Welfare Dependence or Enforced Deprivation? A Critical Examination of White Neoliberal Welfare and Risk

Abstract

Social policy, service delivery, and professional practice in social work and human services have been increasingly enacted in contexts where welfare and welfare dependency are characterised as significant and persistent social problems in Australia. In this paper, we theoretically and critically examine the “problem” of welfare and propose an alternative framework for progressing understanding and action. We consider how Whiteness theory, neoinstitutional theory and risk theory can be used to examine how welfare dependency is framed as an entrenched problem within the Australian context. Our analysis elucidates how the social, economic, political, and cultural privileges pertaining to Whiteness, and the social, economic, political, and cultural deprivations of those who are seen to most clearly embody the “problem” of welfare dependency, are reinforced through neoliberal welfare risk rationalities. Implications of this theoretical exposition are considered, as well as possible research directions. Such work promises an alternative and hopeful analytical framework for understanding and responding to “the problem of welfare” in Australia.

社会工作和人类服务中的社会政策、服务发放以及职业实践，其所实施的环境是一个福利及福利依赖性越发成为澳大利亚重要而顽固社会问题的环境。本文从理论和批判的角度检视了福利“问题”，并提出另一种框架来处理对事情的理解以及行动。我们讨论了如何利用白色理论、新制度理论以及危机理论，来探讨福利依赖是如何被确立为澳大利亚一大问题的。我们的分析了涉及白色的社会、经济、政治、文化特权，以及体现福利依赖“问题”的人群在社会、经济、政治、文化上的被剥夺，还有这些是如何被新自由主义的福利危机理路所强化的。作者讨论了这一理论揭示的意义以及可能的研究方向。这项工作为理解和应对澳大利亚的“福利问题”提供了另类的、有希望的分析框架。

Keywords:

• Welfare
• Neoliberalism
• Privilege
• Whiteness
• Risk
• Australia

Notes

¹ The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) was established by the Hawke Labour government, in 1989, without the support of the Liberal opposition that was lead by John Howard. ATSIC had, as a broad mandate, responsibility for overseeing how government policy and practices impacted upon Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples in Australia. In 2005 the Howard Liberal government, with the support of the Latham Labour opposition, abolished ATSIC (McGrath, 2004).

² The Federal government's New Income Management (NIM) policy makes the receipt of welfare payments conditional on the voluntary or mandatory management of Centrelink payments for individuals identified as “financially vulnerable” (i.e., “at risk”).