IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v55y2023i4p871-889.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Punish, protect or redirect? Synthesising workfare with ‘spatially Keynesian’ labour market policies in times of job loss

Author

Listed:
  • Tom Barnes

Abstract

The relationship between job loss and workfare has been well documented. Workers who lose jobs, including long-term careers in previously secure employment, enter systems of workfare that churn them through precarious jobs in return for meagre income support. But the relationship between workfare and alternative systems of labour market assistance rolled out before job loss is less understood. To shed new light on this issue, this article critically analyses an attempt to synthesise two labour market policies implemented in response to the closure of Australia's automotive manufacturing industry in 2017. The first policy was an altruistic, spatially Keynesian response to deindustrialisation; the second policy was based on Australia's notoriously punitive system of workfare. The article asks: how was it possible to synthesise systems framed in mutually incompatible terms? This question can be addressed, it argues, by deploying an Agency-Structure-Institutions-Discourse (ASID) approach to understand how and why these labour market policies were hybridised. The article's results are instructive in a ‘post-pandemic’ environment in which opportunities to rollout alternatives to workfare will be forced to contend with resurgent workfare states.

Suggested Citation

  • Tom Barnes, 2023. "Punish, protect or redirect? Synthesising workfare with ‘spatially Keynesian’ labour market policies in times of job loss," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(4), pages 871-889, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:55:y:2023:i:4:p:871-889
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221140891
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X221140891
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X221140891?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank Moulaert & Bob Jessop & Abid Mehmood, 2016. "Agency, structure, institutions, discourse (ASID) in urban and regional development," International Journal of Urban Sciences, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 167-187, July.
    2. Brenner, Neil, 2004. "New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270064.
    3. Sally Weller, 2021. "Places that matter: Australia’s crisis intervention framework and voter response," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 14(3), pages 529-544.
    4. Elaine Swan, 2010. "Worked Up Selves," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-24676-8.
    5. Michelle Peterie & Gaby Ramia & Greg Marston & Roger Patulny, 2019. "Emotional Compliance and Emotion as Resistance: Shame and Anger among the Long-Term Unemployed," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(5), pages 794-811, October.
    6. Davidson, P., 2011. "Did 'Work First' Work? The Role of Employment Assistance Programs in Reducing Long-term Unemployment in Australia (1990-2008)," Australian Bulletin of Labour, National Institute of Labour Studies, vol. 37(1), pages 51-96.
    7. Jacob Irving & Andrew Beer & Sally Weller & Tom Barnes, 2022. "Plant closures in Australia’s automotive industry: continuity and change," Regional Studies, Regional Science, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 5-22, December.
    8. Elaine Swan, 2010. "Worked Up Selves," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Worked Up Selves, chapter 8, pages 206-224, Palgrave Macmillan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jason C. Mueller, 2019. "What can sociologists of globalization and development learn from Nicos Poulantzas?," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 19(4), pages 284-303, October.
    2. Maria Gretzky & Julia Lerner, 2021. "Students of Academic Capitalism: Emotional Dimensions in the Commercialization of Higher Education," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 26(1), pages 205-221, March.
    3. Geneviève Zembri-Mary & Virginie Engrand-Linder, 2023. "Urban planning law in the face of the Olympic challenge: Between innovation and criticism of exceptional urban regeneration," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 38(4), pages 369-388, June.
    4. Steven Tufts, 2007. "Emerging Labour Strategies in Toronto's Hotel Sector: Toward a Spatial Circuit of Union Renewal," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(10), pages 2383-2404, October.
    5. Navé Wald & Douglas P. Hill, 2016. "‘Rescaling’ alternative food systems: from food security to food sovereignty," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 33(1), pages 203-213, March.
    6. Kevin Fox Gotham, 2014. "Racialization and Rescaling: Post-Katrina Rebuilding and the Louisiana Road Home Program," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 773-790, May.
    7. Simin Yan & Anna Growe, 2022. "Regional Planning, Land-Use Management, and Governance in German Metropolitan Regions—The Case of Rhine–Neckar Metropolitan Region," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-24, November.
    8. Andrew Clarke & Lynda Cheshire, 2018. "The post-political state? The role of administrative reform in managing tensions between urban growth and liveability in Brisbane, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(16), pages 3545-3562, December.
    9. Federico Savini, 2013. "The Governability of National Spatial Planning: Light Instruments and Logics of Governmental Action in Strategic Urban Development," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(8), pages 1592-1607, June.
    10. Juliana Hurtado Rassi, 2020. "Gestión conjunta de ecosistemas transfronterizos: la importancia del trabajo articulado entre los Estados para la conservación de los recursos naturales. Análisis del caso particular de la “Reserva de," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 1241, October.
    11. Xiaobo Su, 2013. "From Frontier to Bridgehead: Cross-border Regions and the Experience of Yunnan, China," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1213-1232, July.
    12. Bernard Jouve, 2007. "Urban Societies and Dominant Political Coalitions in the Internationalization of Cities," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 25(3), pages 374-390, June.
    13. Natalie Papanastasiou, 2017. "The practice of scalecraft: Scale, policy and the politics of the market in England’s academy schools," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(5), pages 1060-1079, May.
    14. Fricke, Carola, 2014. "Grenzüberschreitende Governance in der Raumplanung: Organisations- und Kooperationsformen in Basel und Lille," Arbeitsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Grotheer, Swantje & Schwöbel, Arne & Stepper, Martina (ed.), Nimm's sportlich - Planung als Hindernislauf, volume 10, pages 62-78, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    15. Naomi Prachi Hazarika, 2020. "Spaces of Intermediation and Political Participation: a Study of KuSumpur pahadI redevelopment project," CSH-IFP Working Papers 0016, Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi, revised Jul 2020.
    16. Cavicchia, Rebecca, 2023. "Housing accessibility in densifying cities: Entangled housing and land use policy limitations and insights from Oslo," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    17. Jacob Salder, 2020. "Spaces of regional governance: A periodisation approach," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(6), pages 1036-1054, September.
    18. Sjur Kasa & Anders Underthun, 2010. "Navigation in New Terrain with Familiar Maps: Masterminding Sociospatial Equality through Resource-Oriented Innovation Policy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(6), pages 1328-1345, June.
    19. Justus Uitermark, 2014. "Integration and Control: The Governing of Urban Marginality in Western Europe," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1418-1436, July.
    20. Zeynep Ceren Henriques Correia, 2018. "Air Maidans, Can It Be?," Societies, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-6, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:55:y:2023:i:4:p:871-889. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.