Public Service, Private Delivery: Service Workers and the Negotiation of Blurred Boundaries in a Neoliberal State
研究以色列私营激活服务机构的就业目标规划师，发现这些‘私人国家工人’并非冷漠的雇佣兵，而是利用市场理念重塑公共服务伦理的积极行动者。
Neoliberal restructuring blurs the state/market boundary in introducing the position of ‘private state workers’: employees of for-profit providers who deliver publicly funded, state-prescribed services. Despite their prevalence, these workers have received scant scholarly attention. Addressing this gap, this article studies Employment Goal Planners (EGPs) employed at private for-profit providers of activation services in Israel. Drawing on extensive ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews, it argues that far from detached ‘mercenaries’, private state workers are committed actors who advance a distinct vision of public service delivery suited to the neoliberal state. These workers navigate their liminal position along an ever-shifting state/market divide by intertwining contemporary market tropes onto outdated schemas of state work. While the literature commonly views the market as an imposition on public service workers, this study finds that the market can also serve as a resource for inspiring alternative public service ethics and work models.