Finn, Philip (2021) Navigating indifference: Irish jobseekers’ experiences of welfare conditionality. Administration, 69 (2). pp. 67-86. ISSN 2449-9471

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Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of the intensification of work-related conditionality on the lived experience of jobseekers in Ireland. Post-crisis Ireland has witnessed the emergence of a definitive policy trajectory which seeks to enable a lifelong attachment to the labour force through work-related conditionality buttressed by sanctions. This mode of governing unemployment attempts a restructuring of the caseworker–claimant relationship through increased engagement, claimant adherence to mandatory conditions, and surveillance underpinned by potential reduction, suspension or loss of benefit. The paper provides a qualitative investigation of the lived experience of this impact through a thematic analysis of forty-two interviews with jobseekers in a county in the east of Ireland. The focus on the agency of jobseekers illustrates a system based on superficial engagement in which conditionality primarily operates as bureaucratic formality. This is reflective of a systemic indifference to claimants’ needs and circumstances, producing a performance of feigned compliance in response.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Welfare conditionality; sanctions; lived experience; welfare; dramaturgy;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Law
Item ID:	18406
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.2478/admin-2021-0014
Depositing User:	Dr Philip Finn
Date Deposited:	18 Apr 2024 13:23
Journal or Publication Title:	Administration
Publisher:	Sciendo
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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