The political logic of labour market reforms and popular images of target groups’, Journal of European Social Policy, 18: 1, 50–63.Google Scholar
Leibetseder, B. (2012), ‘Spaltung oder gesellschaftliche Stratifizierung durch Sozialpolitik’, Kurswechsel, 3: 21–29.Google Scholar
Lipsky, M. (2010 (1980)), Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Marston, G. (2013), ‘On “activation workers’ perceptions”: a reply to Dunn (1)’, Journal of Social Policy, 42: 4, 819–27.Google Scholar
Maynard-Moody, S. and Musheno, M. (2003), Cops, Teachers, Counselors: Stories from the Front Lines of Public Service, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Meuser, M. and Nagel, U. (1991), ‘ExpertInneninterviews − vielfach erprobt, wenig bedacht: ein Beitrag zur qualitativen Methodendiskussion’, in Garz, D. and Kraimer, K. (eds.), Qualitativ-empirische Sozialforschung: Konzepte, Methoden, Analysen, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 441–71.Google Scholar
Meuser, M. (2010), ‘Methodologie und Methoden der Geschlechterforschung’, in Aulenbacher, B., Meuser, M. and Riegraf, B. (eds.), Soziologische Geschlechterforschung, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 79–102.Google Scholar
Minas, R. (2005), Administrating Poverty: Studies of Intake Organization and Social Assistance in Sweden, Stockholm: Stockholms Universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete Socialhögskolan.Google Scholar
Minas, R., Bäckman, O., Jakobsen, V., Korpi, T., Lorentzen, T. and Kauppinen, T. (2014), ‘Rescaling inequality? Welfare reform and local variation in social assistance payments’, in Farnworth, K., Irving, Z. and Fennger, M. (eds.), Social Policy Review 26, Analysis and Debate in Social Policy, 2014, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Pressman, J. L. and Wildavsky, A. B. (1974), Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, A. and Ingram, H. (1990), ‘Behavioral assumptions of policy tools’, The Journal of Politics, 52: 2, 510–29.Google Scholar
Schneider, A. and Ingram, H. (1993), ‘Social construction of target populations: implications for politics and policy’, The American Political Science Review, 87: 2, 334–47.Google Scholar
Schneider, A. L. and Ingram, H. (2008), ‘Social construction in the study of public policy’, in Holstein, J. A. and Gubrium, J. F. (eds.), Handbook of Constructionist Research, New York and London: The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Schram, S. F., Fording, R. C. and Soss, J. (2011), ‘Neoliberal paternalism: race and the new poverty governance’, in Jung, M.-K., Bonilla-Silva, E. and Costa Vargas, J. H. (eds.), State of White Supremacy: Racism, Governance, and the US, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Soss, J. and Schram, S. (2007), ‘A public transformed? Welfare reform as policy feedback’, American Political Science Review 101: 1, 111–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soss, J., Fording, R.C. and Schram, S. (2011), Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Van Mechelen, N. and De Maesschalck, V. (2009), ‘Devolution of social security arrangements’, in Cerami, A. (ed.), Post-Communist Welfare Pathways: Theorizing Social Policy Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 181–98.Google Scholar
van Oorschot, W. (1995), Realizing Rights: Multi-level Approach to Non-take-up of Means-tested Benefits, London: Avebury.Google Scholar
Watkins-Hayes, C. (2009), The New Welfare Bureaucrats: Entanglements of Race, Class, and Policy Reform, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar