A triumph of the active man? An analysis of the changing ways of categorising social assistance recipients in Denmark

Abstract

This article analyses the system of categorisation currently used for describing and labelling social assistance recipients in Denmark as either qualified or not qualified for work. Rather than studying concrete situations, where ‘clients’ meet ‘system’, the article offers instead an analysis of how the classification system itself has profoundly changed its logic through the past decades. The ‘old’ categorisation system described the various problems and weaknesses of the unemployed, whereas the ‘new’ system – deemed to be more “positive” and “optimistic” – is blind to such issues and describes only the various strengths and readiness of the unemployed. Thereby, the system of categorisation plays an important role in the public legitimisation of harsh new activation policy programs with politicians claiming that we ought to meet the able-bodied unemployed with strict demands. Empirically the article describes this transformation of the categorisation system by drawing on an archive of relevant governance documents – first and foremost documents from Ministries directed at front workers and imposing them to categorise the unemployed according to certain logics. Theoretically the article is inspired by concepts from newer French pragmatic sociology. Of special importance is the concept of the institution as developed by Luc Boltanski. The concept makes visible how the categorisation system turns the unemployed individuals into a reality of manageable groups that can be grasped and handled by the political system.