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Fairness and the Politics of Resentment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2013

PAUL HOGGETT ,
HEN WILKINSON  and
PHEOBE BEEDELL
PAUL HOGGETT*
Affiliation:
University of the West of England, Glenside Campus, Blackberry Hill, Bristol BS16 1D.
HEN WILKINSON
Affiliation:
University of the West of England, Glenside Campus, Blackberry Hill, Bristol BS16 1DD. Email: [email protected]
PHEOBE BEEDELL
Affiliation:
Centre for Psycho-Social Studies, University of the West of EnglandGlenside Campus, Blackberry Hill, Bristol BS161DD. Email: [email protected]
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The role of the emotions in the framing of welfare policies is still relatively underexplored. This article examines the role of resentment in the construction of a particular form of ‘anti-welfare populism’ advanced by the Coalition Government in the UK after 2010. We argue that UK political parties have appropriated the discourse of fairness to promote fundamentally divisive policies which have been popular with large sections of the electorate including, paradoxically, many poorer voters. In focus group research in white working class communities in the UK undertaken just before the 2010 General Election, resentments related to perceived unfairness and loss emerged as very strong themes among our respondents. We examine such resentments in terms of an underlying ‘structure of feeling’ which fuels the reactionary populism seen in ‘anti-welfare’ discourses. These promote increasingly conditional and punitive forms of welfare in countries experiencing austerity, such as the UK, creating rivalries rather than building solidarities amongst those who ‘have little’ and drawing attention away from greater inequalities.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 567 - 585
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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