Punishing the Poor—a debate
| Author | Margit Mayer |
| Published date | 01 February 2010 |
| Date | 01 February 2010 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1362480609352890 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Punishing the Poor—a debate
Some questions on Wacquant’s
theorizing the neoliberal state
MA RG IT M AY ER
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Abstract
While in broad agreement about the growing importance of
workfare and punitive tendencies in contemporary politics, this
article raises four questions about Wacquant’s model of a neoliberal
state. Besides pointing out the fuzzy definition of the target group
of punitive regulation, it questions whether penal containment is
generalizable as ‘core’ of the neoliberal state. Third, it critiques the
selective treatment of contemporary poverty policies (excluding a
variety of, for example, activating, neoliberal policies), built on a
skewed view of the transition from a supposedly generous ‘nanny
state’ to a strict ‘daddy state’. Fourth, it challenges the claim of
‘overall fitness’ of punitive containment of urban marginality and
the absence of agency and contradictions from the model.
Key Words
neoliberal poverty policies •neoliberal state •poor people’s agency
•welfare-to-work
Wacquant’s (2009) ‘Theoretical Coda: A Sketch of the Neoliberal State’ syn-
thesizes his observations on the changes in North American and Western
European poverty politics as a new conceptualization of the neoliberal state:
he argues that the flexibilization of labor, the transformation of welfare poli-
cies toward workfareand stricter sanctions, and theexpansion of policing and
Theoretical Criminology
© The Author(s), 2010
Reprints and Permissions:
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/
journalsPermissions.nav
Vol. 14(1): 93–103; 1362–4806
DOI: 10.1177/1362480609352890
93
To continue reading
Request your trial