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SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICE 47

how people are governed, agree to be gov- ● social networks and community as explanatory
erned and govern themselves (Tsobanoglou, factors for understanding social problems.
1993). Authors such as Mitchel Dean distin-
guish different modes of governmentality, In the USA the situation was very similar,
and suggest that in a given era a certain mode when the Reagan administration took over
of governmentality may be broadly domi- and introduced a right-wing, voluntarist
nant. A mode of governmentality consists of agenda into the concept of the welfare system,
a set of specific answers to the questions challenging the hegemony of the ‘Great
‘what is it to govern’, ‘what are we going to Society Programme’ of the 1960s. Though
govern’, ‘how are we going to (be) govern(ed)’ the former Danish Social Democratic
and ‘why are we going to (be) govern(ed)’ Minister of Social Affairs, Ritt Bjerregaard,
(Dean, 1999). Thus, governmentality includes would never identify herself with right-wing
answers to epistemological, technical and American policy, her attack on the profes-
ethical questions. These answers are cultural sionals of the social system was linked to the
products that are largely taken for granted by same discourse.
members of society (Dean, 1999: 16). When Looking at the ‘the governmentality of the
reasoning from the viewpoint of governmen- welfare state’ discourses, we can follow a
tality theory, the increased emphasis apparent transformation of the social engineering
in all kinds of policy towards interaction discourse from focusing solely on structural
among subjects should be seen as a switchover reasons for poverty to focusing on the
to a different mode of governmentality. responsibility of the individual. Given that
Governmentality theorists have suggested this transformation was effected by political
that the current mode of governmentality is parties that occupied opposite positions in
characterized by an emphasis on ‘responsible the political arena, it represented a deeper
and disciplined autonomy’(Dean, 1999: 153), change in the governmentality, or welfare
a ‘will to empower’and a focus on interaction discourse, of the western welfare states. In
among subjects (Cruikshank, 1999). the process, the ‘post-Reagan’ USA gained a
A case that seems to demonstrate such leading global role in formulating the agenda
transformations in the modes of governmen- of the welfare system – clearly, a role that it
tality is welfare policy. In 1980, the then had never had before (Prince, 2001).
Minister of Social Affairs in Denmark Already in the 1960s, neo-conservatives in
announced at the OECD assembly that the the USA combined economic liberalism with
time had come to reduce professional domi- an emphasis on morality, ethics and commu-
nance in the whole field of social services nity values (Gibson, 1997). Charles Murray
and to try to mobilize social networks of thought that the welfare system was actively
disabled individuals (Bjerregaard, 1980). contributing to the creation of a permanent
Though she belonged to the Social Democratic underclass dependent on welfare benefits.
Party, Ritt Bjerregaard thus became one of This ‘underclass’ was defined by its culture
the first politicians who challenged the social and its self-destructive behaviour (Murray,
engineering project that had dominated the 1994). In a more sophisticated way other
Nordic model of ‘welfare governmentality’ conservatives, such as Marvin Olasky,
since 1960. argued that it was necessary to distinguish
In 1982 the neo-Conservative/neo-Liberal between ‘those who need a hand’ and ‘those
parties won the Danish election and replaced who need a push’ (Olasky, 1992). This led to
the Social Democratic government. During the the instrumentality of a ‘welfare to workfare’
following years the government focused on: policy introduced by President Clinton in
1996 in the USA (Tsobanoglou, 2002, 2004,
● decentralization of influence and decision-making, 2006). Such policy spread to Europe as the
● a rehabilitation of voluntary social work and only possible way for the Social Democrats