‘People are responsible for their own individual actions’: dominant ideologies within the Neoliberal Institutionalised Social Work Order

ABSTRACT

Despite existing in contradiction to the espoused values of social work, neoliberalism has arguably transformed the profession in various places across the globe. This phenomenon has been widely considered, investigated, analysed, but the ways in which neoliberalism has shaped the consciousness of social workers has often been neglected. This is a substantial omission as it potentially fails to recognise how social workers themselves might now be complicit in reproducing and amplifying neoliberal worldviews. Conceptually rooted in the delineation of a Traditional Institutional Social Work Order (TISWO) and a Neoliberal Institutional Social Work Order (NISWO) paradigm, the article includes a small, qualitative, exploratory study focusing on the perceptions of six senior social workers. The findings appear to highlight how neoliberal discourses are manifesting themselves in how these practitioners conceive social ills, their causes and ‘solutions’.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Obwohl Neoliberalismus im Widerspruch zu den erklärten Werten der Sozialarbeit steht, hat er die Profession weltweit und nachhaltig geprägt. Aspekte des Phänomens wurden bereits umfassend untersucht, kaum Beachtung fand allerdings die Art und Weise, wie Neoliberalismus das Berufs- und Selbstverständnis von Praktiker*innen der Sozialen Arbeit beeinflusst. Diese Forschungslücke lässt die Rolle von Sozialarbeiter*innen in der Reproduktion und Verstärkung neoliberaler Werte innerhalb der Profession unterbeleuchtet. Der vorliegende Artikel wird konzeptionell durch die Gegenüberstellung einer ‘traditionellen institutionellen Ordnung der Sozialen Arbeit’ (TISWO) und einer ‘neoliberalen institutionellen Ordnung der Sozialen Arbeit’ (NISWO) gerahmt. Sechs explorative Interviews mit Fachkräften geben Hinweis darauf, inwiefern neoliberale Diskurse sich im Berufs – und Selbstverständnis von Praktiker*innen der Sozialen Arbeit wiederfinden – bis hin zu der Art und Weise, wie sie soziale Probleme und deren Lösungen begreifen.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work
• neoliberalism
• individualisation of social problems
• moral underclass discourse

SCHLAGWORTE:

• Soziale Arbeit
• Neoliberalismus
• Individualisierung sozialer Probleme
• Moralisierender Unterschichtendiskurs

Introduction

Neoliberal ideology and practices would appear to be at odds with social work and its espoused values (Duarte, 2017). For example, Morley and Macfarlane (2014) assert that neoliberalism thwarts social justice and human rights orientated practice. Neoliberals are concerned with ‘responsibilities’, in opposition to ‘rights’. ‘Citizenship rights, equity and maintenance of a healthy and compassionate social fabric are implicitly and explicitly discouraged and devalued’ (Morley & Macfarlane, 2014, p. 339). However, neoliberal incursions into the profession are well documented in the literature. Indeed, this particular article is partly prompted by ‘Social Work and Neoliberalism: The Trondheim Papers’, the themed issue of the European Journal of Social Work 22 (2), which furnished a panoramic exploration in 2019 (see also Marthinsen et al., 2022). More generally, there is an abundance of studies tracking, describing and explaining how social workers cope with, address and challenge neoliberal changes in their workplaces (Garrett, 2003; 2009; 2021a; see also Ferguson and Lavalette, 2006; Wallace and Pease, 2011). There is also discussion on how practitioners are regulated and prevented from doing so (Jönsson, 2015, 2019; Lauri, 2019).

This article consists of three parts. The first begins with a short foundational introduction to the concept of neoliberalism. This is followed by a more specific examination of its impact within social work and here we introduce our main innovation and conceptual hinge: the Traditional Institutionalised Social Work Order (TISWO) and the Neoliberal Institutionalised Social Work Order (NISWO). The third part of the article outlines some of the findings from a small empirical research project investigating the ways in which the NISWO may be reflected in, and amplified by, the comments of our research participants.

What is neoliberalism?

Neoliberalism, as an economic ideology and policy-informing zeitgeist, began to rise to prominence in the western world, and elsewhere, during the 1970s and it has since become dominant. Neoliberalism sought to replace embedded liberalism, a form of Keynesian capitalism, installed within most western states following the end of the World War II. The post war period of embedded liberalism saw the development of the welfare state that acted as a protective factor against the brutality of capitalism: albeit to varying degrees and by privileging an ‘aristocracy of labour’, constituted primarily of unionised, white male workers. Fraser and Jaeggi (2018) argue that neoliberalism is indicative of the most recent transformation in capitalist evolution (see also Garrett, 2019a). Within the social sciences, the term neoliberalism is used to describe and comment on a wide array of phenomena in contemporary society. Indeed, the all-encompassing use of the word has prompted some authors to judge the term to be of little descriptive or analytical utility (Bell & Green, 2016). With this in mind, Harvey (2007, p. 71), one of the most prominent writers on neoliberalism, defines neoliberalism as:

A theory of political economic practices that proposes that human wellbeing can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms […] characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.

In very basic terms, the core of neoliberal theory is the idea that the free market is the best way to organise a global economy, controlled by the regulatory framework of supply and demand and the rational self-interested motivation of individuals. Manifestly, the interests served are those of the global ruling class and, more colloquially, neoliberalism can be perceived as a form of ‘class warfare from above’. This was reflected, prior to the global coronavirus pandemic in 2018, in the growing concentration in wealth: there were 2043 dollar billionaires worldwide; with 82% of all of the growth in global wealth going to the top 1%, whereas the bottom 50% saw no increase at all (Oxfam, 2018, p. 8).

Neoliberalism is not restricted to organisational or policy changes (Bettache & Chiu, 2019). It has transcended these to become an overall – albeit frequently challenged – template for the organisation of human life (Brown, 2015). Neoliberals conceptualise individuals as rational, self-interested entrepreneurs (Foucault, 2008). In essence, each person is portrayed as their own micro corporation and who must manage themselves as such by maximising their ‘human capital’ and thus ensuring self-sufficiency. Rather than focusing on resources that individuals require to improve their quality of life, in the neoliberal worldview more resources are inhibitive; fewer resources result in more personal ‘efficiency’. Alongside this notion, ‘austerity’ is romanticised and the goal is to always ‘do more with less’.

In Ireland, neoliberalism has taken on a hybrid character borrowing

elements of US neoliberalism, such as public–private partnerships, privatisation of public services, low corporate and individual taxation, low level of government expenditures on social programmes and light regulation of the financial system … It also incorporates aspects of European social welfarism’ (Mercille, 2014, p. 82)

Oxfam Ireland (2021) report:

Mirroring this global inequality trend, Ireland’s … nine billionaires saw their fortunes increase by €3.28 billion since March – a tenth of which would pay for a Covid-19 vaccine for every person in the Republic of Ireland. Meanwhile, essential workers – such as our carers and supermarket and factory workers – cared for our vulnerable and kept our food supplies running throughout the pandemic – quite often on minimum or low-paid wages.

This is part of the present conjuncture: the complex, crisis-ridden context in which a myriad of factors have begun to cluster and coalescence in which social work (both in practice and within its education sector) must now operate (Garrett, 2021a). Moreover, as a profession, social work often seems to prefer to ‘help’ the ‘disadvantaged’ fit into their allotted places within the fabric of neoliberal capitalism. Analytically and practically, the task of confronting the source of this ‘disadvantage’ – the capitalist class – is frequently rendered obscure, even ‘non-existent’.

The Traditional Institutionalised Social Work Order (TISWO) and the Neoliberal Institutionalised Social Work Order (NISWO)

Wallace and Pease (2011) propose that neoliberal changes taking place within social work can be categorised as macro level and micro level changes. Macro level changes refer to movements at the structural or organisational levels and these have predominately taken the form of marketisation and managerialism. This has resulted in a shift in priority, where the needs of clients and informal carers are increasingly marginalised and subordinated to the requirements of state social work organisations and the increasing demand to ‘target’ (actually ‘ration’) services to ‘deliver’ ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’ (Carey, 2008). These fundamental structural – and discursive – shifts have transformed, what Bourdieu (2003) would term, the ‘field’ in which social work is practiced (Garrett, 2018a: Ch. 7; 2018b). As a profession, it is a ‘contingent activity, conditioned by and dependent upon the context from which it emerges and which it engages’ (Harris, 2008, p. 662) and so the question becomes this: what is social work in the neoliberal context? This brings us to the micro dimension that might illuminate how neoliberalism influences the quotidian activities of social workers.

To understand the micro impact of neoliberalism, it is first important to recall the focal contradiction that exists within social work. On the one hand, it is a potentially progressive, even radical, profession founded on the principles of social justice and social change. On the other hand, social work is an integral component of the capitalist state that aims to preserve the status quo: to reproduce and to maintain a supply of labour power and, at the same time, to manage and discipline the recalcitrant, the wilfully obstructive and a disparate and shifting panoply of ‘deviant’ categories. Such ambivalence has resulted in decades of debate and sustained disagreement on the true purpose of the profession (see, for example, Maylea, 2020 and Garrett, 2021b). More concretely, even prior to the outbreak of the global pandemic, intensive ‘austerity’, welfare retrenchment and residualisation resulted in a social work role which was apt to be narrowed to one of ‘risk management’ with inadequate time or space to consider and confront the structural causes of clients’ problems (Ferguson et al., 2005).

Today, users of social work services are increasingly cast in terms of ‘risks’ that need to be calibrated and managed rather than as ‘victims’ of inequality and discrimination in need of support (Rogowski, 2014). In this sense, Ferguson (2008, p. 15) argues that social workers have taken on the role of ‘soft cops’ differing from ‘hard cops’ only in the methods they employ. Seismic neoliberal shifts have also caused ‘technicist models of social work’ to emerge (Martínez Herrero & Charnley, 2021, p. 45). In neoliberal times, social workers are increasingly employed as case managers preoccupied with bureaucratic tasks, leaving little time for relationship building or engagement in therapeutic work with their clientele (Jones, 2001). Social work and social care also furnish stark examples of sectors where there have been intensive efforts to privatise services so as to prise them open for profit and shareholder enrichment. Relating to provision for children in contact with social workers, Branigan and Madden (2020), in their review of the residential costs incurred by Tusla (the Irish state’s child and family agency), reveal a growing reliance on the private sector.

Arguably, given that neoliberalism has consolidated its position as a dominant ideology, it would be naïve to assume that, as if by magic, social workers are insulated from its pervasive and omnipresent influence. Fenton (2019), in fact, found a certain affinity with neoliberal right-wing authoritarian attitudes and rhetoric when studying 122 ‘iGeneration’ first-year social work students (those born in 1995 or later) (see also Gilligan, 2007; Nordstrand, 2017; Woodward & Mackay, 2012). These attitudes were representative of a reinvigorated ‘underclass’ narrative among younger social work students. The ‘underclass’ is a sweeping term used to refer to population groups who comprise neoliberalism’s ‘castaway categories’ (Macnicol, 2015; see also Tyler, 2013; Wacquant, 2009a, p. 4; Welshman, 2013). Such groups, often gendered and racialised, are excluded and marginalised, and are supposedly thought to embody aberrations from mainstream societal norms (Garrett, 2019b). The ‘iGeneration’ students were also in favour of harsher sentencing for criminals and for decreasing social welfare provision. The same study highlighted how social work students had internalised a neoliberal individualistic and self-sufficiency discourse. In light of these findings, Fenton (2019, p. 13) asserts that ‘the neoliberal narrative appears to have been well and truly internalised’.

Table 1 below sets out the changes that interest us in this short article. Our aim in constructing the Table is to highlight some of the transitions that may have occurred from the period we call the Traditional Institutionalised Social Work Institutionalised Order (TISWO) to the period characterised as the Neoliberal Institutionalised Social Work Order (NISWO). In broad terms, the bureaucratised TISWO was dominant from the 1960s until the late 1980s. The NISWO, our focal concern in the article, is dominant following its gradual embedding from the early 1990s. In this context, we identify some of the main changes taking place across six domains (the society, the work, the hegemonic animating imperatives, the thematic organising frames, responses to ‘marginalisation’ and social work education). Within each of these domains, we then identify the dominant values related to social work, the affective regime, keywords and symbols/icons.

Table 1. The Traditional Institutionalised Social Work Order (TISWO) and the Neoliberal Institutionalised Social Work Order (NISWO).

Domain	Dominant values related to Social Work	Affective regime (‘vibe’) related to Social Work	Keywords related to Social Work	Symbols/Icons related to Social Work
The society	Individual embedded in ‘society’ and shaped by wider structural forces that shape ‘social problems (TISWO) Individualisation and erasure of the political and the structural (NISWO)	Encompassing, if sometimes stultifying, conservative and paternalistic, social cohesion Relentless competition	Welfare State, Welfare Rights, Inequalities, Trade Unions, Social Change, Helping. Women’s Rights, Social Justice, ‘We’ Human Capital, Social Enterprise, Entrepreneurship, Self-Confidence, CV, Job search, Activation, Sanctions, ‘I’	Unemployment Benefit Office. The free crèche Personal LinkedIn Account, Smile Emoji
The work	Importance of talk, conversation and narrative driven engagements. Relatively ‘slow’ temporal frames. Importance of the social history of the ‘client’ and building and sustaining relationships (TISWO) Digitalisation and new temporalities of work. Increase dependence on assessment templates designed by corporate consultancy firms. ICT facilitated fluidity muddying the distinction between ‘work’ and ‘home’. Intensive focus on the ‘present’ and a lack of interest on the genealogy of social and personal ills. ‘Surface’ is more important than ‘depth’: ‘It is what it is’ (NISWO)	Pragmatic Hope and Perpetual Frustration Pervasive Cynicism, Personal Ambition and Fearfulness	Client, Relationship, Care Customer, Choice, Up-Skilling, Team-Player, Privatisation, Independent Providers, Email, Performance Review, Temporary Contract, Deadlines, Dress Codes, Business Plan, Inspection, Algorithms, Cost, Cost Centre, Hot-Desking, Reorganisation, Women in Management, Burnout	The pen, the diary, mug of weak tea and a ‘packet of fags’, pub Smartphone, IPad, social media Gym membership subscription, Self-Help Book on Kindle, Decaffeinated flat white made with Soya milk
The hegemonic animating imperatives	Fairness and recognition of the ‘dignity’ and worth of the person (TISWO) The primacy of ‘risk’ and rationing. Downplaying the significance of poverty and social misery. Relatedly, in child and family social work, ‘toxic trio’ (Morris et al., 2018) functions as substitute ‘screen discourse’ and totalising explanatory paradigm (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2001). Stress on personal responsibility. Often vocabulary inflected in a therapeutic direction (NISWO)	Adult education session hosted by liberal and ‘progressive’ priest Therapy programme held in ‘open’ prison hosted by female prison governor, dressed in smart suit, talking at length on virtues of ‘tough love’	Client, Respect for Persons, Communication Skills Resilience, Anti-Social Behaviour, CBT, mindfulness.	Social Work Assistant calling at house with big bag of toys for clients’ children Family Support Worker calling at house with alcohol and substance misuse testing kit for lone mother
Thematic organising frames	Welfare and Human Needs. Social inclusion and emphasis on reform and, within the ‘penal estate’, emphasis on ‘reform’ and rehabilitation (TISWO) Workfare and embedding of regimes of conditionality and coercion and an inflation in prison numbers (Wacquant, 2009b). Social inclusion is evidenced by willingness to take up paid employment Heightened emphasis on monitoring and surveillances of those using (and providing) social work services	Social Cohesion Compliance	Social Security, Welfare State, Poverty, Hardship, Job creation, urban renewal, Problem Family, Poor Communities. Community Work, Groupwork. Juvenile Justice, Intermediate Treatment (IT), Rehabilitation Individualisation of ‘social problems’. Targeting, Welfare, Welfare Dependency, Underclass, Chav, Crack Den, Sink Estates, Gangs Offending, Victim,	Busy Youth Club with often-smashed windows. Cops walking around estate on lookout for ‘troublemakers’ The prison and ankle bracelets worn by ‘offenders’ serving sentences in the ‘community’. The local ‘foodbank’ staffed by volunteers from local Churches. Cops in schools
Responses to ‘marginalisation’	Pushed and prodded by wider social forces and urban ‘uprisings’, social work as a discipline and practice increasing committed to anti-racism (TISWO) Maintaining racist structures whilst rhetorically valorising ‘diversity’ and ‘difference’. Emphasis on need to have more BAME staff in senior management positions (NISWO)	Troubled and Agitated Aspiring, Positive, but difficulties sleeping at night	‘Race-class-and-gender’ Anti-Racism, Cops, Stop-and-Search, Police Harassment, Organise Cultural Competence, BAME, Hostile Environment	Anti-Racist Marches, ‘Girls are Powerful’ lapel badge Poster in client waiting room with vapid slogan and featuring ethnically diverse and happy school children
Social work education	Because of pressure from various advocacy/user movements to reform the curricula, Social Work educators more attuned to espoused social work values and socially progressive ‘reform’ agenda Social work education deeply political whilst proclaiming to ‘non-political’, accredited and ‘registered’ modes of ‘professionalization’. Censorship of questions deemed to fall outside the narrow perimeters of ‘professionalism’. Reification of ‘received ideas’ (Rojek et al., 1989) (NISWO)	Fractious solidarity Dull consensus	Students and Collegiality, Teaching and Education Customers and Colleagues, Module Delivery, Leadership, Skills, Employability, Promotion, Personal Achievement, Team Player	Anti-Cuts Demo Social Work Student’s online loan application form. Social Work Educator’s personal LinkedIn account

Constructed for heuristic reasons and informed by the relevant literature and our immersion in the field (Bourdieu, 2003), Table 1 is not, of course, totalising and exhaustive. Albeit schematic, we distil a range of factors related to mode and mood to create an accessible, even provocative and darkly playful to the point of caricature, evocation of transformations occurring. However, a few points of clarification are vital. First, in referring to the TISWO and the NISWO, these are not evoked as arid or unitary binaries. Neither order was, or is, wholly unified and homogeneous. For example, the TISWO also included internal differentiations and encompassed a marginal, but meaningful radical current; in the UK, if not in Ireland, there was a significant Marxist component in the late 1970s (Corrigan & Leonard, 1978) and also critiques were articulated from feminist and ‘race’ perspectives. In short, our model merely seeks to capture the dominant or hegemonic orientations governing each of the two orders. The TISWO has not been entirely eradicated nor is NISWO wholly dominate throughout Europe. Potent residues of the TISWO cannot be easily extinguished and the boundaries between the TISWO and the NISWO are porous with tensions, fluidity, points of intersection and crossover. Neither of these institutionalised orders were or are the same throughout Europe; each NISWO, for example, will have its own national characteristics and Ireland and, say, France will not be entirely the same or have followed the same trajectories. The disposition of social work is invariably associated with its history within particular countries; it helps ‘set the scene’ and constitutes its ‘common sense’ and shape how it functions today (see also Crehan, 2016). In countries, such as Ireland, with strong traditions of localism and heterogeneity within the state, there are also complex and shifting temporalities and the NISWO will ‘play out’ in complex and uneven ways.

Second, as Stephen Brandt and colleagues in Belgium have lucidly illuminated, there are substantial factors connected to generations and generational units; just because a social worker inhabits a ‘field’ that is manifestly part of the NISWO, does not mean that she will share that perspective. Perhaps partly related to her age, she may have an entirely different sense of her professional ‘habitus’ and possess ethics and values which lead her to perceive the NISWO as an heretical anathema (Brandt et al., 2016, 2020; see Burnham, 2012; Wagg & Pilcher, 2004).

Third, these are changes we identify occurring within the economic, cultural and social fabric of capitalism. Relatedly, and to be very clear, the TISWO does not represent a ‘golden age’, it represents a different age. As historical accounts make clear, there was never any wholly benign form of social work given that the foundation of the profession was, in part, reflective of multiple strategies and projects by the ruling elites to manage and quell the poor and to forestall potential civic and political unrest (Parry et al., 1979). Although as we can see from Table 1, at times signalling the possibilities of going beyond capitalist structures, the TISWO was essentially the product of a different regime of capital accumulation – Fordism; the NISWO, as the title clearly makes apparent, is a product of the neoliberal regime of capital accumulation.

Finally, our focus is not on what may be termed, critical and radical social work that was a vibrant, if minority, component of the era of the TISWO. Dissenting and continually unwilling to accede to the demands of the NISWO, critical and radical social work may, in fact, grow to supersede it as a new form of hegemony within the field (Garrett, 2021a).

Excavating the views of senior practitioners within the NISWO

Building on the TISWO/NISWO model and utilising semi-structured interviews, a small research project was conducted with six registered social work practitioners in the west of Ireland. Due to their level of experience, spanning from seven to twenty-eight years, all the participants are regarded as ‘senior practitioners’ (see also Table 2). As for ourselves, and our positionality, the first author is German and relatively new to the social work field and the second author is Irish, an experienced practitioner and much published.

Table 2. Profile of research participants.

Pseudonym	Age	Field	Job title
Anna	40s	Early Intervention	Social Worker
James	50s	Children & Families	Principal Social Worker
Jane	30s	Children & Families	Social Work Team Leader
Josie	30s	Learning Disabilities	Social Work Team Leader
Katie	50s	Children & Families	Principal Social Worker
Marianne	40s	Children & Families	Social Work Team Leader

The female to male ratio in this cohort was 5:1 and this is representative of the overall gender distribution amongst social workers in Ireland. As is apparent, the participants worked in a variety of social work areas, but the majority worked with children and families. Snowball sampling was used as the method to recruit the participants. Specifically, one social worker employed in this locality – and known to the first author to be a key nodal reference point – provided further contact information for other potential participant social workers.

In aiming to gain a deeper insight into the practitioners’ worldviews and perceptions, questions posed in the interviews related to their subjective understanding of social issues, including their causes and ‘solutions’. In addition, participants were presented with a short vignette outlining a hypothetical dilemma which social work practitioners working in the NISWO are oftentimes confronted with. Due to continuing Covid-19 restrictions, all of the interviews, conducted entirely by the first author, were audio recorded and subsequently transcribed. The interviews lasted between forty and eighty minutes and the resulting data was analysed using the computer software Atlas ti 8. Braun and Clarke's (2006) generic six-phase thematic analysis method was adhered to while working with a deductive, critical constructionist approach. Due to the intimate and interpersonal nature of the study, steps were taken to minimise the potential effect of a social desirability bias. For example, diligent caution was taken to phrase questions in a neutral and open-ended manner. The research project was undertaken in compliance with the research ethics of NUI Galway and informed consent was obtained from all of the participants who took part on a voluntary basis. Utmost care was taken to ensure that the participants remained anonymous and each of them was asked to volunteer a pseudonym. In what follows, the focus will be on two core and interlinked facets of the responses that relate to facets within the domains featured in Table 1: the first circulates around the individualisation of social problems and the second around ‘moral underclass discourse’ (Levitas, 1998).

The individualisation of social problems

The most frequently identified social problems among participants were drug and alcohol addiction, mental health problems, domestic violence and homelessness. Other issues identified were poverty and inequality. These were generally thought of as preconditions for the other aforementioned social ills rather than as social problems in themselves. Thus, although the most frequently identified social problems tended to be an individualised nature, there was a recognition, from some participants, that they had structural underpinnings. As stated by Katie:

I think how wouldn't people feel stressed and their mental health be compromised when they're living in those [poor] kind of conditions.

Another research participant identified the role that wealth plays in ameliorating some of the adverse effects of some social issues. James, for example, highlighted the protective property of wealth:

I think it is so much easier if you have money to deal with those things. And also just to protect yourself, to insulate yourself from … if you're struggling with your mental health but you have plenty of money, well then you can go for private therapy but also, you can have lots of nice things that make you feel better like holidays.

The perspective presented here fits with the knowledge, theory and value base associated with the TISWO that sees and understands the person as being situated in a ‘society' with wider structural forces shaping ‘social problems' and individual's capacity to respond. However, despite an awareness of the structural underpinnings of many ‘social problems', there was a stress on ‘individualisation’ when it came to finding solutions to those problems. For example, Katie suggested that addiction was an inappropriate coping mechanism and it was presented as something of an easier choice:

People will use drugs and alcohol to quash what they can't cope with because they don't have better coping strategies … it's just easier to drink a bottle of whiskey than it is to face things, you know.

In this statement, the social problem of addiction was evoked because of the individual’s inappropriate coping mechanisms rather than as their desperate – but explicable – way to deal with unjust life circumstances. Here, the individual is maladjusted to society rather than the other way around. From this viewpoint, it seems natural for the social worker to help the individual to change their behaviours and functionally gel with society, rather than work to create change within society.

Furthermore, people with addiction problems were framed by the ‘toxic trio’ discourse (Morris et al., 2018). This reductive and insular discourse entirely dwells on atomised families whose lives are irredeemably shaped and blighted by domestic violence, mental health and substance misuse issues (see Table 1). Relatedly, clients were frequently perceived as unwilling to make difficult decisions and to face ‘reality’. Marianne expanded on this narrative, stating that alcohol and drugs are ‘seen as an external solution to an inner problem’. When asked about how to address challenging social issues present in Ireland, Jane noted:

I suppose people are responsible for their own individual action. Some people need to check themselves.

There was a consensus that ‘rebuilding the moral fibre of individuals and communities’ was the ‘panacea for all of the problems mentioned’ (Sewpaul, 2013, p. 21). Josie was also mindful of issues pertaining to the resourcing of social services and the fact that this was clearly connected to the money being ‘taxpayers’ money … it’s coming from somewhere and there’s not an indefinite resource or source for that money’.

Moral underclass discourse

Making individuals responsible for their life circumstances was further elaborated through a ‘moral underclass discourse’ or ‘MUD’ (Levitas, 1998). An identified element of the NISWO, a key building block of this discourse is the proposition that the ‘underclass’ embody a unique culture that is separate from the mainstream (see also Table 1). They are also responsible for the social problems that are viewed as the inevitable product of a problematic and dysfunctional ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu, 2003). When talking about some of the social problems faced by Ireland’s impoverished Travelling Community, Anna asserted:

Yea, I mean, alcoholism is really rife within the Travelling Community as is mental health issues … a lot of them, it's their, kind of, their … what would be deemed in their view the socially acceptable norms and traditions in terms of interfamilial kind of relationships and the patriarchal model within their community that … You know, so it's back again to what's systemic within their own community, in terms of their own norms and what their own values are, you know, so.

More specifically, Anna suggested it was the cultural devaluation of education and unwillingness to engage that was ultimately responsible for the lack of mainstream educational attainment within the Travelling Community:

I've worked with a lot of Travellers and they get an awful, awful bad attitude from people in Ireland. There's no doubt about it and I've had my challenges, I'll be the first to say it, but for the most part you are dealing with members of the community who, if they fulfil education until they are sixteen that is about the height of it, that's you know, a badge of honour within their community.

Both the TISWO and the NISWO are entangled with complex and shifting patterns of racialisation (Lavalette & Penketh, 2014; Singh, 2020). This was reflected in Anna’s conflating issues related to work and employment with Irish Traveller identity and culture. More specifically, what she termed the lack of ‘desire to work':

Ehm, so say for example, it's very clear … in my first job I would have worked with a lot of members of the Travelling Community … ehm they don't have the motivation to work. Ehm, when I say they … the majority of the members of the Travelling Community don't have a desire to work.

Clearly, comments such as this, fail to interrogate the structural racism that prevents Travellers from entering workplaces (Pavee Point, 2013). What is more, Travellers own agency – in perhaps refusing to have their labour power exploited at the lower rungs of the capitalist labour market – was entirely nullified.

Similarly, James argued that, despite the fact that most families who were involved with the children and family services came from low socio-economic circumstances, it was their infantile seeking of ‘instant-gratification’ and unwillingness to prioritise their children which caused them to require such services:

If [families] fall into dealing with us [Child Protection Services], if it's because of poverty, that's more through neglect issues when somebody has some other issue where all the money is going somewhere else. So it's going on gambling, it's going on drink, it's going on drugs, or it's because a parent who … bottom line, the kid is not getting prioritised at all, it's all about the parents’ needs for whatever reason.

Within this framing, poverty, inequality and structurally embedded discrimination were not considered relevant factors that helped to explain why families required intervention. Numerous participants were of the opinion that income inequality does not exist in Ireland and that everyone, even those on welfare, are in receipt of a decent standard of living. James proclaimed:

Our income support strategies in this country are pretty good actually. You know, they are not bad in terms … if you were to compare them relatively to other EU countries, I would say that people who are on social welfare here can afford to live their lives and can access the majority of services properly.

This sentiment was reiterated in an evidently chauvinistic statement made by Jane:

I think people like to give out and bitch and moan in Ireland, but I think if they go to other countries, they will see actually well… you know, we have a much better welfare system … 

Wholly in line with the ‘common sense’ of the NISWO, where poverty was seen to exist, it was conceptualised as the outcome of a lack of prudent budgeting decisions and irresponsible spending. Marianne avowed:

So a woman was telling me, I don't have money for food, I don't have money for rent, and I noted that she was smoking you know.

This sentiment is reminiscent of, as we saw earlier, a blaming ‘underclass’ discourse which proposes that the poor are poor not because of lacking actual income but the fact that they are spending the income they have on smoking, gambling, or drinking (see also Garrett, 2015). As stated by Anna:

So I don't think increasing social welfare … because I suppose it's how they spend that money as well.

The notion that Ireland is a generous welfare state, particularly when compared to other EU states, is a common myth. Indeed, the country situated second-to-last, ranking only ahead of the US in terms of social benefit generosity (Llewellyn Consulting, 2016). Yet, ‘welfare dependency’, a focal component of thematic organising frames of the NISWO, circulated around the research participants’ comments (see also Table 1). In other words, it was postulated that social welfare benefits might not only be adequate, but possibly even too high, causing individuals to make ‘welfare dependency’ a career choice (see also Garrett, 2018b: Ch. 3). Anna, for example, put this plainly:

People will just choose not to work because they get some form of payment. It's how they spend the payment. I mean, it's not that I believe people can live lavishly of … not at all, that would be stupid for me to think that. But that it does in some way minimise people's motivation you know. I know people who will just constantly on a week-to-week basis … will use their dole money to buy drugs, you know. And therein is where the problem lies you know.

Conclusion

Much of the article might be interpreted as a sustained, but implied, criticism of social work education within the NISWO – its omissions, occlusions and obfuscations. Arguably, within this sphere, there is a failure to interrogate how ‘clients’ and workers are embedded in an economic system in which the paramount imperative is capital accumulation (Garrett, 2021a). Perhaps because of the lacuna on social work programmes, students and practitioners – such as the ones featured in this article – simply tumble into using what we might call, ‘unthought’ schemes of perception and vocabularies (Garrett, 2018b). This reliance on ‘received ideas’ (Rojek et al., 1989) blunts the ability of students to comprehend the fraught situation and – avoidable, politically and economically sustained – social misery of clients. Even in purportedly ‘critical’ contributions, within the social work literature we find the notion that the prevailing economic system is merely malfunctioning and its aberrations are fixable. A contrasting analysis of the NISWO might argue that the poverty and immiseration encountered by many social work clients is evidence of a system functioning in entirely predictable ways because it is continuing to generate highly advantageous ‘outcomes’ for key ‘stakeholders’. Expressed more baldly, many clients are the social victims of a rapacious economic system – neoliberal capitalism – that continues, as we highlighted earlier, to ‘deliver’ extraordinary gains for the ruling class.

The promotion of social workers' acquiescence in such a state of affairs within the NISWO is apparent in the recent action of CORU (the Irish state’s registration and regulatory body for social work and related professions). Its revised ‘Social Workers Registration Board Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics’ (CORU, 2019) entirely removes mention of the phrase ‘human rights’: a rather startling omission given the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) (2014) definition of social work situates the aspiration to safeguard and promote human rights as central. Perhaps, according to CORU, ideas associated with human rights risk becoming too ‘political’ because of the social misery faced by many users of services. Arguably, the revised Code is a blatant attempt to forestall social workers relying on a ‘human rights defence’ if they act in defiance of any government and/or employer demands that run counter to such rights. More fundamentally, what is implied is that registered social workers must be constituted with ‘appropriate’ and wholly compliant ideological views and perceptions dominating the NISWO. We recognise, of course, that some maintain that ‘human rights’ discourse is an obstacle to progressive social change and that, even more emphatically, it is wholly in tune with the NISWO (Whyte, 2019). However, our position is that democratic gains, made within capitalism, need to be robustly defended; following Gramsci, a defence of human rights within the NISWO can be interpreted as one facet in a shifting ‘war of position’ that critical and radical social workers have to be engaged in (see also Garrett, 2018: Ch. 6).

In terms of the six interviews, we stress that they cannot be regarded as ‘representative’ of the ‘field’ of social work in Ireland. Nonetheless, what they have to say does illustrate certain interesting tendencies that signal directions for possible future research endeavours. These senior practitioners were clearly prone to reflect and amplify the domain logics of the NISWO. This was especially apparent in their inclination to individualise ‘social problems’ and to resort to ‘moral underclass discourse’. Our research participants mostly dislocated social problems and shifted responsibility onto individuals who were evoked as the authors of their own plights. What is more, these ideological discourses manipulate and distort the social reality in a way that legitimises the power of the ruling class by naturalising pervading inequalities and shifting attention onto the apparent ‘dysfunction’ of certain individuals and groups. Such perceptions did not appear ‘out of the blue’ with the installation of the NISWO; rather, they were also present in the TISWO when there was also a tendency to individualise and to cast social hardship in terms of the moral failings of individuals and their families. This dimension has been present since the inception of social work (Parry et al., 1979). During the NISWO, however, this ideological framing has become more emphatic and, in some instances, is imbued with a more ‘upbeat’ discursive tonality. In this sense, neoliberalism fosters an affective pro-active positivity. Inequality and misery are necessary aspects of social life as they build ‘resilience’, ‘grit’ and ‘character’ see also Table 1 and Garrett, 2016). Supposedly, every problem and hardship can be overcome with a positive mind-set and a ‘can-do’ attitude. Within social work and related ‘fields’, this ‘vibe’ also implies potentially authoritarian, coercive and punitive professional interventions for those clients failing to rise to this challenge. Nevertheless, it is also important to note that our findings do not suggest that the social work participants in this study are wholly unethical or that they did not challenge their employers when they were prevented from practicing ethically. Indeed, some participants provided accounts of occasions when they were at odds with their managers and ‘took a stand’ despite suffering personally.

Unfortunately, the modest research project at the core of this article was not able to compare the participants’ worldview with those of social workers practising before the installation of the NISWO. This makes it difficult to discern unequivocally whether the hegemonic animating imperatives and thematic organising frames discernible in the participants’ narratives are, in fact, illustrative of the NISWO or if they are merely reflective of deeply embedded perceptions that also characterised the TISWO. That said, if social workers continue to internalise currently dominant perceptions and do not resist the ideology of the NISWO, they run the risk of becoming, both in Ireland and elsewhere, docile and compliant functionaries within the apparatuses of the state.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oliver Brockmann

Oliver Brockmann is a qualified social worker and is based in Germany.

Paul Michael Garrett

Paul Michael Garrett is an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy and he works at NUI Galway.