Menu Expand

Cite JOURNAL ARTICLE

Style

Wallinder, Y., Seing, I. When the Client Becomes Her Own Caseworker: Dislocation of Responsibility through Digital Self-Support in the Swedish Public Employment Service. Sozialer Fortschritt, 71(6-7), 405-423. https://doi.org/10.3790/sfo.71.6-7.405v2
Wallinder, Ylva and Seing, Ida "When the Client Becomes Her Own Caseworker: Dislocation of Responsibility through Digital Self-Support in the Swedish Public Employment Service" Sozialer Fortschritt 71.6-7, 2022, 405-423. https://doi.org/10.3790/sfo.71.6-7.405v2
Wallinder, Ylva/Seing, Ida (2022): When the Client Becomes Her Own Caseworker: Dislocation of Responsibility through Digital Self-Support in the Swedish Public Employment Service, in: Sozialer Fortschritt, vol. 71, iss. 6-7, 405-423, [online] https://doi.org/10.3790/sfo.71.6-7.405v2

Format

When the Client Becomes Her Own Caseworker: Dislocation of Responsibility through Digital Self-Support in the Swedish Public Employment Service

Wallinder, Ylva | Seing, Ida

Sozialer Fortschritt, Vol. 71 (2022), Iss. 6-7 : pp. 405–423

1 Citations (CrossRef)

Additional Information

Article Details

Author Details

Wallinder, Dr. Ylva, Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, SE- 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden.

Seing, Ida, Department of Behavioral Science and Learning, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping.

Cited By

  1. A journey into the new employment service landscape of responsibilisation: Towards de‐personalisation of the caseworker–jobseeker relationship

    Bengtsson, Mattias

    Jacobsson, Kerstin

    Wallinder, Ylva

    International Journal of Social Welfare, Vol. 33 (2024), Iss. 1 P.137

    https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsw.12584 [Citations: 0]

References

  1. Assadi, A./Lundin, M. (2018): Street-level bureaucrats, rule-following and tenure: How assessment tools are used at the front line of the public sector, Public Administration, 96: S. 154–170.  Google Scholar
  2. Bengtsson, M./Jacobsson, J. (2018): The Institutionalization of a new social cleavage. Ideological influences, main reforms and social inequality outcomes of ‘the new work strategy’, Sociologisk Forskning, 55(2–3): S. 155–177.  Google Scholar
  3. Bovens, M./Zouridis, S. (2002): From street-level to system-level bureaucracies: How information and communication technology is transforming administrative discretion and constitutional control, Public Administration Review, 62(2): S. 174–84.  Google Scholar
  4. Breit, E./Egeland, C./Løberg, I./Røhnebæk, M. (2020): Digital coping: How frontline workers cope with digital service encounters, Social Policy Administration, 2020: S. 1–15.  Google Scholar
  5. Breit, E./Salomon, R. (2015): Making the technological transition – citizens’ encounters with digital pension services, Social Policy & Administration, 49(3): S. 299–315.  Google Scholar
  6. Brodkin, E. Z. (2011): Policy work: Street-level organizations under new managerialism, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21(2): S. 253–277.  Google Scholar
  7. Buffat, A. (2015): Street-level bureaucracy and E-government, Public Management Review, 17(1): S. 149–61.  Google Scholar
  8. Charmaz, K. (2014): Constructing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.  Google Scholar
  9. Dunleavy, P./Margetts, H./Bastow, S./Tinkler, J. (2006): New public management is dead–Long live digital-era governance, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16(3): S. 467–494.  Google Scholar
  10. Eriksson, K. (2012): Self-Service society: Participative politics and new forms of governance, Public Administration, 90: S. 685–698.  Google Scholar
  11. Evans, T. (2011): Professionals, managers and discretion: Critiquing street-level bureaucracy, British Journal of Social Work, 41(2): S. 274–266.  Google Scholar
  12. Evans, T. (2016): Professional Discretion in Welfare Services: Beyond Street-Level Bureaucracy, New York.  Google Scholar
  13. Fotaki, M. (2011): Towards developing new partnerships in public services: users as consumers, citizens and/or co‐producers in health and social care in England and Sweden, Public Administration, 89(3): S. 933–955.  Google Scholar
  14. Garsten, C./Jacobsson, K. (eds.) (2004): Learning to be employable: new agendas on work, responsibility, and learning in a globalizing world, Basingstoke.  Google Scholar
  15. Gilliatt, S./Fenwick, J./Alford, D. (2000): Public services and the consumer: Empowerment or control? Social Policy & Administration, 34(3): S. 333–349.  Google Scholar
  16. Hansen, H. T./Lundberg, K./Syltevik, L. J. (2018): Digitalization, Street-Level Bureaucracy and Welfare Users’ Experiences, Social Policy & Administration.  Google Scholar
  17. Hollertz, K./Wallinder, Y./Jacobsson, J. (2021): Prefabricerade modulhus eller arkitektritade lösvirkeshus? Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv, 27(2): S. 27–48.  Google Scholar
  18. Hort, S. E. O. (2015): Social policy, welfare state, and civil society in Sweden. Vol. 2, The lost world of democracy 1988–2015, Lund.  Google Scholar
  19. IAF (2018): Arbetsförmedlingens stöd till arbetssökande som inte använder digitala tjänster. Inspektionen för arbetslöshetsförsäkringen, in: Rapport 2018:11.  Google Scholar
  20. IFAU (2019): Effekter av förstärkta förmedlingsinsatser. Lärdomar från en försöksverksamhet. Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, in: Rapport 2019:27.  Google Scholar
  21. Jacobsson, K./Seing, I. (2013): En möjliggörande arbetsmarknadspolitik? Arbetsförmedlingens utredning och klassificering av klienters arbetsförmåga, anställbarhet och funktionshinder, Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv, 19(1): S. 9–24.  Google Scholar
  22. Jacobsson, K./Wallinder, Y./Seing, I. (2020): Street-level bureaucracy under new managerialism: a comparative study of agency cultures and caseworker role identities in two welfare state bureaucracies, Journal of Professions and Organizations, 7(3): S. 1–18.  Google Scholar
  23. Korczynski, M./Bishop, V. (2008): The Job Center. Abuse, Violence, and Fear on the Front Line: Implications of the Rise of the Enchanting Myth of Customer Sovereignty, in: S. Fineman (ed.), The Emotional Organization: Passions and Power, Oxford, S. 74–87.  Google Scholar
  24. Lindgren, I./Østergaard Madsen, C./Hofmann, S./Melin, U. (2019): Close encounters of the digital kind: A research agenda for the digitalization of public services, Government Information Quarterly, 36: S. 427–536.  Google Scholar
  25. Lipsky, M. (2010/1980): Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services, New York.  Google Scholar
  26. Miller, P./Rose, N. (2008): Governing the Present, Cambridge.  Google Scholar
  27. Newman, J./Clarke, J. (2009): Publics, Politics and Power: Remaking the Public in Public Services, London.  Google Scholar
  28. Nord, T. (2017): Paradigmskifte inom den svenska arbetslinjen – effekter för arbetsförmedlarnas yrkesutövning och yrkesroll, Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv, 23(4): S. 27–43.  Google Scholar
  29. Ordinance (2007:1030): With instructions for the Public Employment Service, Ministry of Employment, Stockholm.  Google Scholar
  30. Penz, O./Sauer, B./Gaitsch, M./Hofbauer, J./Glinsner, B. (2017): Post-bureaucratic encounters: affective labour in public employment services, Critical Social Policy, 37(4): S. 540–561.  Google Scholar
  31. PES (2019): Kund- och kanalförflyttning: En fördjupad uppföljning. Diarienummer: Akt Af-2019/0043 6407.  Google Scholar
  32. PES (2018): Arbetsförmedlingens förnyelseresa – en summering så här långt. Blog-post from the head of organization Thomas Ericson, posted on the GD Mikael Sjöbergs blog, https://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/Om-oss/Press/Sjoberg-bloggar/Arkiv/2018-09-05-Arbetsformedlingens-fornyelseresa---en-summering-sa-har-langt.html [09.05. 2018].  Google Scholar
  33. PES (2017): Kunddriven verksamhetsutveckling och Digital transformation, Internal Powerpoint-presentation by Dyrhage, G., Head of Digital Services, Job seekers and Digital Costumer Experience.  Google Scholar
  34. Pollit, C./Bouckaert, G. (2011): Public Management Reform, 3d edition, New York.  Google Scholar
  35. Pors, A./Schou, J. (2021): Street-level morality at the digital frontlines: An ethnographic study of moral mediation in welfare work, Administrative Theory & Praxis, 43(2): S. 154–171, DOI: 10.1080/10841806.2020.1782137.  Google Scholar
  36. Rønningstad, C. (2018): Us and Them – First-line Management and Change Resistance, Nordic Journal of Working life Studies, 8(2): S. 5–22.  Google Scholar
  37. Serrano Pascual, A. (2007): Reshaping Welfare States: Activation Regimes in Europe, in: Serrano, A./Magnusson, L. (eds.), Reshaping Welfare States and Activation Regimes in Europe, Brussels, S. 11–35.  Google Scholar
  38. SOU (2019:43): Med tillit följer bättre resultat – tillitsbaserad styrning och ledning i staten. Stockholm: Statens offentliga utredningar/The National Delegation for Validation.  Google Scholar
  39. ST (2020): 3 förslag för en bättre reformerad Arbetsförmedling (Three suggestions for an improved reformation of the Public Employment Service), Report from the Union of Civil Servants (Statens Tjänstemannaförbund, ST), number 0025.  Google Scholar
  40. Statskontoret (2019): Arbetsförmedlingens interna styrning. Slutrapport om förändringsarbetets genomslag, in: Report from The Swedish Agency for Public Management 2019:03.  Google Scholar
  41. Van Berkel, R./Hornemann Møller, I. (2003): Active social policies in the EU: Inclusion through participation? Glasgow.  Google Scholar
  42. Van Berkel, R./Van der Aa, P. (2012): Activation Work: Policy Programme Administration or Professional Service Provision? Journal of Social Policy, 41(3): S. 493–510.  Google Scholar
  43. Walter, L. (2015): The dual role of the Public Employment Service: To support and control, in: Garsten, C./Lindvert, J./Thedvall, R. (eds.), Makeshift Work in a Changing Labour Market: The Swedish Model in the Post-Financial Crisis Era, Cheltenham, S. 41–53.  Google Scholar
  44. Assadi, A./Lundin, M. (2018): Street-level bureaucrats, rule-following and tenure: How assessment tools are used at the front line of the public sector, Public Administration, 96: S. 154–170.  Google Scholar
  45. Bengtsson, M./Jacobsson, J. (2018): The Institutionalization of a new social cleavage. Ideological influences, main reforms and social inequality outcomes of ‘the new work strategy’, Sociologisk Forskning, 55(2–3): S. 155–177.  Google Scholar
  46. Bovens, M./Zouridis, S. (2002): From street-level to system-level bureaucracies: How information and communication technology is transforming administrative discretion and constitutional control, Public Administration Review, 62(2): S. 174–84.  Google Scholar
  47. Breit, E./Egeland, C./Løberg, I./Røhnebæk, M. (2020): Digital coping: How frontline workers cope with digital service encounters, Social Policy Administration, 2020: S. 1–15.  Google Scholar
  48. Breit, E./Salomon, R. (2015): Making the technological transition – citizens’ encounters with digital pension services, Social Policy & Administration, 49(3): S. 299–315.  Google Scholar
  49. Brodkin, E. Z. (2011): Policy work: Street-level organizations under new managerialism, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21(2): S. 253–277.  Google Scholar
  50. Buffat, A. (2015): Street-level bureaucracy and E-government, Public Management Review, 17(1): S. 149–61.  Google Scholar
  51. Charmaz, K. (2014): Constructing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.  Google Scholar
  52. Dunleavy, P./Margetts, H./Bastow, S./Tinkler, J. (2006): New public management is dead–Long live digital-era governance, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16(3): S. 467–494.  Google Scholar
  53. Eriksson, K. (2012): Self-Service society: Participative politics and new forms of governance, Public Administration, 90: S. 685–698.  Google Scholar
  54. Evans, T. (2011): Professionals, managers and discretion: Critiquing street-level bureaucracy, British Journal of Social Work, 41(2): S. 274–266.  Google Scholar
  55. Evans, T. (2016): Professional Discretion in Welfare Services: Beyond Street-Level Bureaucracy, New York.  Google Scholar
  56. Fotaki, M. (2011): Towards developing new partnerships in public services: users as consumers, citizens and/or co‐producers in health and social care in England and Sweden, Public Administration, 89(3): S. 933–955.  Google Scholar
  57. Garsten, C./Jacobsson, K. (eds.) (2004): Learning to be employable: new agendas on work, responsibility, and learning in a globalizing world, Basingstoke.  Google Scholar
  58. Gilliatt, S./Fenwick, J./Alford, D. (2000): Public services and the consumer: Empowerment or control? Social Policy & Administration, 34(3): S. 333–349.  Google Scholar
  59. Hansen, H. T./Lundberg, K./Syltevik, L. J. (2018): Digitalization, Street-Level Bureaucracy and Welfare Users’ Experiences, Social Policy & Administration.  Google Scholar
  60. Hollertz, K./Wallinder, Y./Jacobsson, J. (2021): Prefabricerade modulhus eller arkitektritade lösvirkeshus? Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv, 27(2): S. 27–48.  Google Scholar
  61. Hort, S. E. O. (2015): Social policy, welfare state, and civil society in Sweden. Vol. 2, The lost world of democracy 1988–2015, Lund.  Google Scholar
  62. IAF (2018): Arbetsförmedlingens stöd till arbetssökande som inte använder digitala tjänster. Inspektionen för arbetslöshetsförsäkringen, in: Rapport 2018:11.  Google Scholar
  63. IFAU (2019): Effekter av förstärkta förmedlingsinsatser. Lärdomar från en försöksverksamhet. Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, in: Rapport 2019:27.  Google Scholar
  64. Jacobsson, K./Seing, I. (2013): En möjliggörande arbetsmarknadspolitik? Arbetsförmedlingens utredning och klassificering av klienters arbetsförmåga, anställbarhet och funktionshinder, Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv, 19(1): S. 9–24.  Google Scholar
  65. Jacobsson, K./Wallinder, Y./Seing, I. (2020): Street-level bureaucracy under new managerialism: a comparative study of agency cultures and caseworker role identities in two welfare state bureaucracies, Journal of Professions and Organizations, 7(3): S. 1–18.  Google Scholar
  66. Korczynski, M./Bishop, V. (2008): The Job Center. Abuse, Violence, and Fear on the Front Line: Implications of the Rise of the Enchanting Myth of Customer Sovereignty, in: S. Fineman (ed.), The Emotional Organization: Passions and Power, Oxford, S. 74–87.  Google Scholar
  67. Lindgren, I./Østergaard Madsen, C./Hofmann, S./Melin, U. (2019): Close encounters of the digital kind: A research agenda for the digitalization of public services, Government Information Quarterly, 36: S. 427–536.  Google Scholar
  68. Lipsky, M. (2010/1980): Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services, New York.  Google Scholar
  69. Miller, P./Rose, N. (2008): Governing the Present, Cambridge.  Google Scholar
  70. Newman, J./Clarke, J. (2009): Publics, Politics and Power: Remaking the Public in Public Services, London.  Google Scholar
  71. Nord, T. (2017): Paradigmskifte inom den svenska arbetslinjen – effekter för arbetsförmedlarnas yrkesutövning och yrkesroll, Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv, 23(4): S. 27–43.  Google Scholar
  72. Ordinance (2007:1030): With instructions for the Public Employment Service, Ministry of Employment, Stockholm.  Google Scholar
  73. Penz, O./Sauer, B./Gaitsch, M./Hofbauer, J./Glinsner, B. (2017): Post-bureaucratic encounters: affective labour in public employment services, Critical Social Policy, 37(4): S. 540–561.  Google Scholar
  74. PES (2019): Kund- och kanalförflyttning: En fördjupad uppföljning. Diarienummer: Akt Af-2019/0043 6407.  Google Scholar
  75. PES (2018): Arbetsförmedlingens förnyelseresa – en summering så här långt. Blog-post from the head of organization Thomas Ericson, posted on the GD Mikael Sjöbergs blog, https://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/Om-oss/Press/Sjoberg-bloggar/Arkiv/2018-09-05-Arbetsformedlingens-fornyelseresa---en-summering-sa-har-langt.html [09.05. 2018].  Google Scholar
  76. PES (2017): Kunddriven verksamhetsutveckling och Digital transformation, Internal Powerpoint-presentation by Dyrhage, G., Head of Digital Services, Job seekers and Digital Costumer Experience.  Google Scholar
  77. Pollit, C./Bouckaert, G. (2011): Public Management Reform, 3d edition, New York.  Google Scholar
  78. Pors, A./Schou, J. (2021): Street-level morality at the digital frontlines: An ethnographic study of moral mediation in welfare work, Administrative Theory & Praxis, 43(2): S. 154–171, DOI: 10.1080/10841806.2020.1782137.  Google Scholar
  79. Rønningstad, C. (2018): Us and Them – First-line Management and Change Resistance, Nordic Journal of Working life Studies, 8(2): S. 5–22.  Google Scholar
  80. Serrano Pascual, A. (2007): Reshaping Welfare States: Activation Regimes in Europe, in: Serrano, A./Magnusson, L. (eds.), Reshaping Welfare States and Activation Regimes in Europe, Brussels, S. 11–35.  Google Scholar
  81. SOU (2019:43): Med tillit följer bättre resultat – tillitsbaserad styrning och ledning i staten. Stockholm: Statens offentliga utredningar/The National Delegation for Validation.  Google Scholar
  82. ST (2020): 3 förslag för en bättre reformerad Arbetsförmedling (Three suggestions for an improved reformation of the Public Employment Service), Report from the Union of Civil Servants (Statens Tjänstemannaförbund, ST), number 0025.  Google Scholar
  83. Statskontoret (2019): Arbetsförmedlingens interna styrning. Slutrapport om förändringsarbetets genomslag, in: Report from The Swedish Agency for Public Management 2019:03.  Google Scholar
  84. Van Berkel, R./Hornemann Møller, I. (2003): Active social policies in the EU: Inclusion through participation? Glasgow.  Google Scholar
  85. Van Berkel, R./Van der Aa, P. (2012): Activation Work: Policy Programme Administration or Professional Service Provision? Journal of Social Policy, 41(3): S. 493–510.  Google Scholar
  86. Walter, L. (2015): The dual role of the Public Employment Service: To support and control, in: Garsten, C./Lindvert, J./Thedvall, R. (eds.), Makeshift Work in a Changing Labour Market: The Swedish Model in the Post-Financial Crisis Era, Cheltenham, S. 41–53.  Google Scholar

Abstract

Drawing on ethnography in the Swedish Public Employment Service, this article compares caseworkers’ and local managers’ perceptions of changes towards increasing digital self-services for clients. Findings reflect a conflict of interest between different service ideals: vulnerable subjects in need of personalized guidance (caseworkers) versus competent subjects ready to manage their own unemployment via digital self-services (local managers). As we argue, the dislocation of responsibility via digital self-services serves to reinforce responsibilization, thus turning the client into her own caseworker. This development runs the risk of pushing vulnerable groups even further away from employment than they already are.