Drawing on the Weberian spirit, our key problem is trying to understand the irrational rationality of Active Labour Market Policies adopted across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, despite their limited utility. Rather than explaining these as inefficient policy formation or reflecting neo-liberal ideology, we suggest that the experience and governmentality of welfare is historically informed by the idea of purgatory. Drawing from the genealogical impulse in Weber, Foucault and Agamben, and adapting Weber’s concept of ‘world-images’, we suggest that the history of welfare, from workhouses to Active Labour Market Policies, is animated by the purgatorial logic of judging, punishing and purifying individuals. This resonance is clearest in the interpretation that jobseekers give to the time they spend unemployed, but also in political speeches, policy making and the creation of welfare systems. Counter-intuitively, this analysis is drawn from Ireland, a latecomer to Active Labour Market Policies, where the imposition of an increasedly purgatorial conception of welfare is clearly visible.

中文翻译：

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炼狱伦理与福利精神

借鉴韦伯精神，我们的关键问题是试图理解经济合作与发展组织国家采用的积极劳动力市场政策的非理性合理性，尽管它们的效用有限。与其将这些解释为低效的政策形成或反映新自由主义意识形态，我们建议福利的经验和治理在历史上是由炼狱的想法所决定的。借鉴韦伯、福柯和阿甘本的谱系冲动，并改编韦伯的“世界形象”概念，我们建议福利的历史，从济贫院到积极的劳动力市场政策，是由判断、惩罚和净化个人。这种共鸣在求职者对失业时间的解释中最为明显，也体现在政治演讲、政策制定和福利制度的建立中。与直觉相反，这一分析来自爱尔兰，它是积极劳动力市场政策的后来者，在那里，人们可以清楚地看到，对福利的炼狱概念越来越强加。