The construction of the self-governing job centre

Abstract

In recent decades employment policy and its administration have occupied a very central place on the political agenda. The administrative structure in the Danish field of employment policy has long been the target of political reform initiatives, and from 2009 the area was reorganized into the so-called unitary employment system. This reorganization was presented as a decentralization initiative, and local authorities now formally have responsibility for all employment activities. These are carried out through municipal job centres. The decentralization of responsibility to the municipalities has gone hand in hand with the introduction of new technologies of government, applied from both the state and regional level. These technologies of government are inspired by what might be described as a general trend where previous hierarchical forms of government are replaced by different forms of self-governance. With this point of departure, and theoretical inspiration from Michel Foucault, Nikolas Rose and Mitchell Dean, the article examines how different advanced liberal technologies of government are applied in the field of the local implementation of employment policy, and how these technologies manifest themselves. The study builds on a document study of legislation, action plans, memorandums and websites from the state, regions and municipalities. The article identifies a number of technologies at play: the introduction of quasimarkets; use of contracts and incentives; increasing visibility and surveillance of job centres; management by targets and results; and increased use of knowledge, dialogue and guidance in state and regional attempts to influence the municipal job centres. Through these technologies of government, the job centres are sought established as autonomous and actively self-governing subjects that can be governed at a distance via centrally defined targets within a quite narrowly defined space for action. In other words, the state has relinquished responsibility, but not the ambition of governing. The governance of the field of employment policy and its implementation has surely changed, but owing to the extensive attempts to shape the behaviour of the municipalities, the state’s capacity for governance has not been reduced.