Setting the Scene

Before venturing into the field of the lived experience of unemployment, we need to contextualize the research within the political landscape of the Danish case. This chapter presents the political background of the empirical exploration and introduces the reader to the Danish public employment services and to the specific ways that unemployed people are governed in the Danish welfare state. The Danish case is described in terms of welfare regime; the flexicurity system is briefly explained and the policy level is introduced. The chapter sets the scene providing necessary background for understanding especially the framework for the technologies of power through which unemployed people are governed. The chapter thus briefly introduces to the Danish context hereby making the structural conditions of unemployed people’s lives visible. Shedding light on the tension between the way people are governed and how they govern themselves allows us to critically reflect on the activation policies aimed at creating the active jobseeker, as well as it allows us to assess the implications of these policies on the experience of unemployment. The active turn within employment policies plays a key role as activation policies are a vital part of making the unemployed person responsible for their situation and thus lays the ground for some of the social psychological dynamics psychologizing the unemployment issue as well as positioning unemployed people as emotionally indebted. The principle of conditionality, the sanctions unemployed people face if they do not live up to the demands and, the built-in demands of documenting activity do not only govern behavior but work through emotional and affective technologies shaping the more intimate aspects of unemployment experiences.