Infinite Testing: Tests and Critique in and Below the Public

Abstract

In chapter 9 the key dynamics driving the active turn are teased out. The composite and tension-filled repertoire installs a multicausal and behavioural problematisation of unemployment where there is constant room for improvement and adjustments. At the level of public debate, this manifests in a permanent testing of policy instruments’ behavioural effect. At the level of the every-day governing of the unemployed, the tensions between the different cities of the active turn are mitigated in categorisations and various and continuous tests that evaluate the behaviour of the unemployed. The tests, such as profiling, screening, interviews and contracts, thus continuously ask what kind of subject the unemployed person is (i.e., what city do you live in?), how worthy are you and what instruments will make you more worthy, that is bring you closer to working. The chapter then points to the implications for the way in which the voice of the unemployed is qualified. The book ends with a discussion of to what extend the ideas of universal basic income and social economy/enterprises, that have received growing attention in international policy debates, contain credible alternatives to the moral economy of activation.