Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 2023, 59(6): 665-692 | DOI: 10.13060/csr.2023.053

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

Lucie Trlifajová ORCID...1,2, Filip Pospíšil2
1 Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Prague
2 Centre for Social Issues – SPOT

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.

Keywords: welfare, Roma, neoliberalism, race, socially excluded localities

Received: August 19, 2022; Revised: October 27, 2023; Accepted: October 30, 2023; Prepublished online: December 8, 2023; Published: January 23, 2024  Show citation

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Trlifajová, L., & Pospíšil, F. (2023). From Neoliberal Restriction to Control of the Roma–Towards Post-Neoliberal Ethnic Welfare. Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 59(6), 665-692. doi: 10.13060/csr.2023.053
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