Drawing on the neo-republican theory of non-domination and a qualitative case study conducted in three Dutch municipalities, this article explores the extent to which external rules are able to prevent arbitrary power in relationships between welfare officers and work supervisors, on the one hand, and welfare recipients participating in mandatory work programmes, on the other hand. It concludes that external rules were insufficiently implemented in the three municipalities in question. In addition, it found that rules cease to be capable of constraining arbitrary power where institutional contexts themselves are unpredictable and insecure. Under these conditions, welfare recipients may seek to avoid risks and act in accordance with the preferences (or their expectation of the preferences) of the welfare officer or work supervisor by playing the role of the ‘good recipient’ instead of relying on available rules of a protective nature or rules that enable them to have a say in their participation in mandatory work programmes.

借鉴新共和主义的非支配理论和在荷兰三个城市进行的定性案例研究，本文探讨了外部规则在多大程度上能够防止福利官员和工作主管之间关系中的专断权力，一方面和参加强制性工作计划的福利领取者，另一方面。它得出的结论是，外部规则在相关的三个城市中没有得到充分执行。此外，它还发现，在制度环境本身不可预测和不安全的情况下，规则不再能够限制任意权力。在这些条件下，