The governmental powers of welfare e-administration

Governments are rapidly reconfiguring their activities and services in order to make use of the opportunities provided by the internet and new information and communication technologies (ICTs). This paper draws on Foucault’s account of various forms of governmental power to dissect and interrogate emerging e-government forms, as evidenced in reforms in welfare policy and administration. While the neo-liberal, neo-conservative and authoritarian character of recent welfare policy has received considerable attention, changes in welfare administration and governance have scarcely been analysed. Through one-stop shops, joined-up government and individualised service delivery, new ICTs are being enrolled in public administration and entangled with its reform. This paper examines the way these technologies are transforming the delivery of welfare services and the governance of welfare agencies, staff and subjects. Following Foucault, we examine the extent to which welfare e-administration involves a ‘tricky adjustment between political power wielded over legal subjects and pastoral power wielded over live individuals’. Our analysis draws on case studies of the EDGE decision support system and the Community Connect programs’ extranet site developed by the Australian government service delivery agency, Centrelink. The paper concludes by discussing the governmental tensions evident in the contemporary welfare state. The well-known ‘welfare state problem’ does not only bring the needs of the new governmental techniques of today’s world to light. It must be recognised for what it is: one of the extremely numerous reappearances of the tricky adjustment between political power wielded over legal subjects and pastoral power wielded over live individuals. (Foucault 1981, 235