Neoliberalising Subjects: The Legacy of New Labour’s Construction of Social Exclusion in Local Governance

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Geoforum 39 (2008) 1657–1666

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1. Introduction

Analysis of political economy has recently been dominated

by consideration of the political formation known as ‘neoliberal-

ism’. The multifaceted dimensions of this political–economic, cul-

tural and governmental construction have sparked debate about

the nature of concepts and categories employed in contemporary

human-geographical research (and the means by which we might

investigate them) (Barnett, 2005). Whilst attention to the diverse

forms, functions and faces of neoliberalism in both the global

North and the global South has increased understanding of “how a

really existing and quite widespread set of policy ideas are having

conjoined effects at specific scales (up to and including the global)”

(Castree, 2006, p. 4), scholars have warned of the dangers of abso-

lutism and the limited parameters through which this term has

been typically employed (see, for example, Larner, 2003). The suc-

cessful mobilisation of neoliberalism as a research analytic, it has

been argued, requires us to emphasise its various roles in shaping

state strategies, innovative modes of governance and new forms

of political subjectivity. It demands that we be alert to its different

but somehow unified effects, in different spaces, at different times.

In seeking to understand neoliberalism as emergent in and through

a spectrum of connectivity we ought not to assume the implied sub-

ject-effects of its programmes of rule (Barnett, 2005), but rather to

problematise the subject through the investigation of subject con-

stitution in neoliberal politics (or rather the hegemonic arguments

associated with its “messy actualities”) (Larner, 2000: 14).

Certainly, there is an emerging literature in geography exploring

the production of neoliberal subjects (for example, Bondi, 2005;

Keil, 2002; Lawrence, 2005; Mitchell, 2003). More broadly, across

the social sciences feminist scholars in particular are leading inves-

tigations of the habituation of economic forces across a range of

different sites (the work of Davies et al., 2005; Skeggs, 2004; and

Walkerdine, 2003 is particularly instructive in this regard). Yet the

‘turn’ to the subject in political-economic research has also invoked

a tendency toward the evaluation of subject actions (or inactions).

This implicitly presumes or privileges a conception of the subject as

a fixed entity, exiting prior to the practices that predicate its (polit-

ical) constitution. In particular, much policy-orientated research

neglects the manner in which modern subjects are secondary for-

mulations – the product or illusion of politics and policy (compare

Dewsbury, 2007). In this circumstance, the primary focus on the

“logic and effects of neoliberalism contextually” (Castree, 2006, p.

1) – whilst useful in discerning the long-term rhythms of social-cul-

tural change – is arguably less effective in discerning how modes

of governance extend and entrench neoliberal philosophy across

states, scales and time.

To problematise the subject, it is argued here, we need

(amongst other methods) “elite-focused analyses of state bureau-

cracies, policy networks and the like” – previously discredited

forms of investigation (see Barnett, 2005, p. 10). Elite analyses are

crucial in distinguishing how policies – their texts, discourses and

implementation strategies – construct subjectivities. By focusing on

Neoliberalising subjects: The legacy of New Labour’s construction

of social exclusion in local governance

Julie MacLeavy

School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:

Received 20 July 2007

Received in revised form 22 May 2008

Analysis of ‘neoliberalism’ in recent geographical work has usefully drawn attention to the manner in

which certain political-economic ideas resonate with a diverse range of state projects, policy objects and

socio-political imaginaries. Positioning neoliberalism as a multifaceted political phenomenon, scholars

have explored its local manifestations: the embodiments of an express commitment to market exchange

in specific geo-historical contexts. Key to this process, it is argued here, is the attempt to instil a series

of values and social practices in policy subjects. This process can have lasting effects by virtue of being

embedded in practices of governance at the local level, a dimension that has been given less attention

in existing research. Using the implementation of the New Deals for the Unemployed and New Deal for

Communities in Bristol as an illustrative case, this paper investigates this potentiality by positioning New

Labour’s construction of social exclusion as a mechanism of neoliberalisation and exploring the legacy of

the neoliberal values espoused in and through its social exclusion policies.

© 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:

Neoliberalism

New labour

Social exclusion

Local governance

Bristol

UK

E-mail address: julie.macleavy@bristol.ac.uk


1658 J. MacLeavy / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1657–1666

the subject positions made available through policy we may further

realise an important opportunity for academic critique by direct-

ing attention to the (inadequate and often unjust) representations

of the subject within the political realm. In addition, by helping to

recast existing analysis of neoliberalism with a greater sensitivity

to the production of policy subjects, we can enable more adequate

accounts of resistance to, resilience in and reworkings of neoliber-

alism at a local level (Sparke, 2006), thereby extending critiques of

neoliberal economic and social policies through the understanding

of their on-the-ground impacts.

Focusing particularly on the implicit and explicit neoliberal

politics informing the New Labour project in the UK, I outline

below how the adoption of elements of neoliberal philosophy

in Tony Blair’s first and second terms as Prime Minister enabled

a new mode of governance in which the political subject was

‘framed’ through the stipulation of a series of (competing) social

values derived from the principles of individualism and collec-

tivism; rights and responsibilities; discipline and support. These

worked through the structures and strategies of government to

render needy subjects (individuals and communities) as ‘socially

excluded’. Social exclusion is identified and understood as a cir-

cumstance of being ‘shut out’ from the cultural, economic and

political systems deemed to determine the integration of a per-

son in society (Walker and Walker, 1997, cited Levitas, 1998:

11). From a neoliberal perspective, social exclusion is seen as an

unfortunate but inevitable side effect of global economic realign-

ment and the associated fact that workers formerly protected by

formal employment conditions and social security provisions

are now stripped of such benefits (Beall, 2002). It is further con-

nected to the ‘underclass’ (Murray, 1990), with socially excluded

subjects often identified and understood through a ‘stigmatising

discourse’ (Kleinman, 1998) in which (only) they are seen as

responsible for enhancing their own well-being in contemporary

economic circumstances.

More recently, I suggest, this particular imagination – of the indi-

vidualised and active subject – has persisted despite government

restructuring in which much of the political machinery introduced

to help (individuals and communities) tackle social exclusion has

been demoted, disbanded or dismantled. Indicating that the incul-

cation of a series of neoliberal values is now traced primarily in

the practices (as opposed to formal institutions) of governance, I

identify a situation in which a neoliberal politics is invoked that

does not refer back to structural economic conditions. The relative

autonomy of imagined subjects from the subject positions stipu-

lated in and through policy raises important questions for politi-

cal–economic research within human geography. It suggests that

the political attempts to reshape and redefine subjectivities which

are associated with neoliberal-inspired policy agendas are at least

as important as – and may even have greater longevity than – the

formal goals of those same policy agendas. It also implies that

restructuring does not always or necessarily produce new subjects.

Thus whilst the actions and inactions of individual subjects are in

constant flux, the formulation of subject positions in policy may

provide an effective point of academic critique.

2. Methodology

In this paper, I illustrate this point through an exploration of

the constitution of the discourse of social exclusion as a mecha-

nism of neoliberalisation (a term that is employed throughout this

paper to denote the mobilisation of state power through the con-

tradictory extension and reproduction of market(-like) rule).1 My

core focus is on the wider linguistic frameworks in which social

1 In contrast to the term ‘neoliberalism’, neoliberalisation refers to a contingently

realised process, not an end-state or ‘condition’ (after Tickell and Peck, 2003).

exclusion functions as a central nodal point, including policy for-

mulations, speeches, media reports, popular reactions and second-

ary analysis, which takes this concept or the contrary notion of

‘social inclusion’ (that is, the ‘goal’ of programmes designed to

change the circumstances or habits of socially excluded individ-

uals) as a unifying theme. Much of the material is drawn from a

recent research project in Bristol, in which I used discourse analy-

sis to investigate two government policies for tackling social exclu-

sion: the New Deals for the Unemployed, a set of programmes

premised on the ideal of social inclusion through paid employ-

ment; and New Deal for Communities, a policy in which commu-

nity-led urban regeneration is promoted as a means of assisting

socially (qua spatially) excluded individuals. As part of this pro-

ject, I traced the specific terminology deployed in texts related to

these programmes to consider the frames through which policy

actors conceptualise the world. This required the analysis of the

processes in which policy texts were framed (that is, the context

in which statements were made and the way in which such texts

link into other debates).

This discourse analysis has been supplemented more recently

with a series of interviews conducted with policy actors in the city

(specifically New Deal advisers, New Deal for Communities per-

sonnel and the representatives of allied local organisations that

are becoming involved in local governance through institutional

restructuring). The interviews have been transcribed and analysed

using a discourse-based approach. This approach seeks to discern

the ways in which particular individuals use linguistic resources

to construct the social and spatial targets of government policy

in order to (further) illuminate how knowledge is produced and

power enacted in the local political realm.

The case study of Bristol provides a useful illustration of

the formulation and implementation of social exclusion policy

through investigation of the manifestations of market gover-

nance in a specific urban context. Certain features of Bristol’s

recent economic development render it of particular interest as

a space of – what Brenner and Theodore (2002) term – ‘actually

existing neoliberalism’. The city is claimed to be at the forefront

of emerging trends in economic restructuring and labour mar-

ket change, with the growth of hi-tech industry and the related

expansion of (feminised) service sector employment (see

SWRDA, 2000). Yet the prevalence of unemployment and other

indicators of social and spatial disadvantage within the city lim-

its remain of political (and economic) concern (Boddy, 2003).

With markets understood to be a better way of organising eco-

nomic activity (owing to their association with competition,

economic efficiency and choice – Larner, 2000), aspirations for

social justice and collective forms of well-being have been pro-

gressed through the ‘rolling back’ of welfare state activities and

a new emphasis on the market provisioning of formerly ‘public’

goods and services.

In order to examine the embodiments of this express commit-

ment to market exchange in the context of local governance in

Bristol, the paper proceeds in four subsequent sections. The first

examines the neoliberal assumptions underlying the New Labour

project and the conceptualisations of social exclusion in national

political discourse. The second explores the institutionalisation

of New Labour’s neoliberalism through the frameworks of gover-

nance and the formulation of initiatives targeting social exclusion

at a local level. The third offers an appraisal of New Labour gov-

ernance, focusing on the consequences of the two programmes

– New Deals for the Unemployed and New Deal for Communities

– both of which seek to encourage a set of neoliberal values in

policy subjects. The fourth identifies the lasting impacts of sub-

ject positions created in and through social exclusion policy and

reflects upon the relevance of this for political–economic research

endeavours.


J. MacLeavy / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1657–1666 1659

3. Neoliberalism, New Labour and ‘social exclusion’

Neoliberalism is embodied in New Labour’s view of social

exclusion. Drawing upon the outgoing Conservative government’s

express commitment to market exchange, which involved privatiza-

tion and market proxies in the public sector and the “rolling back of

regulatory frameworks designed to protect labour” (Harvey, 2003,

p. 148), the incoming Labour government framed its measures to

progressively free markets from political influence in and through

the discourse of social exclusion. Social exclusion helped to invoke

a new policy framework in which issues of inequality and disad-

vantage were addressed not by a redistributive welfare system

per se, but through the institution of an ‘advanced liberal’ form of

rule (after Rose, 1999). Amidst a language of choice, flexibility and

the market, supports were put in place to invoke a transition from

government to governance in which socially excluded individuals

were enabled to participate in society through policy endeavours

that primarily sought to move them from welfare to work. Gover-

nance – defined by Gerry Stoker (1998: 17) as “the development of

governing styles in which boundaries between and within public

and private sectors have become blurred” – indicates the transition

from the formal cohesive powers of government to a new form

of governing that involves a partnership between the state and

non-state actors which has gathered pace under New Labour. In

this, there is a shift in the relationship between the state and civil

society which results in social exclusion being addressed through

the increased involvement of individuals, communities and local

organisations in the governing of social life.

This transition from government to governance gives the impres-

sion of a retreat of the state from local policy domains. Following

Nikolas Rose (1996) it is (also) seen to represent the institution of

an ‘advanced liberal’ mentality of rule. Advanced liberalism rejects

the laissez-faire of classic liberalism by recognising a continued

need for government intervention, albeit in a very indirect form

(Herbert-Cheshire, 2000). It therefore signals the continued inter-

vention of the state ‘at a distance’ (Rose and Miller, 1992). In the UK,

the implementation of a series of ‘workfarist’ endeavours (Peck,

2001), which include active labour market policies such as New

Deals for the Unemployed and participatory urban programmes

like New Deal for Communities exemplifies this transformation. In

these policies, the Labour government is seen to encourage – and

in some instances coerce – individuals and their communities to

become active in their own government. This strategy is pursued

through the establishment of public–private partnerships and the

reorganisation of the government’s strategic capacity.

In 1997, the cross-departmental social exclusion unit (SEU) was

set up and overall responsibility for interventions designed to tackle

social exclusion awarded to the secretary of state for social security

(a position then occupied by Harriet Harman). New Labour’s neo-

liberal paradigm, then, was distinguished from previous conserva-

tive governments as a “hybrid regime” (Hall, 2003, p. 19): “that of

a social democratic government trying to govern in a neoliberal

direction whilst maintaining its traditional working-class and pub-

lic sector middle class support with all the compromises and con-

fusions that entails” (ibid., p. 14). Whereas the formerly instituted

market-states of Thatcher and Major incurred high social costs and

eroded consent, the New Labour project sought “to win consent as

it goes, and to build subordinate demands back into its dominant

logic” (ibid, p. 20; see also Smith and Morton, 2006). As Rose (1996)

suggests, the apparent ‘failure’ of the state of welfare to address

the problems of society prompted the development of new govern-

mental technologies that seek to create locales, entities and individ-

uals with self-governing capabilities.

At first, New Labour rhetoric signalled a commitment to address

the complex problems of specific groups, with policy debate focused

on rough sleepers (SEU, 1998a), truancy and school exclusion (SEU,

1998b), teenage pregnancy (SEU, 1999a), and young people not in

education, employment or training (SEU, 1999b). There was also a

pledge to abolish child poverty, with specific interim targets (HM

Treasury, 1999). In 1997, the SEU defined social exclusion as:

a shorthand term for what can happen when people or

areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such

as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing,

high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown.

(SEU, 1997: no pagination)

This definition implied that social exclusion was something more

complex than material poverty: a situation that emerges from

dynamic, multi-dimensional and relational processes (Levitas,

2005) and which may include the effects of social distance, mar-

ginalisation and inadequate integration, in addition to insuffi-

cient resources (see Silver, 2006). By the late 1990s, however, this

broad understanding of social exclusion was superseded through

an explicit promotion of paid work as the primary or sole means

of integrating individuals of working age into society (for exam-

ple, DfEE, 1997, 2000; DfEE, DSS and HM Treasury, 2001). Pro-

grammes that were introduced to tackle social exclusion took an

employment-orientated approach and social security was directed

towards the obviously “deserving poor” (from Handler and Hol-

lingsworth, 1971), with a primary emphasis on children and old

people: those whose labour market participation could not reason-

ably be affected because of their age.

Such definitions of and policy approaches to social exclusion

have become orientated towards a particular assumption of cau-

sality (Levitas et al., 2007). As Ruth Levitas (1998, 2005) identifies,

there are three different conceptualisations of social exclusion in

British public policy which imply different models of causality and

different policy interventions. In the redistributive (RED) model

a lack of material resources is presumed to be the root cause of

social exclusion. In the social integrationist (SID) model employ-

ment is positioned as a key contributory factor. In the moral under-

class (MUD) model the behavioural and attitudinal characteristics

of excluded persons provide the basis for explanation. During the

first Labour government (1997–2001), a decisive shift in public pol-

icy was observed, from RED towards a social integrationist model

of social exclusion (Levitas, 2005).

The New Deals for the Unemployed and, to a lesser extent, New

Deal for Communities, exemplify this subtle transition. Introduced

in stages from 1998, the New Deals for the Unemployed are com-

prised of a series of initiatives to engage unemployed people in

paid work. Jobseekers (particularly those who have been unem-

ployed for six months or more) are given assistance through spe-

cialist support, the provision of education and skills training, and

the arrangement of temporary job placements that are intended

to aid the development of work routines and work experience

records (DSS, 1998). New Deal for Communities – a workfarist

regeneration programme – ‘contracts in’ deprived individuals and

groups through local activities therefore encouraging the develop-

ment of work-related skills and behaviours by pushing people to

become involved in the regeneration of local neighbourhoods (SEU,

2001). It connects excluded individuals with members of local gov-

ernment, the voluntary sector and business through the establish-

ment of local quangos, thereby encouraging contributions to and

personal responsibility for the creation and maintenance of local

networks of reciprocity and cooperation via community-building

tasks and activities (DETR, 1998a,b).

The etymology of social exclusion reflects a process of nego-

tiating the conflicting articulations of ‘exclusion’, particularly

those existing at a European level (MacLeavy, 2006). As the term

becomes redefined as a technique of governing, it helps to sig-

nal a new means of government in which individuals are encour-

aged to take responsibility for their own governance and that



of their families and communities (compare Rose, 1996). This is

in contrast to the original notion of social exclusion, which is

derived from French social thought and a concern for the rela-

tionship between members of society and the nation state (Beall,

2002). Social exclusion in this instance is primarily concerned

with citizenship and proffers a lens through which to look at enti-

tlement, access to resources and the decision-making processes

in society.

In the European Union, the understanding of social exclu-

sion articulated is, in part, directed towards an assessment of

the social bond held by people who are marginalised from for-

mal labour markets and welfare benefits. For example, access to

employment was prioritised in the Nice criteria, which were set

out in 2001 following the Lisbon Summit of the previous year.

However, the Nice objectives also make reference to ‘assisting

vulnerable groups at risk of social exclusion’ in a manner reminis-

cent of the French discourse and the SEU’s early focus on particu-

lar social groups (Levitas et al., 2007). The National Action Plans

on Social Inclusion – which are required from each of the mem-

ber states biennially – also signal the possibility of geographical

factors producing or increasing situations of social exclusion.

Drawing extensively on the Opportunity for All reports, which

are produced annually by the Department of Work and Pensions

(formerly the Department of Social Security and the Department

for Education and Employment) from 1999, they indicate a more

multifaceted definition of social exclusion than may be traced in

UK policy:

social exclusion occurs when different factors combine to

trap individuals and areas in a spiral of disadvantage (DSS,

1999, p. 23)

This understanding of social exclusion – as emergent from poor

access to goods, services, resources and employment and as dispro-

portionately affecting particular social groups and geographically

defined communities – is invoked in EU reports on social inclu-

sion, which document and analyse the situation across all member

states and identify key challenges for the future (for example, Euro-

pean Commission, 2006).

Thus whilst the discourse of social exclusion has narrowed and

declined in UK politics, it continues in quite complex ways to flour-

ish in the EU.

At the beginning of Labour’s third term, further changes are

afoot. The last General Election manifesto published by the Labour

Party contained only one reference to social exclusion and over

30 to ‘poverty’ (a term that may be coming (back) into fashion).2

Moreover, the thrust of national government intervention, which

is unilaterally towards improving labour market efficiency through

the raising of employment and the development of a diverse pool

of skilled labour (see Treasury, 2002), now proceeds with only lim-

ited reference to social exclusion. This indicates that despite con-

tinued ambiguity at a supranational level, on the domestic front

New Labour’s distinctive form of neoliberalism – in which market

principles “have been woven into the fabric of a broad range of pol-

icy programmes at the same time as they have subordinated non-

market political and cultural forces to the broader requirements of

capital accumulation” (Raco, 2005, p. 328) – has been integrated

into the ‘common sense’ of UK policy initiatives and is invoked in

policy without necessarily being named.

2 ‘Poverty’ has been largely absent from national political parlance since the pre-

vious Conservative government denied its existence. Recently, however, it has been

used with increasing frequency in New Labour documents (see, for example, Labour

Party, 2005; also Kenway, 2003). There is also a renewed academic interest in the

geographies of poverty (Milbourne, 2004; compare Leyshon, 1995).

4. The institutionalisation of an individualistic ethos

The diminishing profile of social exclusion corresponds with a

number of changes in the structures of governance. The appoint-

ment in May 2006 of a Minister for Social Exclusion (which gave

the issue of social exclusion cabinet-level priority) was quickly fol-

lowed by the announcement in June 2006 of the closure of the SEU,

with its work transferred to a smaller task force under the auspices

of the cabinet office (Levitas et al., 2007). Having been transferred

from the cabinet office to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister

(ODPM) in 2002, and from ODPM to the newly established Depart-

ment of Communities and Local Government in 2006, the SEU’s

proactive remit of “galvanising various departmental policies

affecting sectors of the population trapped in poverty, most espe-

cially those who are seen to lack the opportunity to alter their dis-

advantaged position” (SEU, 1997: no pagination) continues in the

Social Exclusion Task Force, albeit with an (increased) emphasis

on the responsibility of excluded persons to help themselves over-

come their disadvantaged positions (Levitas et al., 2007).

The emphasis on individual responsibility for inequality and

deprivation in programmes designed to tackle social exclusion is

indicative of the espoused values of the New Labour government,

which include fairness, individual obligations and ‘community’.

Through the establishment of the SEU, the government first sought

to institutionalise elements of its neoliberal philosophy:

The social exclusion unit will yield results over months and

years, not days, but its purpose is central to the values and

ambitions of the new government. Its role reflects a new

mood in the country and the values of a new government.

(Prime Minister Tony Blair, London, 8 December 1997)

The ‘Third Way’ – a perspective which re-legitimised collectivism

through the addition of management objectives (McIlroy, 1998)

– was used to signal these values and their relevance in policy

debates. When promoting the Third Way, then Prime Minister

Tony Blair used rhetoric about a strong civil society and effective

government to suggest New Labour’s occupation of the ‘middle

ground’ between laissez-faire economic planning and the systems

of social democratic welfare operating in parts of Western Europe

(for instance, Scandanavia) (Giddens, 1998). Since New Labour’s

second electoral victory in 2001, these neoliberal principles of gov-

ernance have primarily been referenced through the ideals of social

exclusion policy. In the present third term of Labour rule, there is

now an even more limited profile afforded to the Third Way. Yet

programmes that were once run through the SEU continue to pro-

mote ‘Third Way’ values in localised contexts.

Thus whilst the overarching institutional framework supporting

social exclusion policy may have diminished, the discourse is still

invoked in policies that seek to initiate strategies of self-help and

community development. In Table 1, I have summarised the focus

and key objectives of the two policies, which formed the basis of

the research project on which this paper is based. The New Deals

for the Unemployed are comprised of a series of supply-side labour

market programmes that seek to address the numbers of individu-

als excluded from the labour market. New Deal for Communities is

an urban regeneration project that aims to encourage residents of

a defined local area to come together to act on behalf of the com-

munities that ‘command’ their allegiance.

Although these two programmes operate on different facets of

social exclusion (i.e. individual and community), both seek to insti-

tute an advanced liberal mentality of rule.

When looking at the implementation of these programmes

in Bristol, I noted the frequent invocation of a language of ‘social

problems’ in policy documents and debates. As Carol Bacchi (1999:

6) states, this “tends to individualise causal agents, precluding an

understanding of ‘social problems’ as systemic”. In interviews,



particularly with advisers from Jobcentre Plus – the organisation

which administers the New Deals for the Unemployed – I also

observed the deployment of the SID model of social exclusion to

frame social inclusion as achievable through integration in the

(local) labour market. For instance, in describing the welfare-to-

work programme, one member of staff explained that each of

the New Deals proceeds from a series of individual consultations

in which unemployed people work with a personal adviser to

develop a training and/or job search plan (this is know as the ‘Gate-

way’ phase of the programme). In this, the prime objective for the

adviser is to identify the client’s personal barriers to the labour mar-

ket:

th[e] adviser will work with you to actually look at whether

you are a disadvantaged area, there are any problems that

you [have], particular, to you, whether you have a house

problem, if you have a health problem we look immediately

at disability [support], do you have a problem with reading

and writing, because if that’s the case then you may be eligi-

ble for remedial programmes as a learning entrant, because

you have this disadvantage, do you have caring responsibili-

ties – anything that may hinder you getting back into work.

It may be qualifications, it may be that you’ve been a lorry

driver and just suddenly find that you’ve been disqualified

from driving so with that in mind we have to look at how

we are going to deal with those issues. (New Deal adviser,

Bristol, November 2006; emphasis added)

By stressing the role and significance of each participant’s personal

circumstances, the New Deal adviser here echoed the neoliberal

principles of personal responsibility, obligation and reduced assis-

tance. The reference to the particularity of jobseekers’ problems

helped obscure how external factors (also) influence situations of

unemployment and social exclusion. For example, the distribution

of jobs in the local area, the availability and cost of travel to places

of work, and the wages paid to employees at entry-level each have

an impact on the benefits that individuals may derive from the

labour market.

Although the advisers’ may not personally subscribe to the pol-

icy assumptions of the New Deals (that is, that the reasons for –

and the resolution of – situations of social exclusion are personal),

their routine actions lend support to the inculcation of a series of

values such as individualism, responsibility, flexibility and adapt-

ability in policy subjects. Not only are these conceptualisations

of personal responsibility and individualism impressed upon job-

seekers via the conditions that govern their participation in the

programme, but certain modes of behaviour that correspond with

the overarching principles of the programme are also endorsed in

and through the encouragement of the New Deal advisers. As one

New Deal adviser explains, to receive cash benefit in the form of

Jobseeker’s Allowance unemployed people have to fulfil certain cri-

teria:

We obviously require them to do the jobsearch…all of our

[customers] would have to be available and actively search-

ing for work to meet the criteria [to receive Jobseeker’s Allow-

ance]. (New Deal adviser, Bristol, November 2006)

Yet the advisers’ unique strategies of support also further the coer-

cive elements of the programme as they psychologically prepare

individuals to reach a level of capability for self-help (through the

creation of a positive mindset and enthusiasm for work). A repre-

sentative of Jobcentre Plus, who had previously worked as a New

Deal adviser, described this process:

you’ll find that there are peaks and troughs anywhere in

the labour market and as far this work ethic goes, I feel

that especially with the youngsters, its better to get them

in a job, even if it’s a part-time job because it does mean

they are getting some work history, to understand better

how employers work, what is required of you, often its

more sustainable on a part-time basis than it is on a full-

time basis initially. I mean, in some areas of Bristol, for

instance, we are on a third generation of benefit customers

so those households have never been used to actually get-

ting up in the mornings and that can be a huge stumbling

block initially. (Representative from Jobcentre Plus in the

South West, November 2006)

This privileging of a certain type of citizen, whose economic pro-

ductivity symbolises their value to society lends support to the

removal of a universal right to welfare and its coupling with a paid

work obligation. This bolsters the policy remit in which the right

to social support is matched with and against the responsibility

to participate in society (particularly through the labour market).

It also enables the move from flat-rate to graduated benefits and

from universalism to greater means testing. In turn, this helps to

progressively transform attitudes towards welfare, from a general

consensus that welfare exists as a safety net for people with low

Table 1

Main programmes and key objectives

Programme Focus Key objectives

New Deals for the Unemployed, comprising:

1. New Deal for young people

2. New Deal for the long-term

unemployed

3. New Deal for lone parents

4. New Deal for disabled people

5. New Deal for partners

6. New Deal for the over 50s

Individuals not in education, employment

or training, including:

Claimants of jobseekers’

allowance, aged under 25

Claimants of jobseekers’

allowance, aged 25 and over

Claimants of income support

Claimants of incapacity benefit

Potential second earners in an

unemployed household

Claimants of jobseeker’s allowance

I To help people compete for jobs by assisting and enforcing

jobsearch activities

I To increase levels of ‘employability’ through primary skills development

and the fostering of work routines through temporary job placements

I To develop individuals’ capacity to overcome obstacles to labour market

participation through mentoring and the provision of small-scale grant

assistance (e.g. to purchase work clothes, attend interview etc.)

New Deal for communities Communities in areas of

multiple deprivation

I To help residents tackle problems in their local community by awarding

money for regeneration to boards of local representatives

I To involve those outside government in neighbourhood renewal by

creating and preserving a local partnership framework

I To stimulate community activity as a means of delivering social and

material refurbishment to deprived neighbourhoods



or no incomes towards a more punitive approach that emphasises

self-sufficiency and individual requirements to work.

The construction of social exclusion as a personal issue is – in

this sense – linked to a new model of the welfare state (Silver,

1994). In this, any victim mentality left over from previous pro-

grammes of welfare rule is replaced with remedies to alter the atti-

tudes and behaviours of people towards the changes taking place

in the global economy (Herbert-Cheshire, 2000). The New Deals

for the Unemployed – which have been progressed from initia-

tives of the former Conservative government such as Project Work

– are designed to produce a new technology of citizenship through

which the government can work through rather than against the

subjectivities of citizens (compare Cruikshank, 1999). In a simi-

lar vein, New Deal for Communities – the more distinctive ‘New

Labour’ approach to the problems of poverty and disadvantage – is

not directed towards (economic) regulation, but rather to establish-

ing a system of limited macro-economic planning. This rejects the

logics of ‘patronising dependency’ that infused earlier conceptions

of welfare and social exclusion by making subjects “do the work

on themselves, not in the name of conformity, but to make them-

selves free” (Rose, 1999: 268).

In positioning communities as the centre of urban regeneration

processes, New Deal for Communities also helps to implant a par-

ticular set of practices and behaviours that support the neoliberal

agenda at a local level. The policy discourse of community frames

residents as enterprising subjects capable of counteracting social

exclusion. (In other words, through the assumption of an identi-

fiable collective the government endorses a cautious and largely

covert approach to redistribution – see Toynbee and Walker, 2001.)

Furthermore, the organisation of the programme specifically

requires local residents to come together to bid for and then man-

age centrally allocated government funds. This pushes communi-

ties to ‘think themselves into existence’ (Imrie and Raco, 2003).

Once rendered visible, the programme proceeds to invest in them,

thereby equipping communities with the capacity for self-govern-

ment (in a move that legitimates the future withdrawal of state

funds).

The outline bid for New Deal for Communities designation

(prepared by members of the local community with the help of Bris-

tol City Council personnel) illustrates the manner in which the social

and economy decay in the area to the east of the city centre has been

re-inscribed through a series of words and images that imply a series

of ‘problems’ pertaining to residents in the (then) proposed area of

programme delivery. Black and white photographs depicting high-

rise flats, fly-tipping and graffiti in the area – which comprises the

four neighbourhoods of Barton Hill, the Dings, parts of Lawrence Hill

and Redfield – were employed together with vivid descriptions of

the neighbourhood’s decline to imply a moral underclass model of

social exclusion (Community at Heart, 1999). In this, personal misde-

meanours such as criminal activity, drug use and anti-social behav-

iour were attributed blame for residents’ low socio-economic status.

As the following excerpt indicates, structural inequalities were not

immediately brought to the fore, rather attention was focused on the

pre-existing subjectivities of residents:

Possibly the most noticeable change in the inner city area

has been the deteriorating fortunes of Barton Hill. Twelve

years ago Barton Hill was generally regarded as respectable,

working-class. A decade ago illegal drug use was of little con-

cern to residents; now it appears to be their top worry. This

is closely linked to their concerns about the increasing num-

ber of disaffected youths in the neighbourhood and the burnt

out cars around the Barton Hill flats are visible evidence of

the type of activities they are filling their time with. (Henry

Shaftoe in Bristol Inner City Community Safety Survey, 1999;

quoted in Community at Heart, 1999, p. 41)

In diverting attention away from “the wider political–economic

forces which cause and maintain the concentrations of poverty

and unemployment in these areas” (Bennington and Donnison,

1999: 5), Bristol’s outline bid for New Deal for Communities fund-

ing further implied the capacity of local residents to lead regen-

eration. It imagined the potential of policy subjects for self-help

and social improvement through the invocation of a latent ‘commu-

nity’ that merely needed to be encouraged through the conferral

of programme funds. This legitimated a social integrationist policy

response in which monies were provided to the residents of these

neighbourhoods for them to manage via a board made up of local

representatives. In becoming involved in local policy development,

it was also suggested residents would learn the skills necessary

to become economically active through participation in the paid

labour market (Community at Heart, 1999).3

Having been awarded funds, the Bristol New Deal for Communi-

ties partnership named ‘Community at Heart’ was established to

reactivate the area’s productive capacity in and through the regen-

eration of local residents as a new ‘flexible resource’ for the local

economy. In the course of investment in infrastructure, job creation

(particularly through entrepreneurship), health and education, the

New Deal for Communities scheme now prompts residents to par-

ticipate in projects of mobilisation, reform and regulation on the

government’s behalf. In geographical terms, this delimits the pro-

ject of urban regeneration to the neighbourhood scale. In socio-

political terms, it stipulates policy subjects with specified roles

and responsibilities in the local community. This supports a neo-

liberalised approach towards the broader political economy – with

a smaller (welfare) state, market primacy and the renewed signifi-

cance of labour flexibility (Jessop, 2002; see also Peck, 2001).

Since the inception of the New Deal for Communities programme

in Bristol, individual and group efforts at alleviating local depriva-

tion have become established as markers of ‘community spirit’

in the area (see, for example, Community at Heart, 2006). Local

newspaper reports communicate this conception of (re)new(ed)

residential capacity within the four neighbourhoods of Barton Hill,

the Dings, Lawrence Hill and Redfield and present the area as a

place in which local residents are taking responsibility for urban

regeneration:

For an area which has the highest mortality rate, unemploy-

ment, teenage pregnancies, crime and drug use in the city,

the people [in the New Deal for Communities area] are prov-

ing that community spirit lives – no matter what the odds

are. (Bristol Evening Post, 2001, p. 9)

This identification of the ‘community’ as a politically active unit

reinforces the notion of self-governing individuals and groups as

initially constructed in political discourse. In doing so, it helps to

justify the indirect interventions of the Labour government.

5. Positioning and interpreting social exclusion in local

governance

In a regional context as well as in terms of national and inter-

national benchmarks, Bristol boasts a strong economy. Having

served as a bastion of manufacturing industry during the period of

Atlantic Fordism, it has become one of the fastest growing urban

regions in the country acquiring the media image of a prosperous

‘sunbelt city’ at the western end of an ‘M4 corridor’ of high technol-

ogy growth (Bassett, 1996, 2001). Indeed, the city is frequently pre-

sented as laboratory for nurturing a sustainable knowledge-based

3 The tackling of unemployment has long been constructed as a de facto urban

concern. As the former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently noted, “It is important

that we tackle the remaining areas of unemployment in our country and inner city

regeneration is one way of doing so.” (HC Debate 7 June 2006 c. 251).



economy with rising rates of employment in the financial services,

high technology and ICT sectors, media and the broader cultural

economy, and the continued rise in self-employment. Because of

this, Bristol is a place in which active labour market programmes

are framed as an appropriate means for enabling individuals to

re-enter the labour market and progress along a career path. As

a consequence, grounded critiques of the imperative of the New

Deals for the Unemployed and New Deal for Communities must

go further in demonstrating the manner in which the policy works

against the goal of social inclusion.

In failing to take account of demand-side causes of structural

unemployment and the subsequent concentration of ‘secondary

workers’ (after Doeringer and Piore, 1971) in residual low status

posts, it is established that the New Deals can have few positive

outcomes in parts of the country and sectors of the population

where the need for reform is greatest (see also Gray, 2004; Sunley

et al., 2006). In Bristol, the nature and uneven development of new

industries within the city-region – which has produced a partic-

ular social and spatial distribution of employment opportunities

(see SWRDA, 2000) – not only undermines the media presentation

of the city as a successful and affluent urban area, it also presents

a challenge to the efficacy of the New Deals for the Unemployed.

Jobs are polarised with regard to skills and income, and there are

gender and ethnic inequalities in employment and career oppor-

tunities. In addition there is continued incidence of entrenched

unemployment (particularly in the southern and eastern parts of

the city). This suggests that whilst it may be possible in this eco-

nomic setting to use the New Deals to regulate a ‘revolving door

job market’ – in which disadvantaged jobseekers switch between

low-paid employment posts and periods of workfarist policy par-

ticipation in line with fluctuations in the economy and personal

circumstances (Peck and Theodore, 2000) – discrete measures of

policy success (including increased numbers of participants in

work) do not necessarily mean that individuals entering the labour

market are ‘socially included’.

Indeed, whilst Bristol’s booming service economy has brought

prosperity to a significant number, the loss of core manufacturing

jobs is not evenly balanced by the expansion of the service sector.

Here fast rates of growth in insurance, banking and finance (as

well as the increase in jobs in the hi-tech companies located on the

city’s North Fringe, which include British Aerospace, Hewlett Pack-

ard and Dupont computer and electronics) have been of primary

benefit to skilled workers drawn from outside the city. A document

produced by the former ODPM notes:

[In Bristol] there is clearly a distinction between the distribu-

tion of professional workers and that of unskilled workers.

The locational profiles of the port, airport and hospitals pro-

vide good examples of this; the majority of low skilled work-

ers live locally whereas professional managers (for example,

doctors) are more likely to live outside local areas. (ODPM,

2006, p. 72)

This geography of employment opportunities permeates the imple-

mentation of the New Deals for the Unemployed. As wages in

entry-level jobs are suppressed through the guarantee of a ready

supply of available labour (Grover, 2003), the New Deals risk (fur-

ther) segregating the local workforce with regard to income, with

marked impacts for those located at the bottom-end of the labour

market. Most at risk are the traditionally disadvantaged jobseekers,

for whom participation in work is already difficult as a result of fac-

tors including family and domestic responsibilities, prejudice and

discrimination, age, disability and disadvantaged urban location.

Without targeted help to overcome such barriers to employ-

ment, New Deal participants can become ‘channelled’ into poor

quality jobs with limited levels of remuneration (Peck, 2001).

Although pay initiatives such as the National Minimum Wage have

come into force the impression of policy personnel is that they

have limited impact on secondary workers in the Bristol area. A rep-

resentative from Jobcentre Plus in the South West commented:

I suppose it must of changed things somewhat. But how? I

think it has prevented some people from being exploited.

[But then] Bristol is generally considered to be socially above

the average. I mean we are socially above the average here.

I mean, overall I would think…if you go to the north of

England, maybe parts of Wales, Cornwall, it may have been

quite different, [but] I cannot say that in the areas I have

worked in its had a tremendous impact. It may well have

done in other areas… (Representative from Jobcentre Plus in

the South West, November 2006)

The impression is that regulation of this kind is insufficient in

resolving the axes of social inequality cutting through the labour

market.

Yet paradoxically the New Deals for the Unemployed continue

to function well. Despite being unable to address the wider inequal-

ities in the local labour market, they can succeed in their task of

encouraging New Deal participants and helping them to improve

their personal capabilities and capacity to work. Tellingly, this is

how the local New Deal advisers identify their primary role:

you start to really look at jobs with them and sort of say ‘well

look at all the things you could do’. You see all the time you

might be looking at the fact that person may need upskilling,

but on the other hand sometimes all it needs is to keep the

jobsearch going in the same way, in a buoyant way, because

that’s our aim to get that person into some sort of employ-

ment. (New Deal adviser, Bristol, November 2006)

As a consequence, one has to engage with the positioning of sub-

jects as responsible for situations of unemployment as a necessary

part of policy critique. The documentation of the programme’s out-

puts in terms of the numbers in employment subsequent to their

participation in the programme gives only a partial insight into the

dynamics of neoliberal policy.

The importance of this is highlighted by the ongoing process of

re-regulating the delivery of the New Deals in the city. A process

of local negotiation in which correlated programmes and organi-

sations which aim to reconnect unemployed people to work are

being brought into the framework of government policy indicates

the success of this new form of governing. Here the wider need for

structural adjustment is primarily addressed through techniques

which create self-governing individuals and communities with the

capacity to initiate their own projects of reform. Initiatives such as

the EU-funded project Bridging the Gap (see <www.bridging.org.

uk>) which have emerged in part response to the inefficiencies and

inadequacies of the New Deals for the Unemployed are now being

used to help resolve the emergent contradictions of neoliberal gov-

ernance. Despite giving rise to a series of contradictions, the social

exclusion agenda is – in this sense – helping to realise the imag-

ined subjectivities of New Labour policy. It specifies a series of sub-

ject positions that – directly or indirectly – become necessary for

its immanent logic.

Within this, though, there is a tension manifest in between

overt individualism (combined with minimal state support) and

the rhetoric stipulating the need to rebuild community and foster

norms of civic participation. This has elsewhere been described as

a ‘managerialist’ approach:

managerialist reforms are essentially hierarchical and as

such antithetical to the management of complex networks:

they emphasize inward-looking and myopic forms of perfor-

mance management and output fixation which often work

against holistic governance. As a consequence, they often



fail to address ‘wicked issues’, focusing on narrowly defined,

measurable elements of a problem. They are simultaneously

wide-angled but tunnelled vision. (Crawford, 2001, p. 67)

In keeping with the anti-statist/minimal state orientation of the

neoliberal politics informing New Labour policy, New Deal for Com-

munities emphasises personal responsibility for counteracting

circumstances of inequality and disadvantage. As a consequence,

local ‘empowerment’ and ‘capacity building’ have become partic-

ularly focused on the ways in which communities – or more spe-

cifically, the individuals within them – can be better ‘trained’ and

‘assisted’ to contribute to local policy processes (Raco, 2003).

In this, there is an implicit assumption that community cohesion

will follow from economic renewal, which not only essentialises

community, but positions economic regeneration as the solution

to social exclusion. As the then Chancellor of the Exchequer (now

Prime Minister) Gordon Brown explained to the New Deal for Com-

munities project in Hull:

Our comprehensive solution to urban poverty and unem-

ployment has to involve raising levels of economic activity

– more businesses if you like rather than benefit offices – we

should start to see inner cities and old industrial areas not as

no-go areas for business or simply ‘problem’ areas but areas

of opportunity: new markets where businesses can thrive

because of the competitive advantages they offer – with

strategic locations, untapped resources, a high density of

local purchasing power and the potential of their workforce.

(Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, Hull 11 Octo-

ber 2002)

This imagination of a social body neglects the difficulties encoun-

tered when trying to engage whole communities (Amin, 2005;

Fremeaux, 2005). It also belies the manner in which neighbour-

hoods may be criss-crossed by networks of class, gender, race and

geographical inequality.

Yet this logic has had a series of institutional manifestations

at the local level. In Bristol, the ‘Community at Heart’ partnership

has been set up to manage the funds awarded to the four adjacent

neighbourhoods through the New Deal for Communities scheme.

Comprising a mix of local residents and the representatives of local

agencies, private sector interests and voluntary organisations, the

partnership is intended to:

create a strong and responsible community that has the abil-

ity to understand, engage and overcome its problems…[and]

build a safe environment that fulfils local needs, inspires and

provides opportunities for all (Community at Heart, 2004, p. 7)

This central commitment to creating community is intended to

raise levels of economic activity by instating active citizen-sub-

jects to work together to win government funds, attract private

investment and encourage local enterprise. However in Bristol

there have been instances where the operationalisation of this

community-led policy has caused definitional issues to exclude

those who reside beyond the formal boundaries of an area (but yet

who identify themselves alongside members of its community).

The criteria of residency became problematic, for instance, when

the chair of the Community at Heart board had to resign from his

position because he had moved outside of the formal New Deal for

Communities area. (He was subsequently co-opted onto the board

as a non-voting member).

In terms of the overall operation of policy, the central commit-

ment to community which is ascribed by “placing people at the

heart of the delivery plan” (Community at Heart, 1999: 2) has also

been found to restrict the capacity of Bristol city council to man-

age (uneven) development. By delegating government resources

and responsibilities directly from central government to the resi-

dents of selected urban neighbourhoods a situation has emerged

in which the city has numerous area-based initiatives managed by

partnership bodies, which overlap and intersect in an unstructured

and informal manner (Stewart, 2003). There now exists a complex

institutional framework through which urban regeneration is deliv-

ered in Bristol, as elements of central government, local authority,

statutory agencies and voluntary sector organisations have been

brought together through the ‘pulling in’ and ‘contracting out’ of

organisations changed with delivering state services.

In this sense, the current policy emphasis on individual respon-

sibility for inequality and deprivation institutionalises atomisation

and social alienation without ever really addressing such questions

of if, how and why broader economic factors impact upon the most

vulnerable members of society. With programmes for tackling

social exclusion sold as “technical solutions to what is assumed

to be an agreed problem” (Fairclough, 2000, p. 133), the market

model of competition is applied to society at large and individuals

and communities are encouraged to compete against one another

for jobs and regeneration funding (so as to enhance their relative

positions). The concentration of resources on the resolution of dis-

crete issues is widely championed as a “what works” problem-solv-

ing approach (see, for example, Labour Party, 1997). This enables

a series of organisational solutions (Lister, 2001) that do not neces-

sarily try to eliminate (or ameliorate) the presence of structural

divisions. Instead government policy institutes an advanced liberal

form of rule based upon ‘bottom up’ techniques which mobilise

the skills and resources of individuals and communities. As such,

equality becomes second fiddle to individual progression and

social cohesion is not seen to comprise an independent policy goal,

despite having become entrenched as one part of New Labour’s

policy vocabulary.

As former assessments of the two programmes that comprise

the core focus of this paper indicate, the social exclusion agenda

of New Labour embeds and exacerbates existing axes of inequality

and deprivation whilst promoting only a limited horizon of oppor-

tunities for self-help and social improvement (for example, Imrie

and Raco, 2003; Finn, 2000; Lawless, 2004; Sunley et al., 2006).

The imagination of a primary division in society between an

‘included’ majority and an ‘excluded’ minority invokes a particular

policy response in which inequality and disadvantage are viewed

as pathological and residual, rather than endemic to the political

economy of the UK (Levitas, 2005). From this, a minimalist solu-

tion is implied that consists of ushering people into the ‘circle’ of

dominant society to become an ‘insider’ rather than an ‘outsider’

in a society, in which structural inequalities remain largely uninter-

rogated (Haylett, 2003; compare Touraine, 1991).

6. Conclusion

The institutionalisation of neoliberalism through the New

Deals for the Unemployed and New Deal for Communities depends

upon the discursive framing of social exclusion as a problem for

government. Construing deeply embedded economic and social

inequalities as a discrete challenge for policy, the SID/MUD model

of social exclusion focuses explicitly on the condition of poor and

marginalised subjects. These subjects are ‘identified’ first through

the formulation of public policy priorities at a national level; then

targeted through the implementation of supply-side programmes

and initiatives. As such, the state works towards a consistent under-

standing of socially excluded persons to whom it can effectively

respond in policy. There is no necessary externality for the subjects

created in and through policy, yet the subject positions created can

have real and long-lasting effects.

Certainly, as policy ‘subjects’ are manipulated in and through

technologies of government and the practices of state actors in



specific local contexts, understanding of their constitution infil-

trates and becomes ingrained in ‘common sense’. This is a contin-

gent development, with always-existing opportunities for contes-

tation and resistance at the level of the individual. Initial stirrings

of resistance in Bristol – such as the ‘days of action’ organised by

Bristol’s benefit action group in opposition to the introduction of

the New Deals for the Unemployed (see BBAG, 1999, 2000) – indi-

cate that the terrain of neoliberalisation is open to contestation.

Indeed, there is no necessary relationship between neoliberal gov-

ernance and the subjectivities specified in and through social exclu-

sion policy, and no necessary relationship between policy subjects

and programme participants. However, the fact that it is through

channels of governance that the state reifies political imaginaries,

makes research projects focusing on the constructions of subjects

in local governance an effective – and important – ground for aca-

demic critique.

Neoliberalism does seem to be everywhere (Peck and Tickell,

2002), but whilst effectively drawing attention to the manner

in which neoliberal ideas resonate with a diverse range of state

projects, policy objects and socio-political imaginaries, we politi-

cal-economic geographers could go further still in examining the

processes through which the concept of the human subject as “an

autonomous, individualised, self-directing, decision-making agent

at the heart of policy-making” (Bondi, 2005: 499) has become

installed. We ought to consider further how far this vision of the

human subject is recognised and assimilated; to explore levels of

resistance and refraction; and, to evaluate the consequences of

these imagined subjectivities for people living in the communities

targeted by these initiatives. Focusing on the local level gives us

an important insight into the process of neoliberalisation. In this

regard, there is much to be done.

Acknowledgement

This paper has its origins in a research project supported by

the ESRC (award number PTA-030-2002-01628). I would like to

acknowledge the support of Martin Jones, Mark Whitehead and

Mark Goodwin in undertaking this project, as well as Wendy Lar-

ner and the two anonymous referees for a mixture of generous and

critical comments on an earlier draft of this piece. Special thanks

also to Columba Peoples for helping me clarify the argument pre-

sented here. The usual disclaimers apply.

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Documents

Neoliberalising Subjects: The Legacy of New Labour’s Construction of Social Exclusion in Local Governance