In the 1970s, British unemployment policy shifted its focus from full employment to activating individual members of the labour force. How was this shift accomplished by policymakers? How has it impacted the nature of work, the power relations between labour and capital, and the logics of capital accumulation? And how was it shaped by, and has in its turn reshaped, class struggle in Britain?

In his searching new study, The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain (Policy Press, 2024), Jay Wiggan surveys the last fifty years of labour activation strategies. Adopting a materialist lens, the book positions successive market-friendly welfare reforms as an attempt by capital to curtail the autonomy and bargaining power of labour. This has irrevocably altered the terrain, shape, and logics of class struggle, diminishing the organisational capacity of both the workforce and unemployed people while enshrining the authority of capital.

Please join us as we celebrate and discuss this important new book.

Dr Jay Wiggan is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. He was an ISRF Early Career Fellow 2016-17. The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain is his first book.

Jay will be joined by Professor Chris Grover, Professor of Social Policy at Lancaster University and author of Social Security and Wage Poverty (2016); and Dr Anne Daguerre, Reader at the University of Brighton and author of Obama’s Welfare Legacy (2017). A Q&A will follow, moderated by Dr Lars Cornelissen, ISRF Academic Editor.