Accounting and pastoral power in Australian disability welfare reform

Mona Nikidehaghani, Corinne Cortese and Freda Hui-Truscott

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, 2021, vol. 80, issue C

Abstract: This paper draws on Foucault’s concept of pastoral power to explore the role of accounting in the Australian disability welfare reform. We provide an example of the use ofindividualising and totalising power against a backdrop of neoliberal reform. Our analysis reveals the centrality of accounting practices in transforming the identity of people with disabilities into one consistent with the intentions of neoliberalism ideology. Our findings demonstrate that accounting practices associated with disability welfare reform have been integral in exercising pastoral power. We further demonstrate that accounting, as a technology of the self, facilitates individualising and totalising control and, through a perpetual extraction of truth, constructs an individual’s conduct.

Keywords: Disability welfare reform; Pastoral power; Foucault; Neoliberal ideology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:80:y:2021:i:c:s1045235419300784

DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2019.102098

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