The ‘Human’ Touch

Kaspar Villadsen

Public Management Review, 2009, vol. 11, issue 2, 217-234

Abstract: This article critically discusses the almost mythical conception of voluntary and ‘grass-roots’ organizations as problem solvers in current welfare policy -- a myth, which over the last twenty years has become increasingly dominant in social policy programmes in advanced liberal welfare states. In particular, the article examines the assumption that voluntary and local organizations are permeated by a different rationality that enables human beings to act as ‘real humans’ rather than as professionals and clients -- a rationality which is, however, permanently at risk of being contaminated by bureaucratic influence. It is demonstrated that among the conditions of possibility for this discourse are explanatory models and concepts in modern organizational theory and in voluntary sector studies. The article argues that the conceptualizations of power, rationality and social change dominant in these studies are unsatisfactory. Instead, it applies a Foucauldian approach to the domain of drug addiction treatment, analysing a social work ‘regime’ that transgresses the traditional boundaries between state and voluntary sector.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1080/14719030802685289

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