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The Dialectics of Privatization and Advocacy in New York City’s Workfare State

Since the 1970s, New York City’s social service infrastructure has been administered by contracts with private, nonprofit organizations in what Jessop has called a neocorporatist version of the post-Keynesian “workfare regime.” In the mid-1990s, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani pursued a more aggressive neoliberal program with expanded, profit-oriented privatization and workfare programs. It reconfigured political networks and prompted oppositional mobilization among social service and advocacy groups. This article examines (1) the development of oppositional discourse around workfare in a context of increasing flexibilization, and (2) the use of human capital arguments against workfare and privatization despite their ideological compatibility with neoliberal policy.

workfare state, privatization, contracting, New York City, human capital, neoliberalism, neocorporatism

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 33, No. 3 (2006): 158-174