Abstract
This article uses a constructivist approach to scrutinize embedded actions of situated agents of governance to explore the governing of activation services in Israel. It probes beliefs, discourses, and practices of meso-level regulation administrators and street-level workers to analyze the emergence of a new stringent and disciplinary activation mode. Ultimately, this activation mode reconfigured the "social contract" between the state and its unemployed citizens via intensive intimacies: a conflicted microspace governed with little discretion and imbued with a reformative vision of state-society relations. The article demonstrates how situated agents' meaning-making is essential to examining shifting governance forms and their political ramifications.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 87-111 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | Administration and Society |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2014 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation Grant #115-2008.
Keywords
- activation services (welfare-to-work)
- governance
- state bureaucracy
- welfare-state change
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Public Administration
- Marketing
