Individual responsibility

As a common phenomenon within the frame of the active welfare state and new governance the activation discourses refer to the responsibility of the individual in preventing unemployment and seeking self-sufficiency (Van Berkel and Valkenburg 2007). In the case of Switzerland, individual's responsibilities are most apparent in the requirements set by the unemployment insurance (LACI Art.17)⁴¹:

o 'With the assistance of the employment office, undertake all actions that can reasonably be demanded from the insured to avoid unemployment or shorten the unemployment spell. This means searching for work, also outside the previous professional field if needed and to provide proof of these efforts'

o 'To accept all suitable work proposed to him/her and as a competent authority orders, participate in labor market measures to improve employability, in advisor meetings and interviews and to provide documents enabling evaluation of aptitude of individual or suitability of the proposed job'

41 Translation from French - LACI Article 17, subsections 1 and 3.

In cases where the insured is unemployed due to his/her own fault or does not undertake all actions that are reasonably demanded from him/her, the unemployment benefits are suspended. This applies also to cases where the insured refuse a suitable job, fail to present themselves in a labor market measure or interrupt it without a valid reason. Further cases of benefit suspension can take place if the insured compromises the continuity of the measures by his/her own behavior or the realization of his/her objectives for integration outlined in the contract (LACI Art.30). In addition, the insured has to immediately accept all work in order to decrease the damage caused by unemployment (LACI Art.16). Within the discourses on the federal level, unemployed are held responsible for the overall reduction of unemployment rates by being expected to adapt their own behavior to the demands for quick and durable integration. Thereby, individual behavior is implicitly given a high role in the process of increasing rates of unemployment. At the implementation level, one of the targets is to make the participants responsible for their own behavior and choices. The contract is seen here as a special tool that helps in the tasks of responsibilization:

'That (contract) will be put in place in the case of considerable difficulties euh...with the participants who...have problems euh in...being autonomous, in...in responsibilisizing themselves' (Daniel - professional) As a consequence of the constant focus on individuals' employability, these discourses locate the reasons for unemployment in the individual's efforts. Thus, the following connotations of self-motivation in the implementation level implied responsibility of employability as directed to the self rather than the society.

While the structural factors in the form of difficult labor market situation were recognized by the participants, as mentioned earlier, the ultimate responsibility to overcome unemployment was directed to the self. Such a focus on individual responsibility in providing the means for increasing one's employability reproduces an idea of deservingness of welfare benefits and a specific image of the self with regard to society and the labor market. Situating the self in such circumstances enables a notion to be made of the value of the self as an employee. The following extract is a response to a question about what motivates the participant in the profession he has chosen:

'To prove people that I'm worth more than I was before' (Marco M18)

And the following is a related narrative illustrating the participant's reflections on how to overcome her low level of qualifications:

'Well, when I have internship places (.) to give myself to them completely to show them that I can give the best of myself (.) and then euh…and then to be useful to them euh…in their shop' (Camille F17)

Both of these extracts refer to the need to show the self-worth as an employee in their professional fields. The first one does this by referring to the current value of the self as opposed to before while the latter refers to the need to give a good impression of one's motivation and devotion in order to get an apprenticeship.

Worthiness in the first extract can additionally be interpreted as referring to

improved skills and competences as compared to a younger age when the person had just finished school. The use of the words 'worth' and 'useful' imply an instrumental value when referring to the self: their value is determined by the input they are able to bring to the work of the enterprise. Particularly, the assessment of worthiness as a feature that accumulates over time confirms the instrumentalization of human beings in the current social policy discourses.

Thus, viewing human value solely from the point-of-view of worthiness to the accumulation of surplus in an enterprise or to another type of contribution towards development and economic growth simultaneously undermines their value based on other assets than employability. In the everyday practices of SeMo, the instrumental value that participants bring to the economy has also been taken into consideration. Such logic promotes the design of practices with aims to increase the human capital of the participants:

'The bosses take for apprenticeship only the young people (.) who are (.) they...they test them enough to be sure (.) to know if (.) it will be profitable for them to train (.) this apprentice (.) we we work really on...now on on profitability' (Olivier - professional)

As the employers invest in employees that bring profit, the task of the SeMo is accordingly to produce employees that are most likely to fill this task. A related discourse reproduced by a participant presents the self as a burden to the society when living on welfare benefits and thus the self is responsible for compensating the losses when employed. The following extract is a response given to a question about the expectations of the professionals in SeMo towards the participants:

'Well, they expect that I find quickly a job, for…because here I'm more using the money of the society rather than…I make myself useful for it' (Vincent M16)

The view of the individual in the light of her worthiness and the references to the self as a burden to society are inline with the human capital (Becker 2009) emphasis on individual skills, abilities, education and training. The duty of the individual is to invest in one's human capital without posing a material burden on the welfare system (Dean 2006). Once again, the extract illustrates the adoption of the principles of fast integration promoted by the LACI and European employment discourses. These beliefs highlight the duty of the individual to make herself useful for the society by working. In some cases, fulfilling such duties was associated with social integration by working and participating in the costs of the society. This is illustrated by a participant's answer to a question of what integration means to the participant:

'Well, I don't know, to work, to pay euh…what you have to pay (.) for me that's what is being integrated' (Maria F16)

In addition to the idea of paying off the debts to the society and to contributing to the economy, individual responsibility was associated with the need to earn the interest and trust of the future employer by showing activation and interest. This discourse is further developed by taking the position of a possible employer:

'A young person that doesn't want to do anything and who…who doesn't want to work euh…I understand if the boss doesn't keep him, if you don't invest yourself' (Vincent M16)

By assuming the need to show activity and motivation Vincent is simultaneously creating an implicit image of a passive young person lacking these qualities. The discourse on individual responsibility was often accompanied with reproduction of the youth as irresponsible and inactive thus bringing further the individuals' duty to invest themselves in their work. The image created of the possible employer by the interviewee gives even more depth to the image of a young job seeker. Such an image justifies the expectations of the employer towards the employee: it is legitimate to demand an employee with high devotion and investment in their work. This logic can be further developed by making an assumption of deservingness: an employee that is not willing to invest himself has deserved to be fired. From the positive side of the logic, good work brings good results:

'If you work well, you will be rewarded…you are paid well, you have a place…you have a family, you have a nicer house, holidays (…)' (Henri M17)

In order to earn the valuable things in life such as family and house, one needs to do more than merely work; the work needs to be done well. This idea brings further evidence to the discourses on work pervasiveness implying that, by investing oneself for the sake of the society or the enterprise, work pays off in the long run. In many cases the high value given to earning and deserving was expressed as fundamentally deriving from individual preferences:

'I don't like (.) the things that have been given from the start (…) I prefer to really to deserve it' (Joséphine F17)

The references to self-activation and deservingness reproduce the individualistic neo-liberal and meritocratic attitudes towards themselves and other unemployed people around them. The discourses on work pervasiveness further develop such attitudes by the high value given to work as opposed to other aspects of life. The self-image proposed by many of the young people as motivated and active job seekers can be interpreted as a mere reproduction of a construction of active client created in the logics of labor market policies. Taking such a perspective would grant an overwhelming power to the discursive conventions in influencing people's professional identification and self-representation.

However, within this power element constructing the active client, the young people can be seen as decision makers able to make discursive choices. As the very aim of the labor market programs directed at young people is to encourage the development of active behavior, attitudes and responsibility, these policies draw an image of a passive and irresponsible, even abusive participant. Handler (2005) refers to these constructions as the 'myth and ceremony in workfare' that imply the adoption of work ethics and the following image of the unemployed as lazy and immoral. The idea of decision-maker would then generate a conception of the participant as making a more or less conscious choice to present the self

in a positive light that deviates from the negative image implied by these myths.

In the following extract the participant is doing precisely this by claiming that the image of a passive, irresponsible beneficiary does not apply to her:

'Hmm…I think that…I am the kind of person that wants to stay the…the shortest time here but without euh…without complaining everyday you know (laughs) I mean someone that really uses the SeMo program not…not someone that abuses it' (Joséphine F17)

The active image, here only applies to the speaker herself while the self is contrasted to other unemployed complaining every day and abusing the program by wasting the time of themselves and others. Joséphine implicitly refers to the aims of employment policies regarding fast integration and makes a statement that excludes her from the group of welfare abusers. While presenting herself as contrary to the common beliefs about the unemployed, at the same time she validates them by implicitly referring to others that confirm the myth. In other occasions she refers to these others with the same characteristics:

'I think that…there is a good part of people who are also, I mean that don't want to stay here, then there are some people (laughs) for example in the class, Aline is one particular person, who…yeah that is really here only for the money (.) sometimes it could be a problem in fact that they…that we can have money from this measure (.) because…euh in the end euh…we do a…I mean we have the liberty to do nothing if we want to and in the end have the money, there is…something a bit ambiguous there, you know' (Joséphine F17)

The notion of abuse implies a responsibility on all the unemployed to make use of the measures provided by the society. According to this view, the abuse of such measures is considered as a problem due to the fact that the participants receive money from participation. While she criticizes the structure of the labor market program, she simultaneously constructs an image of a passive participant inclined to take advantage of the system and not willing to participate in the activities proposed by the program. Taking into consideration that she herself benefits from unemployment insurance, it looks surprising that she seems to take a stand against the provision of benefits paid for SeMo participation. This is because she associates the provision of benefits to subsequent abusive and passive behavior amongst the participants. Such a stand can be explained by the fact with her evaluative perspective on the labor market measure she amplifies the explicit separation between herself and those that abuse the measure as seen in the earlier extract. Hence, the idea that the measure is ambiguous because it allows abuse on the part of the participants can be stated as dysfunctional solely because the self is brought forward as not one of what is constructed as the group of abusive individuals.

Another interesting aspect of the individual responsibility discourses, which is clearly illustrated by Joséphine, is the recurrent references to the modality of 'wanting'. The term refers to a socio-semiotic model developed by the French philosopher A. G. Greimas (1966) that outlines modalities such as 'vouloir' (to want) and that helps identify instances of agency in the discourses of individuals.

Within this model, the modality is scrutinized in terms of its relation to the actor of the text. By creating an image of herself as a person who 'wants to stay' in SeMo 'the shortest time' as opposed to those who stay there only for welfare benefits and who thus abuse the program, Joséphine is bringing forward an internal desire to participate in the efforts of the society to fight unemployment.

Such a discourse highlights a perceived common aim shared by the society as well as its citizens. The same is illustrated by the earlier extract of Vincent constructing a 'young person that doesn't want to do anything' and who 'doesn't want to work' and their morally questionable behavior. Hence, individual responsibility does not only include active participation but it entails expectations of the internal state of wishing to participate, to want activation. As showed by the demands of making work an essential part of one's life, active behavior, attitudes and intrinsic motivation in general is expected from individuals. Holding individuals responsible when unemployment is concerned derives precisely from these expectations towards self-motivation, starting from the individual rather than external sources such as the state or institutions.

7.6 Time pressure and its physical and emotional