Modulating Work and Welfare

A range of French sociologists of work have argued that contemporary management practices manifest a shift away from disciplinary modes of governmentality towards what De Gaulejac terms ‘post-disciplinary’ forms, Brunel ‘pastoral’ modes of power, and Zarifian forms of Deleuzean ‘control’. This chapter seeks, first, to provide evidence of this shift in governmentality and, second, to show how this involves more modulated, precarious forms of subjectivity that challenge established notions of French republican citizenship. It employs Deleuze’s distinction between a disciplinary ‘mould’ and the ‘modulated’ forms of power typical of ‘societies of control’ as its overarching interpretative framework. The chapter examines recent changes in management practice alongside a representative sample of reforms to the legal regulation of work and welfare in France from 2000 on, reforms that draw on notions of ‘activation’ and ‘flexicurity’. It argues that these practices and legal reforms exemplify the shift from to more ‘modulated’ and precarious forms of subjectivity that challenge the tents of French republican citizenship.