[If] the problems of governmentality and the techniques of government have really become the only political stake and the only real space of political struggle and contestation…
(Foucault 2007, 109)
18 In contrast to the focus on regulation in Banerjee and Armstrong, Vaittinen and I emphasize the primacy of the economic logic of the market, or ‘the competition society’ as Foucault describes neoliberal society, and its role in turning care into a central site of the political in present day society.
The different conceptualizations of care – as work, as an ethic, as a corporeal relation with a logic of its own – point to the multidimensional nature of the concept. While no clear political strand of care research exists, I suggest that the potential for this resides in the articulations of the global corporeal relations and logic of care, and in the situating and examination of these in the relation to governance. This is because the logic of care in fact emerges as potentially disruptive only when up against certain other logics that increasing governance brings with it. Of course, the most recent research into care builds on the ethics of care and social reproduction literatures, where many of the current themes are already present in some form.
Likewise, adding the level of governance to the analysis of the politics of care does not mean disregarding more traditionally understood political struggles, for instance for (better) remuneration of care work, which care research has examined. But when at issue is the political nature of elder care policy, in a context of few conflicting claims for recognition and redistribution, understanding and examining the seemingly ‘apolitical’
governance as a site of political struggle is pivotal. In Fraser’s terms the focus moves toward the dimension of representation.
On the level of theory, care research maintains and emphasizes the relationality and interdependency of people, and the absolute necessity of care for the sustenance and survival of individuals, communities, political economy and the species. However, the application of this fact to empirical research seems not to translate very well, nor is it easily reconciled with mainstream political studies. Care is constantly misrecognised, underfunded, ignored. The work of care is the invisible purview of those least advantaged in society (in practice poor, often racialised women). I would claim that this is where we need political analysis of the discourses that manage to do just that, that manage to frame and represent care issues in such a way that they are left under- or unattended over and over again. And today this does not mean, as with classical political theory, that care is simply naturalized and pushed to the private sphere, and women’s job to deal with. Rather, it is part and parcel of expanding governance, of ideology that turns and transforms society and human relations into capitalist life forms, into enterprise society and consumer-producer relations. This is a hegemonic discourse that emphasizes processes and seems to only advance market rationality, and if that does not work adequately, and is challenged by competing discourses, then aims to fix what is wrong with increased regulation (cf. Armstrong 2013).
Care in this context only needs to be managed adequately, it seems; its problems are a question of better administration, of regulation and governance. Yet if you combine the insight that care theorizing offers into the necessity of care, into the relationality, embodiment and materiality of care relations, with the empirical analysis of what is actually happening in the world of care (which is now a central field of governance), then care practices, the logic of care, the experience of care relations, emerge as a
Care as an object of inquiry
counter discourse to the hegemonic discourse which attempts to subsume it (see ch. 5). This project tries to show how this kind of development unravels.
It does so through the case study of Finnish elder care policy. The elucidation of the many dimensions of care in this chapter stresses the fact that governing care entails transforming or reproducing some of the most engrained, gendered organizing principles of society. Therefore, legislating for elder care services is not like any policy process; the substance matter itself means that some of our deep-seated social structures are at stake.
Care relations form a necessary life-sustaining web (Tronto 1993, 103) that holds up the entire society, or to put it more radically, all human existence. In Finland, as in many countries today, this web is now threatened, allegedly because of the worsening dependency ratio, but perhaps more accurately because of the wider cultural-economic changes in production structures, family life and gender relations that even the welfare state have not managed to organize in such a way that adequate care is secured equally. (That is not to say that any previous historical regime would have done this any better.) Attempts to govern care are today increasingly characterized by neoliberal trends, as we will see in the next chapter, but the processes of governance are not a smooth development. They emerge through discursive struggles for the hegemonic understanding of what care is about – so that it can be governed. And this struggle is at the core of politics of care.
‘To govern’, Foucault wrote, ‘is to structure the possible field of action of others’ (Foucault 1982, 790). We must, then, explore how the governance of care evolves in the case of Finnish elder care legislation. This standpoint both enables and requires understanding the politics of care in terms of questions such as: How is power exercised in elder care? How, and by which agents, is the hegemonic discourse about (elder) care formed and maintained, and what are its central elements? Here, defining care once and for all is not a prerequisite, as defining care is part of the discursive struggle that is under scrutiny. When the object of study is a political process, that is, policy and legislation that aims to govern elder care, what must be uncovered is what is at stake in (the attempts of) its governance, how in the process care is represented and defined, and how this representation and definition of care, its problems and their professed solutions to those problems, are a site of discursive struggle.
3 ELDERLY CARE IN FINLAND
Those who cannot obtain the means necessary for a life of dignity have the right to receive indispensable subsistence and care. Everyone shall be guaranteed by an Act the right to basic subsistence in the event of unemployment, illness, and disability and during old age as well as at the birth of a child or the loss of a provider. The public authorities shall guarantee for everyone, as provided in more detail by an Act, adequate social, health and medical services and promote the health of the population.
(The Constitution of Finland, section 19)
Introduction 3.1
Elder care policy in Finland today is characterised by an attempt to dismantle institutional care and emphasize and strengthen home care and living in service housing. The now waning institutionalism of care policy is connected to the universalising ethos and building of the institutions of the welfare state in the post-war decades. This turn toward a more individualistic and market based model of social services was taken in the 1990s. This chapter aims to put the care research at hand into its historical cntext. How has social policy concerning elder care developed and how did it unfold over the years? How and why have we ended up in the current situation? As this chapter shows, elder care, or the position of the elderly in society more widely, has at different moments of history been a specific cause for worry in Finland. Still, the care of the elderly has mostly not been treated as a separate issue; it has been a part of wider social policies.
Drawing from previous research, I begin by taking a brief look at the early history of welfare state developments in Finland, focusing on the changing constellations of care relations and elderly care from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. This period, I explain, is crucial for the creation of institutional care services. I will show how care (work) has long been the field of women and re-created and discursively produced as such when new care institutions and social policy were built over a hundred years ago. The chapter then shifts its focus to the 1950-1960s, arguably a key era for the development of the welfare state and social services as we know them today.
This section emphasizes the political struggles that were fought during the breakthrough of the welfare state and the formation of a new social democratic/welfare state hegemony. Finally, the bulk of the chapter deals with changes which have taken place since the beginning of the 1990s. A deep recession in the beginning of the decade and joining the EU in 1995 were significant turning points for care services and the welfare state more widely. I'll take a look at the political roots, causes and consequences of this
Elderly care in Finland
so called neoliberal turn, and finally draw a sketch of the (again transforming) elder care field today, the context in which the elder care bill was drawn up. I also consider how the current tendencies and trends in elder care in some ways resemble the situation over a hundred years ago. In this historical light the welfare state period characterised by the ideals of universalism seems rather exceptional in the precarious world of care.