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Policy Devolution and the Racial Politics of Poverty Governance

Policy Devolution and the Racial Politics of Poverty Governance. Joe Soss Humphrey School of Public Affairs Departments of Political Science & Sociology University of Minnesota.

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Policy Devolution and the Racial Politics of Poverty Governance

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  1. Policy Devolution and the Racial Politics of Poverty Governance Joe Soss Humphrey School of Public Affairs Departments of Political Science & Sociology University of Minnesota Presentation based on Joe Soss, Richard Fording, and Sanford Schram. 2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. University of Chicago Press.

  2. The Transformation of Poverty Governance • Neoliberalism • Agenda: contrast with laissez-faire • Operations: devolution, privatization, performance • Paternalism • Agenda: set and enforce behavioral expectations, promote social order and individual self-discipline • Operations: directive and supervisory admin, penal and custodial logics focused on noncompliance PG: more muscular in its normative enforcement, more dispersed and diverse in its organization

  3. Continuity and Change in Poverty Governance • Principle of Less Eligibility (PLE): a default logic disrupted by episodic political pressures. • Double Regulation of the Poor: rising correctional dimensions of the PLE, convergence as a single system, extension of penal logic/language to welfare • Blurring of State/Market Boundary: PG as a site of profitable investment and labor market activity • Disciplinary Goals, Diverse Tools: goal of producing compliant (self-disciplining) worker-citizens, attractive and available to employers

  4. Mainsprings of National Change Conservative Mobilization • Business, Racial, Neo-, Religious/Social • Investments: think tanks, electoral/lobbying • Racialized “wedge issues” targeting fractures in the Democratic coalition Socio-economic Change • Decline of markets/wages for low-skilled labor • Compounding of social problems in racially segregated areas of concentrated poverty • The Underclass as a repository for diverse anxieties, growing push to enforce social order and discipline work/social behavior

  5. Today’s Focus: Federalism & Devolution(Structuring the Politics of Poverty Governance) Horizontal: choice and variation across state and local jurisdictions Vertical: structured relations across federal, state, and local levels Federalism: the timing and patterning of change Devolution : In PG, a racialized policy choice that facilitates racial influences and inequalities. • Racial effects depend on political and economic conditions across jurisdictions.

  6. Poverty Governance, 1940s-1960s • Incarceration: modest, stable rates (~.1%) • Welfare: patchwork of state and local provision • Barriers to access, excluded populations • Intrusive, restrictive rules and admin. • Low benefit levels • Calibration to local needs – e.g., seasonal closures in the South

  7. Disruption in the 1960s: Political insurgency and welfare rights litigation reshape the welfare settlement: • Political pressures drive state benefit and caseload increases, moving them away from the PLE • Expanded federal role in AFDC, constrains admin tactics for excluding/purging in the states • Incarceration rates respond to insurgency, but criminal justice remains mostly state/local

  8. Federal Role Explains the Timing and Focus of Shifts in Poverty Governance, 1970-1995 Criminal Justice: States are less constrained • Earlier shift to more muscular approach • Steep rise in incarceration across the states Welfare: States are more constrained • Limits on rule and admin strategies • Benefits become the focus of efforts to restore the PLE • Real value of AFDC drops by roughly 50%, but caseloads fail to recede

  9. Disruption and Limited Restoration of the PLE:The Benefit-Wage Ratio over Time • Declining Wages • Food Stamps (1964)

  10. Multivariate Models of State Welfare Change:The Patterning of Decline, 1970-1995 Rates of AFDC Benefit Decline • Republican Control of Govt. • Higher BWR (benefits encroaching on wages) • Higher black % of AFDC caseload • Interaction of BWR and Black % GA Termination: Republican control, low-skilled wage levels, black % of recipients AFDC Waiver Adoption: same predictors as benefit decline

  11. State-Level Patterns in Criminal Justice: Key Predictors of State Increases in Black and White Imprisonment Rates, 1976-1995

  12. Federal Welfare Reform (PRWORA):A New Devolution Settlement • Block grants, expansion of state rule discretion • Federal mandates, asymmetric state choices • Backed up by federal benchmarks, monitoring, incentives, penalties • Not a handoff, a shift in the federal role. State discretion over means for achieving federally mandated, disciplinary ends. • Work enforcement: now a national, bipartisan, implicitly racialized political project

  13. State Choices Regarding TANF Programs Disappearance of predictors: partisan control, benefit-wage ratio (PLE), fiscal capacities, objective indicators of social problems • Racial Composition strongly predicts… • Time limits • Family Caps • Full-Family Sanctions • Work Requirement Rigidity • Eligibility Restrictions • Second-Order Devolution

  14. The Accumulation of Racial Bias:National Exposure to TANF Policy Regimes (2001)

  15. Convergent Systems of Social ControlTANF Regimes, Correctional Control, and Black Pop. (2001)

  16. Sanction Implementation: Conservatism, Race, and Devolution Florida WT Program • Higher rates in more conservative counties: half as likely to survive 12 months without a sanction • Strong interaction with client race: no effect among white clients. National Analysis • Interaction of local conservatism and client race observed in SOD states only

  17. Convergence: Policing and Welfare Sanctioning Black-White Sanction Disparities, Black Arrest Rates, and Benefit-Wage Ratios in Black HH Incomes (FL Counties)

  18. Sanctioning and Labor Market Needs:Statewide Seasonal Calibration Sanction Hazard Ratios and Tourism Revenues: r = .95

  19. Sanctions and Local Labor Market Seasonality by Client Race (County-Months)

  20. Concluding Remarks • Contemporary poverty governance as a coherent disciplinary project. A shared logic of… • Criminal justice and welfare • Policy design and implementation • Neoliberal paternalism as a racial project • Federalism as a mechanism for calibrating PG and state/local political economies • Federalism as a mechanism of racial inequality, • Facilitating racial biases in policy choice • Converting them into racial inequalities vis-à-vis state and market institutions

  21. Policy Devolution and the Racial Politics of Poverty Governance Joe Soss Humphrey School of Public Affairs Departments of Political Science & Sociology University of Minnesota Presentation based on Joe Soss, Richard Fording, and Sanford Schram. 2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. University of Chicago Press.

  22. Extra Slides

  23. State Choices Regarding TANF Family Cap, Time Limit, Full-Family Sanction

  24. State Choices Regarding TANFWork Requirement Rigidity, Eligibility Restrictions

  25. State-to-Local Devolution in TANF Programs: Size & Distribution of Black Populations

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