Accounting for State Intervention: The Social Histories of “Beneficiaries”

Krause, Monika. 2010. Accounting for State Intervention: The Social Histories of “Beneficiaries”. Qualitative Sociology, 33(4), pp. 533-547. ISSN 0162-0436 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

How does the state imagine the people? In what ways does it come to know the targets of its policies? This paper examines the transformation of the state through a focus on the visions implied in tools and practices of results-based management in state bureaucracies. When scholars have discussed the state’s vision or imagination they have often critically examined how the state constructs aggregates of the population as a whole. But an emphasis on or critique of aggregation can only be the beginning of understanding the multiple and sometimes contradictory ways in which people are imagined in governance today. Results-based management has created a new way in which the state imagines people. In some policy arenas citizens have been turned into “beneficiaries” through the practices of state managers. Beneficiaries differ from citizen in a number of ways: Citizens are thought to benefit from policies with broad goals; beneficiaries are shown to benefit from specific interventions. Citizens are owed service; beneficiaries are selected for intervention if it suits specific funding priorities. Citizens are the origins of politics and the end of policies; beneficiaries are a means to an organization’s success.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-010-9165-x

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Sociology

Dates:

DateEvent
December 2010Published

Item ID:

6269

Date Deposited:

22 Nov 2011 15:43

Last Modified:

29 Apr 2020 15:49

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/6269

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