From Neoliberal Restriction to Control of the Roma–Towards Post-Neoliberal Ethnic Welfare
From Neoliberal Restriction to Control of the Roma–Towards Post-Neoliberal Ethnic Welfare

Summary/Abstract: The article examines how neoliberal reforms can pave the way for welfare racialisation, turning a delegitimised minimum-income scheme into a tool for racial-hierarchy enforcement. We follow the development of Czech minimum-income scheme legislation from 2014 to 2021, after a series of neoliberal (workfarist) reforms reinforced the restrictive and controlling aspects of the system. The analysed period is characterised by the greater involvement of politicians representing the poorest regions of the Czech Republic and by calls for further restrictions. Analysing parliamentary debates from this period, we show that the delegitimised social system is no longer understood as a tool of social protection or even labour market inclusion; rather, it has become a tool of ethnic hierarchisation, which particularly resonates in the context of perceived socioeconomic insecurity. We propose the term ‘post-neoliberal ethnic welfare’ to describe this emerging system, which derives its legitimacy from neoliberal categories of deservingness and reduces social-protection systems into a performative tool of control over the Roma population.

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