Otto Penz

Abstract: Governing Affects explores the neoliberal transformation of state governance in Europe towards affective forms of dominance exercised by customer-oriented neo-bureaucracies and public service providers. By investigating the rise of affective labour in contemporary European service societies and the conversion of state administrations into business-like public services, the authors trace the transformative power of neoliberal political thought as it is put into practice. The book examines new affective modes of subjectivation and activation of public employees, as well as their embodiment of affective requirements, to successfully guide and advise citizens. Neoliberalism induces a double agency in neo-bureaucrats: entrepreneurialism is coupled with affective skills for the purpose of governing clients in their own best interests. These competences are unevenly distributed between the genders, as their affective dispositions differ historically. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of Foucault and Bourdieu, the book offers innovative insights into recent processes of state transformation, affective subjectivation, and changes in labour relations. By combining theory building on governance with empirical research in key areas of state power, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in a broad range of disciplines, including political science, political sociology, and critical governance studies.

TL;DR: In this article, the activation regime in three European countries (Austria, Germany, and Switzerland) and the related transformation of state bureaucracies into customer-oriented service providers are explored.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated four typical modes of affectively enacting the state: both male and female employment agents follow feminized service work, or masculinized entrepreneurial norms.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors contextualize the concept of affective governmentality within two developments, the transformation towards service societies and the formation of an embodied capitalism, and the parallel conversion of state bureaucracies into public services.

TL;DR: Sauer et al. as mentioned in this paper examined the affective labor of front line service workers of the Austrian Post in the context of the transformation of the public postal service into a listed company and the new focus of the company on customer friendly services, emotionality became a core issue of the work process.