LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Active citizenship, public sector and the markets: Freedom of choice as a state project in health care

Photo by jannisbrandt from unsplash

Abstract Changing statehood concerns not only the spatial and territorial structures of the state but entails also reconceptualisations and reworking of citizenship. However, studies on state transformation have focused less… Click to show full abstract

Abstract Changing statehood concerns not only the spatial and territorial structures of the state but entails also reconceptualisations and reworking of citizenship. However, studies on state transformation have focused less on the ways in which the reconfigurations of the idea of citizenship are entangled with the political restructuring processes of the state. This article develops such an approach by inquiring into the ways in which state spatialities and forms of citizenship are reconstituted in health care reforms. This is empirically concretised in the context of Finland by analysing freedom of choice in health care as a political technology of re-regulation through which state power is redirected. It is also demonstrated that freedom of choice works as a technology of subjectification designed to construct ‘desirable’ citizen-subjects. The paper suggests that the reconstitution of state power and the production of new forms of citizenship are mutually constitutive of the socio-spatial transformation of the state, and that their entanglement may be examined through a context-sensitive analysis of tangible policy reforms.

Keywords: state; citizenship; health care; freedom choice

Journal Title: Geoforum
Year Published: 2018

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.