Journal Articles

Reading active labour market policy politically: An autonomist analysis of Britain’s Work Programme and Mandatory Work Activity

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Drawing on Autonomist Marxist theory this article situates the 2010–15 Conservative–Liberal Coalition government’s active labour market policy as the most recent phase in a state ‘strategy of underdevelopment’ (Cleaver, 1977) to erode the autonomy of labour power and facilitate a reconfiguration of labour and work to impose (competition for) undesirable jobs on the terms and conditions offered by capital (Peck, 2001: 349). The article contends that Mandatory Work Activity and the Work Programme facilitate a pattern of differentiated activation, where segmentation and stratification of the non-employed population (re)produces an insecure, disciplined, segmented and stratified labour power for insecure, segmented, stratified labour markets. From the perspective of capital and the state the differential job outcomes associated with these programmes are less a mark of policy failure than of policy success.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Critical Social Policy

Call Number

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Publisher

Thousand Oaks : Sage Publications., 2015

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0261-0183

Classification

NONE

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 35, Isuue 3 Agustus 2015, pages 369-392

Subject(s)

Activation
Conservative–Liberal Coalition government
UK
welfare reform workfare

Specific Detail Info

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