Welfare Governance

This article connects to broader discussions on governance and neoliberal individualisation and advances how activation policies push a focus on labour market participation no matter what the cost – leaving non-citizens vulnerable to exploitative working conditions and termination of their stay permits if they do not participate. This goes along with a responsibilisation of the ‘poor migrant’, individualising their failure to secure their living that provides crucial momentum to drive them out of the national territory. Pointing to the broader context of intersectional (especially gendered and racialised) inequalities, this contribution concludes that precarity (both material and status-wise) is one of the key results characterising the current welfare governance of non-citizens.