A libertarian paternalist way of framing UK public policies, informed by insights from the psychological and behavioural sciences, has become apparent in recent years. In this paper, I use Foucauldian conceptions of governmentality and psychological techniques of governance - as well as interview and documentary research on contemporary public policy - in order to examine how such policies re-imagine and address the limitations of neoliberalism, as well as the rationality of citizens. In seeking to address individuals' irrationality, such policies reframe contemporary forms of neoliberal governance by potentially: re-centring power within the state apparatus; undermining the significance of rational choice; and creating a new breed of passive citizen. I conclude by suggesting that libertarian paternalism may well be creating an alternative neoliberal rationality of government in the UK.

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Biography

Rhys Jones is a professor of political geography at Aberystwyth University and has published widely on themes relating to the geographies of the state and nationalism. He is currently coming to the end of a three-year project that has examined the emergence of behaviour change or libertarian paternalist policies in the UK.

Abstract
This paper adds to the burgeoning literature on post-political cities, privatisation, and urban political conflict. It begins by examining debates over post-political urban governance and develops a typology of the conflict management strategies used by state agencies. It then turns to the example of healthcare in South East London to explore the impacts of recent private finance initiatives on the delivery and governance of welfare services. It explores, empirically, the dynamics of these conflict-management practices and their outcomes. The paper contends that the principles of accountability and democracy that underpinned the post-war settlement in countries such as the UK are being systematically eroded at the same time as governments have consistently promised greater decentralisation and local control. It argues that new forms of dissonance are being created between political processes, the institutional structures of welfare delivery, and urban publics.

> Download 'post-political privatisation of the welfare state' presentation (PDF 112KB)

Biography
Mike Raco is professor of urban governance and development in the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. He has published widely on the topics of urban governance, regeneration, sustainability, and the politics of urban economic development. Recent books include 'Building Sustainable Communities: Spatial Policy and Labour Mobility in Post-war Britain' (Policy Press, Bristol), 'Regenerating London: Governance, Sustainability and Community in a Global City' (with Rob Imrie and Loretta Lees, Routledge, London) and 'The Future of Sustainable Cities: Critical Reflections' (with John Flint, Policy Press, Bristol). Much of his research is UK focused but he has also written extensively on the politics of urban regeneration in the EU and East Asia. Recent projects have examined post-recession planning in London, Hong Kong, and Taipei, the rise of aspirational citizenship in urban policy discourses in the UK, and the impacts of privatisation and PFI contracts on the Coalition's Open Source Planning reforms.

> Download 'integration and new migration' presentation (PDF 160KB)

Abstract
families of values and practices that discourage employment and encourage welfare dependency is a powerful one. If this thesis is correct, it has obvious consequences for how we respond in politics and policy to the problem of worklessness (as can be seen, for instance, in current UK welfare reform and policy towards 'families with multiple problems'). Because of the influence of this idea - and because recent research evidence in support of it is surprisingly thin and contradictory - our study was designed as a critical case study. Funded by JRF, we deployed the sort of qualitative methods and researched in exactly the sorts of neighbourhoods – in Teesside and Glasgow - that might be most likely to reveal intergenerational cultures of worklessness. This seminar will give a first presentation of our emergent findings.

Biography
Robert MacDonald is professor of sociology at Teesside University and deputy director of its Social Futures Institute. With colleagues at Teesside, he has researched and written widely about young people, youth transitions, social exclusion and worklessness, including Disconnected Youth? Growing up in Britain's Poor Neighbourhoods (2005) and Young People, Class and Place (2010)

Tracy Shildrick is professor of sociology at Teesside University and principal investigator on a current JRF funded study of 'Integenerational Cultures of Worklessness?'. She has authored several articles, reports and books about youth issues and about poverty and worklessness, including Poor Transitions (2004), Drugs in Britain: supply, consumption and control (2007) and Poverty and Insecurity: Life in Low-Pay, No-Pay Britain (2012, forthcoming).

Fuel poverty, energy vulnerability and social justice: from distribution to capabilities

Abstract
Energy vulnerability, most commonly framed in the UK as fuel poverty, can be seen as a distinct form of social and environmental injustice, involving inequity in access to certain material resources such as income and quality housing, and to a healthy living environment. Social justice however is of course a contested concept, subject to multiple theorisations. In this seminar I will address some of the different ways in which we might analyse energy vulnerability as social injustice, and the implications of these framings. In particular, I will discuss some current work on the potential contribution of capability theory (of most notably Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum) to a comprehensive conceptualisation of energy vulnerability, and how this may illuminate the landscape for intervention.

Biography
Rosie Day is a lecturer in environment and society in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham. She has published several works on environmental justice, particularly with respect to older people and children. Recently she has worked largely on energy related matters, funded by the Nuffield Foundation and as part of the RCUK funded InCluESEV cluster (Interdisciplinary Cluster on Energy Systems, Equity and Vulnerability)