Robo‐compliance in Australian employment services
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6416176 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Simone Casey (0000-0003-1705-3777, RMIT University Melbourne Victoria Australia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 428-440 |
| Publication date | 2024-09-21 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Australian Journal of Social Issues (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0157-6321 • E-ISSN: 1839-4655 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/ajs4.368 |
| OpenAlex | W4402709880 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 28 |
Since the late 1990s, Australia's employment services have enforced mutual obligation compliance as part of a transition to a disciplinary regime of conditional welfare. In recent years, the digitisation of employment services has extended the disciplinary approach to self‐activation. Notably, self‐activation extends mutual obligation requirements so that online reporting is a condition of benefit eligibility, or a digital obligation, enforced by threats to financial security in the form of automated payment suspensions. Guided by recent developments in the conceptualisation of digital welfare to work programs, case study analysis is used to explore the ways the technologies of self‐activation have changed the location of power in mutual obligation compliance decisions. This shift represents a move from street‐level decision making to Robo‐compliance. The article discusses the significance of this shift in the digital administration of disciplinary social policy in employment services. It highlights the need for further empirical research to explore this shift and how it affects individuals whose social security payments depend on interactions with these technologies
Business · Compliance (psychology · Economics · Management · Political science · Project commissioning · Public relations · Publishing · Blockchain Technology Applications and Security · Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
Getting Welfare to Work
Street-Level Bureaucracy
Case study research
Subversive citizens
Meeting the numbers
Towards digital dole parole
Automating activation in Australia
Financialization and Welfare Surveillance
Introduction
Neoliberal welfare reform and ‘rights’ compliance under Australian social security law
Robo-debt illegality
Debt by design
Automation in social security
Workfare as welfare
Feeling motivated yet? Long‐term unemployed people's perspectives on the implementation of workfare in Australia
Australian employment services
Making welfare conditional
Emerging modes of digitalisation in the delivery of welfare‐to‐work
(De-)Criminalizing Welfare? The Rise and Fall of Social Security Fraud Prosecutions in Australia
Decoding the algorithmic operations of Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme
The Organization of Discipline
Governing Poverty
Digital citizenship and neoliberalization
Governing economic life
Can Robots Understand Welfare? Exploring Machine Bureaucracies in Welfare-to-Work
Digital Social Policy
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |