Unemployment and Government Genealogies of the Social [Hardcover]

This book charts the changing definitions of unemployment in the UK over the last century.This book follows the invention and transformation of unemployment, understood as a historically specific site of regulation. Taking key aspects of the history of unemployment in Britain as its focus, it argues that the ways in which authorities have defined and sought to manage the jobless have been remarkably varied. The book examines such institutionalized practices as the labour bureau, unemployment insurance, and the present 'New Deal' as 'technologies' of power. The result is a challenge to our thinking about welfare states.This book follows the invention and transformation of unemployment, understood as a historically specific site of regulation. Taking key aspects of the history of unemployment in Britain as its focus, it argues that the ways in which authorities have defined and sought to manage the jobless have been remarkably varied. The book examines such institutionalized practices as the labour bureau, unemployment insurance, and the present 'New Deal' as 'technologies' of power. The result is a challenge to our thinking about welfare states.This book follows the invention and transformation of unemployment, understood as a historically specific site of regulation. Taking key aspects of the history of unemployment in Britain as its focus, it argues that the ways in which authorities have defined and sought to manage the jobless have been remarkably varied. The book examines such institutionalized practices as the labor bureau, unemployment insurance, and the present New Deal as technologies of power. The result is a challenge to our thinking about welfare states.1. The discovery of unemployment; 2. Inventing unemployment: the birth of the labour exchange; 3. Governing unemployment as a 'risk'; 4. Governing through the long-term unemployed: unemployment between the wars; 5. Unemployment and its spaces; 6. Governing divided societies: the new deal. Walters has wlÃn