Activation policies form the core of employment policies in most OECD countries. They are part of ‘active’ welfare states and associated neoliberal forms of governance that seek to govern through freedom by producing self-governing and responsible subjectivities. Ethnographies of governmentalities have been used in the research reported in this article to examine if and how such subjectivities are put in practice in street-level encounters in local welfare delivery. Based on an ethnographic research of youth services in the Public Employment Services (PES) in Helsinki, Finland, it is shown that despite the policy focus on active citizenship the street-level practice entails not only liberal ideas of self-governing individuals but also authoritarian measures. What is governed in the meetings is not the young people’s selves but their time and behaviour. In the process, the notion of active citizenship is emptied and transformed to mean participation in supervised activities offered by the PES. Such practice also reworks the temporal structures and creates insecure and eventful experience of time for PES clients. In contrast to governing through freedom, the localized interpretation of activation policies represents the authoritarian and paternalistic side of neoliberal governance.

中文翻译：

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在街道层面塑造激活政策

激活政策是大多数经合组织国家就业政策的核心。它们是“积极的”福利国家和相关的新自由主义治理形式的一部分，这些治理形式通过产生自治和负责任的主体性来寻求通过自由进行治理。本文报道的研究中使用了政府的民族志，以检验这些主观性是否以及如何在地方福利交付中的街头遭遇中付诸实践。根据芬兰赫尔辛基公共就业服务 (PES) 青年服务的民族志研究表明，尽管政策侧重于积极的公民身份，但街头实践不仅需要自治个人的自由思想，还需要专制措施。在会议中支配的不是年轻人自己，而是他们的时间和行为。在此过程中，主动公民的概念被清空并转化为参与 PES 提供的受监督活动。这种做法还重新设计了时间结构，并为 PES 客户创造了不安全和多事的时间体验。与通过自由进行治理相反，对激活政策的本地化解释代表了新自由主义治理的专制和家长式的一面。