Working Less, Not More in a Workfare Programme: Group Solidarity, Informal Norms and Alternative Value Systems Amongst Activated Participants

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
LASSE SCHMIDT HANSEN ◽  
MATHIAS HERUP NIELSEN
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Group Solidarity ◽  
Manual Labour ◽  
Informal Regulation

Abstract This article uses extensive ethnographic methods to explore the lived reality of a Danish workfare programme. The programme requires social assistance recipients to perform manual labour for their benefits at municipal work sites. The contrast between the political rhetoric that justifies the workfare programme and the lived reality of it is striking. While the programme is justified as a means to put the passive unemployed to work, there is a norm of working less, not more at the site. The participants spend most of their time waiting or conducting seemingly meaningless work assignments. However, over time, the majority of the participants begin to embrace this modus operandi at the site. This article answers this apparent paradox by turning to concepts from the anthropology of industrial work. Such concepts allow us to analyse how camaraderie exists amongst participants as well as work supervisors at the site. Particularly, the camaraderie is based on group solidarity, an informal regulation of work efficiency and an alternative system of value. Hereby, the article adds to previous findings on the ‘lived experiences’ of welfare recipients.

On the Will of the People: Notes on the Political “Theory” of Populism

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Offe
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
National People ◽  
The Will

The “will of the (national) people” is the ubiquitously invoked reference unit of populist politics. The essay tries to demystify the notion that such will can be conceived of as a unique and unified substance deriving from collective ethnic identity. Arguably, all political theory is concerned with arguing for ways by which citizens can make e pluribus unum—for example, by coming to agree on procedures and institutions by which conflicts of interest and ideas can be settled according to standards of fairness. It is argued that populists in their political rhetoric and practice typically try to circumvent the burden of such argument and proof. Instead, they appeal to the notion of some preexisting existential unity of the people’s will, which they can redeem only through practices of repression and exclusion.

Introduction: Beyond Benefits Street – exploring experiences and narratives of welfare reform

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Theoretical Context ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Longitudinal Approach ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter outlines the rationale behind conducting repeat interviews with out-of-work benefit claimants in an effort to better understand lived experiences of welfare reform. It introduces readers to the political and theoretical context, and highlights the value in employing social citizenship as a theoretical lens in order to tease out citizenship from above and below. The recent context of welfare reform in the UK is also introduced, highlighting the extent to which successive rounds of welfare reform have cumulatively reworked the relationship between the citizen and the state. The research on which this book is based is detailed, and the value in working through and across time by taking a qualitative longitudinal approach highlighted.

The Political Culture and Political Rhetoric of County Feasts and Feast Sermons, 1654–1714

1994 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Newton E. Key
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Public Lecture

In December 1655, four stewards for the Worcestershire feast wrote to the eminent divine Richard Baxter regarding possible worthy charities for money collected at their recent London feast. Baxter, elated by their offer, suggested that they set up a public lecture in a dark corner of their native county. He later recalled how well the charitable concerns of this first Worcestershire feast tied in with his concurrent actions to establish a clerical association in the county. Almost thirty years later, in 1682, Roger L'Estrange noted the same phenomenon of annual county feasts in London. Like Baxter, L'Estrange defended what he termed the “innocent county feasts,” and hisObservatoradvertised both tickets and published sermons for more than a dozen county or city feasts during its brief run between 1681 and 1687. Such common cause between Baxter and L'Estrange is remarkable. Moreover, the “innocent” county feasts, which flourished for fifty years from the late 1650s, were often controversial and were the setting for feast sermons which often heaped vitriol on “parties,” whether religious or political. This article examines the rise of the county feasts in the 1650s and their peak in the 1680s in order to assess their significance in the development of late Stuart society, culture, and politics.The county feast was in fact an urban phenomenon: natives of a county met annually, usually in London, for a sermon, dinner, and a subscription to a charity. The phenomenon has long been noted, though rarely analyzed.

scholarly journals Come Fly With Me: Analyzing The F-35 Aircraft Acquisition Discourse to Study Incivility in Question Period

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
The People ◽  
Canadian Politics ◽  
The Government

The main objective behind the parliamentary practice of Question Period is to ensure that the government is held accountable to the people. Rather than being a political accountability tool and a showcase of public discourse, these deliberations are most often displays of vitriolic political rhetoric. I will be focusing my research on the ways in which incivil political discourse permeates the political mediascape with respect to one instance in Canadian politics - the acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. I believe that incivility in the political discourse of Question Period must be understood within the mechanics of the contemporary public sphere. By interrogating the complexities of how political discourse is being mediatized, produced and consumed within the prevailing ideological paradigms, I identify some of the contemporary social, cultural and political practices that produce incivility in parliamentary discourse.

scholarly journals Bollywood in the Hollywood Era: Narratives of Ultra-nationalism, Terrorism and Violence

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-47
Author(s):  
Iqbal Shailo
Keyword(s):  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Hollywood Movies ◽  
Strategic Policies

The study examines how some renowned Hollywood and Bollywood movies deal with geopolitical representations of empire and regional politics through the construction of discourses centered on the building of “empire” and “nation”. These movies reflect how government machineries evaluate the political situation and strategic policies of the country in managing geopolitical environments through the construction of security narratives, political rhetoric and geopolitical discourses.  The narratives of specific Hollywood movies tend to explain contemporary geopolitics with an emphasis on America’s military power, strategy and world leadership while the genre of Bollywood movies reconnects the ideology of division through the establishment of geographies of ‘us’ and ‘them’ setting aside the so-called “secular face” of the state.

scholarly journals PANDANGAN POLITIK JARINGAN ISLAM LIBERAL DI INDONESIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-174
Author(s):  
Ana Sabhana Azmy ◽  
Amri Yusra
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
A Value ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Reading Materials

This article aims to look at the political views of the Jaringan Islam Liberal (Liberal Islam Network) in Indonesia. As a community that wants to carry out reforms with the spirit of modernization and rationality in religion, seeing it in political and democratic contestation in Indonesia is interesting. So this article questions two things; how does Jaringan Islam Liberal view the relevance of religion and politics? and how does Jaringan Islam Liberal view the implementation of democracy? The method used in this paper is a literature study that seeks to collect data from journal articles, books, and other related reading materials. This article shows that the Jaringan Islam Liberal (Liberal Islam Network) rejects forms of political Islam that try to formally fight for the superiority of Islamic value systems and symbols in the political sphere. They also reject the idea of an Islamic state and the formalization of shari'ah, and sees democracy as a value that must be implemented in a country. This is because it is in accordance with the basic rights that must be owned by individuals, which are known as human rights.

The Fanwu Liuxing and its Intellectual Discussion about the One

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 136-153
Author(s):  
Sungryule Lee
Keyword(s):  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Heaven And Earth ◽  
Stable Control

This article presents a translation of an uncovered bamboo text, Fanwu Liuxing (FW), with some discussions on the nature of the text. The FW proposes the One as the primordial entity which can stabilize and maintain the existence and movement of all nature as well as all the phenomena and orders in the nature and humanity. To the rulers, the acquisition of the One makes possible the unification of the world and, moreover, its stable control, leading eventually to the most valuable existence of the world as the model of Heaven and Earth. The FW further argues that the political rhetoric and utilization of the One maximize the political efficiency for the ruling of one state or the world.

Revelation and The Political

2021 ◽  
pp. 551-567
Author(s):  
Matthew John Paul Tan
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Third ◽  
Heaven And Earth ◽  
Mode A ◽  
Do So

This chapter will explore the varieties of political thought informed by divine revelation as understood in the Christian tradition. It will do so with reference to the metaphysical assumptions of what happens when transcendence meets history, and accordingly divide the inquiry into three archetypes. The first are the monists, for whom transcendence collapses into the temporal. The second are the dialecticians, for whom the uncrossable distinction between heaven and earth results in a struggle between the two. The third are the participationists, for whom the transcendent and the historical can harmoniously cohere through a ‘mediating third’ plane. For each mode, a brief sketch will be given of the writings of exemplary thinkers, and of the promises and pitfalls. In highlighting this variety, the aim of charting this map is to nuance the discussion currently taking place concerning the motivations and modus operandi of religiously informed political actors.

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