Abstract
This edited volume offers a series of insights into multiple ways in which emotions and affect circulate in public space through practices of policy implementation in a number of distinct contexts. While the focus is largely the United Kingdom, and in areas of social policy, the studies here offer general observations on the convergence of what might be seen as two opposing dynamics facing many contemporary liberal democracies today, namely, a turn to considerations of citizen well-being through the content and delivery of public policy, and the retrenchment of the state. While the state, through various measures and indicators, is said to be more preoccupied with the effect of its policies on citizen well-being, political imperatives call for an important reduction in resources and regulations making it less capable in many circumstances of achieving its goals.
The book is more descriptive than normative, offering a mapping of affective patterns in a number of settings involving the interaction of public servants and the specific publics they serve. In many of these accounts, the affective display by both public servants and the clientele they serve defy expectations. For example, Rose Anderson’s study in chapter 6 of the work of civil servants bringing their proposals for discussion in a focus group setting demonstrates the inadequacy of the deliberative ideal in accounting for the psychological contours of the encounter. The sense of identity as a public servant gained in reference to specific ideas and institutions appears to run, to a certain degree, counter to the actual nature of their encounters with those whom they serve, resulting in an atmosphere of uneasiness. Similarly, John Clarke’s account in chapter 7 of the practice of school inspection and the affective nature (indeed paranoia inducing) of on-site visits belies the standard rational-bureaucratic account of governmental oversight.
In a large number of cases, also, the affective climate is highly fluid. At times, the tone can be seen to shift dramatically (with a politics of empathy being transformed into a politics of rage and suspicion in an era of the rhetoric of securitizing and budgetary restraint as noted by Janet Newman in chapter 2). In other cases, the same agency (the National Health Service (NHS)) can serve as an aspirational fantasy of citizen equality and as an attachment that blinds citizens to existing barriers in civic participation, as noted by Shona Hunter in chapter 11. In addition, the implementation of policies driven by concerns for well-being may suffer from the law of unintended consequences by enhancing marginalization in schools (as argued by Jennifer Lea, Louise Holt, and Sophie Bowlby in chapter 7), and attempts by policymakers to govern through emotional appeals may elicit anger rather than the desired response (as demonstrated by Kirsten Forkert, Emma Jackson, and Hannah Jones in chapter 12).
The ambiguities and multiple dynamics of emotion and the circulation of affect in the implementation and effects of public policy at the local level, as highlighted in this book, make it a useful collection for those with an interest in coming to a more realistic understanding of the complicated facets of emotional relations in the encounters between civil servants and their publics. It may lead one to acknowledge how affects, to a large degree, are inherently unstable phenomena and therefore not really amenable to governance. However, this same strength presents a challenge to the more normatively inclined who may feel at a loss about how a just and effective strategy of harnessing emotion or promoting well-being can proceed in the face of the complicated dynamics on the ground of governance.