State of empowerment: Low income families and the new welfare state. By CarolynBarnes, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2020. pp. 178. $49.95 (hardcover) or open access (E‐Book). ISBN: 978‐0‐472‐13164‐8 (hardcover) or 978‐0‐472‐90126‐5 (open access)
Carolyn Barnes通过民族志研究，探讨课后照护项目如何超越福利改革工具的角色，为低收入家庭带来公民赋权，对政策学者和实践者均有启发。
Policy feedback—the idea that policies are not just products of their political climate, but that they work to remake and reshape that climate—is among the most prominent topics in the contemporary study of policy and administration. The reams of scholarship that have been produced in the wake of Mettler and Soss's (2004) by now foundational statement on policy feedback tend to tell a familiar tale, regardless of context or methodological approach. Whether based in the US or further afield, centred on sectors as diverse as welfare, housing, immigration or criminal justice, grounded in survey, experimental or ethnographic research, the literature primarily emphasizes the deleterious effects of neoliberal or punitive policies on target populations' sense of efficacy or attachment as democratic citizens (for reviews, see e.g., Boswell & Smedley, 2023; Lerman & Weaver, 2015; Soss et al., 2011). Amid this depressing picture, Carolyn Barnes's deep dive into the feedback effects of after-school programmes offers a much-need glimmer of optimism. Barnes's State of Empowerment is an outstanding exemplar of the benefits of ethnographic research in policy and administration. Based on in-depth fieldwork with three organizations, Barnes has amassed a rich evidence base to shed penetrating light on this key element of what she calls the “new welfare”—situating after-school care programmes firmly in their context as an element of the modernization of the welfare state (designed primarily to support parents back into work). Though Barnes backgrounds her ethnographic approach (the detail is in an appendix), this richness remains apparent throughout the book. It seeps through in the sympathetic stories and the colorful details that she artfully weaves into the overarching argument. The work is clearly scholarly and this “deep dive” is primarily intended to speak to the growing literature about policy feedback in an era of neoliberal welfare-to-work, but thankfully Barnes does not sacrifice readability on the altar of rigor. The storytelling and clarity mean it will be of value to students and practitioners as well as fellow scholars. As a package, the book exemplifies what ethnographic research can bring to the study of public policy and administration—it is compelling, nuanced, rigorous, connected and human. To begin carefully unraveling the complex feedback dynamics associated with the implementation of after-school care, the introductory chapter lays out the conceptual scaffolding for her argument, situating her work in a growing lineage of qualitative scholars in the study of American welfare policy, and outlining the ideas and categories that structure her account. The next two chapters serve to contextualize the case studies in the context of neoliberal reforms to welfare in recent decades. Chapter 2 delves into the inner workings of the specific programmes that underpin each case in order to situate how and why social policy can serve to empower (or otherwise). As part of her “comparative ethnography,” Barnes goes to lengths to acknowledge that the variables across her messy, real-world case comparisons cannot simply be held constant (see Boswell et al., 2019; Simmons & Rush Smith, 2021). Against the complex formalities, Chapter 3 then begins to set out what policy design means and feels for targets of after school care more informally. Her focus is not so much on children as they sharpen their reading and math skills, but on their parents and the web of relationships in which they become enmeshed through the delivery of these programmes. While the command of the idiographic detail in these chapters is important for the credibility of Barnes's claims, the heart of the book that I think most readers will enjoy most and learn most from centers the “surprise” in her analysis of outcomes (in Chapters 4 and 5). Here, she shows how after school programmes have impacts far beyond being a mere cog in the welfare-to-work machinery, detailing. Crucially, contra the many existing critiques of the wider impacts of neoliberal workfare, she argues that these impacts can be generative for democratic citizenship. In particular, in Chapter 4, Barnes highlights the value of what she calls “place-based” identities that more co-productive forms of engagement around after-school care programmes allow. Her analysis speaks to the vital role of community-based voluntary groups that can serve to recruit parents and foster constructive relationships. In Chapter 5, Barnes goes further to focus on the broader outcomes in terms of civic skills, identities and capacities for low-income parents beyond the bounds of these programmes. This chapter reveals how they are able to make after-school care arrangements work for them, leveraging the opportunities these programmes present for community engagement and civic action to build civic skills and affirm their sense of political efficacy. To be clear, this is not merely a PollyAnna-ish “good news” story. Barnes is well-versed in critical policy scholarship on neoliberal social welfare provision, and her analysis is alert to the damaging consequences associated with the rising learning, compliance and psychological costs associated with rising administrative burden in this sector (see Herd & Moynihan, 2019). What is most revealing, in this sense, is her comparison across the organizations and programmes she explores and engages with, which runs through the course of the analysis. Drawing on the rich background conveyed in earlier chapters, she is able to point to contexts and practices through which positive feedback emerges, in contrast to those where the feedback effect is negative (or at least not as positive—as Barnes herself dubs them, “missed opportunities”). Overall, then, Barnes is able to conclude, in Chapter 6, on a (mostly) uplifting note. Drawing on the rich interpretive comparison that precedes, she points readers to the benefits of co-productive service delivery and state-citizen encounters that can empower by sharing decision-making and conferring dignity. Of course, she remains quick to point out risks and challenges—in particular, as “intended consequences” of a set of programmes designed nominally for other reasons (i.e., to improve educational attainment and support welfare-to-work), she recognizes that the benefits of parental involvement and empowerment in after school care remain vulnerable to shifts in modes and configurations of delivery. Nevertheless, amid the wider context of gloom hinted at in the early introductory chapters, the dose of cautious optimism will make the lessons stand out for scholars and practitioners alike. State of Empowerment, then, has much to recommend it as a rich and timely read into an important and under-studied aspect of modern welfare. But my hope is that it becomes much more than that—that instead it becomes an important cornerstone as the policy feedback literature takes on a more explicitly normative purpose to identify and enhance practices and mechanisms for progressive change. With the recent emergence of similarly hopeful work in other sectors—most notably Hannah Walker's (2020) Mobilized by Injustice in relation to the carceral state in the US—this looms as an exciting new research agenda that can translate the conceptual and methodological gains in work on policy feedback into meaningful reform. John Boswell's research interests span deliberative democracy, democratic governance and interpretive research methods. He has written over 30 articles and 4 books on these themes, most recently Magical Thinking in Public Policy (OUP, 2023).