Framing Welfare Recipients in Political Discourse

This book explores the shift towards individual responsibility that is increasingly evident in welfare systems across the world. 

The book will be of interest to students and scholars across sociology, social policy, and political science, with a particular focus on migration, minorities, political discourse, securitisation, social justice and human rights.

"This book offers a compelling read, analysing how workfare is legitimated in the Central European context, through the innovative metaphor of “political farming.” The analytical framework brings together several distinct streams of theorizing (critical discourse studies, critical security studies, governmentality, boundary-making, and the dynamics of ethnic relations) seamlessly and effectively. Through a very nuanced discursive analysis, Kissová shows how the poor, the offenders, and the “unadaptable” – categories policymakers use to talk about material need recipients – are linked pathologically with criminality, abuse of the system and other negative perceptions. This is a must-read text for anyone interested in how political actors justify questionable legislation that cements inequality in today’s neoliberal milieu.”

— B. Nadya Jaworsky, Associate Professor, Sociology, Masaryk University, Czech Republic 

"Lenka Kissová’s book is clearly written and carefully researched. Her interdisciplinary insight and discursive analysis of parliamentary debates on Slovak “workfare” policies illustrates the deliberate, precise and politicized colocation of Roma marginalization and economic disadvantage, in a manner that starkly illustrates systemic racism dressed up as morally necessary regulatory reform. Moreover, her research has broader comparative and methodological relevance given how she layers in and utilizes governmentality, securitization and legitimation theory, unmasking how neoliberal economic assumptions and dog whistle politics, woven into the speech of politicians, works to demonize recipients as real or potential cheats and criminals, enact further social exclusion and heighten inequality and fear while not-so-subtly promoting existing prejudices. Her overarching metaphor—that of parliamentarians engaging in “political farming” where their ideas seed and take root in fertile soil of the national landscape resulting in regulatory “products”—effectively demonstrates how social reality generally and state regulation specifically can be constructed divorced from actual evidence, a process beyond her specific case and critically relevant to our times."

— Barbara J. Falk, Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Canadian Forces College/Royal Military College of Canada, Fellow, Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, University of Toronto, Canada

“Framing Welfare Recipients, this novel framework is applied to some research themes conditionality, workfare and the use of stigma as an instrument of policy—that will be familiar to researchers on social assistance. … Framing Welfare Recipients, there appears to be a very close relationship between thesis and book. … the book offer an informative insight into welfare reform discourses in an unfamiliar polity … .” (Mark Simpson, Journal of Social Security Law, Vol. 30 (3), 2023)

"This book offers a compelling read, analysing how workfare is legitimated in the Central European context, through the innovative metaphor of “political farming.” The analytical framework brings together several distinct streams of theorizing (critical discourse studies, critical security studies, governmentality, boundary-making, and the dynamics of ethnic relations) seamlessly and effectively. Through a very nuanced discursive analysis, Kissová shows how the poor, the offenders, and the “unadaptable” – categories policymakers use to talk about material need recipients – are linked pathologically with criminality, abuse of the system and other negative perceptions. This is a must-read text for anyone interested in how political actors justify questionable legislation that cements inequality in today’s neoliberal milieu.”

— B. Nadya Jaworsky, Associate Professor, Sociology, Masaryk University, Czech Republic 

"Lenka Kissová’s book is clearly written and carefully researched. Her interdisciplinary insight and discursive analysis of parliamentary debates on Slovak “workfare” policies illustrates the deliberate, precise and politicized colocation of Roma marginalization and economic disadvantage, in a manner that starkly illustrates systemic racism dressed up as morally necessary regulatory reform. Moreover, her research has broader comparative and methodological relevance given how she layers in and utilizes governmentality, securitization and legitimation theory, unmasking how neoliberal economic assumptions and dog whistle politics, woven into the speech of politicians, works to demonize recipients as real or potential cheats and criminals, enact further social exclusion and heighten inequality and fear while not-so-subtly promoting existing prejudices. Her overarching metaphor—that of parliamentarians engaging in “political farming” where their ideas seed and take root in fertile soil of the national landscape resulting in regulatory “products”—effectively demonstrates how social reality generally and state regulation specifically can be constructed divorced from actual evidence, a process beyond her specific case and critically relevant to our times."

— Barbara J. Falk, Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Canadian Forces College/Royal Military College of Canada, Fellow, Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, University of Toronto, Canada

Lenka Kissová is a researcher at Masaryk University, Czech Republic.