Plural Governmentalities : Governing Welfare Fraud in Sweden

• Existing governmental and criminological research typically links insurance to the rise and spread of neoliberalism and thus the decline of the welfare state. The criminalization of welfare and the use of actuarialism in responses to crime has often been described as a testament to this shift in political power. In contrast, the current paper argues that criminalization articulates multiple governmentalities. Using empirical illustrations from the Swedish case, it shows that so-called control investigators realize a neoconservative agenda using a mix of a neoliberal and a bureaucratic rationalities and technologies. The paper argues that examinations of the articulation of multiple governmental rationalities offer one route for thinking intelligibly about power and criminalization and by extension about the limits of neoliberal rule.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Governmentality

Criminalization

Social insurance

Sweden

kriminologi

Criminology

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

ovr (ämneskategori)