Framing Welfare Recipients in Political Discourse: Political Farming Through Material Need Assistance

This book explores the shift towards individual responsibility that is increasingly evident in welfare systems across the world, focusing in particular on Central European countries.

Kissov analyses the ways in which political representatives and other public policy actors discuss material need assistance and recipients from a negative point of view, referring to behavioural adjustments, social system abuse, and irresponsibility, with ethnic minorities, particularly those from Romani backgrounds facing stigmatisation.

This book offers a compelling read, analysing how workfare is legitimated in the Central European context, through the innovative metaphor of "political farming." The analytical framework brings together several distinct streams of theorizing (critical discourse studies, critical security studies, governmentality, boundary-making, and the dynamics of ethnic relations) seamlessly and effectively. Through a very nuanced discursive analysis, Kissov shows how the poor, the offenders, and the "unadaptable" - categories policymakers use to talk about material need recipients - are linked pathologically with criminality, abuse of the system and other negative perceptions. This is a must-read text for anyone interested in how political actors justify questionable legislation that cements inequality in today's neoliberal milieu."

-- B. Nadya Jaworsky, Associate Professor, Sociology, Masaryk University, Czech Republic