The New Paternalism

• DOI: 10.1177/1065912910388183
• Author: Elizabeth Ben-Ishai
• Date: 01 March 2012
• Published date: 01 March 2012
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

65(1) 151 –165

© 2012 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912910388183

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The New Paternalism: An Analysis

of Power, State Intervention,

and Autonomy

Elizabeth Ben-Ishai1

Abstract

“New paternalist” welfare programs are premised on the idea that service users lack certain capacities and require

“supervisory” programs to guide them toward self-sufficiency. The author argues that the use of new paternalist

programs is incompatible with what she claims to be a just state’s obligation to foster autonomy. This is best understood

in light of a notion of paternalism as implicated in oppressive power relations rather than solely as interventionist

policy. By examining workfare and pregnancy prevention programs, the author sheds light on underlying gendered

assumptions about the relationship between the autonomous self and both paid employment and care work.

Keywords

women, politics, paternalism, autonomy, welfare

Introduction

Individual autonomy—the capacity to determine one’s

own ends or life plans—is a central value in liberal

democracies. It is an important aspect of our ability to be

full participants in social and political life, to exercise our

rights, and to fulfill our obligations as citizens. To this

end, I argue that the state has an obligation to foster auton-

omy in its citizens, particularly its most vulnerable—those

who are most at risk of being excluded or marginalized.

But the notion of fostering autonomy is tricky, particularly

given the tendency to conflate autonomy and indepen-

dence: how can the state intervene in the lives of citizens

to foster autonomy, without simultaneously compromis-

ing autonomy by virtue of this very intervention? Contem-

porary “new paternalist” social welfare programs provi de

an important arena for exploration of this question. These

programs are premised on the idea that those in need of

welfare services lack certain capacities and therefore require

programs with “supervisory” approaches to guide them

toward self-sufficiency. Using careful analyses of two exam-

ples of new paternalist policies, I argue that the tenets of

an “autonomy-fostering state” are incompatible with new

paternalism. To arrive at this conclusion, I offer nuanced

and contextually situated understandings of autonomy

and new paternalism, which are informed by a careful

reading of the gendered assumptions underlying conven-

tional accounts of each concept.

I begin from the premise that state “intrusion” into the

lives of (vulnerable) citizens is potentially an enabling

mechanism for the development and exercise of auton-

omy. This understanding is consistent with a relational

conception of autonomy defended by feminist theorists:

rejecting a notion of autonomy that conflates the concept

with either independence or privacy, autonomy should be

understood to emerge out of the context of social rela-

tions, rather than in a “protective buffer zone” that disallows

other citizens or the state from entry.1 With this notion of

autonomy in mind, I distinguish paternalist policy and

autonomy-fostering policy by examining two examples

of “new paternalism,” the influential theory of social wel-

fare service delivery that can be linked to recent welfare

reforms in the United States and Britain as well as some

other European countries. Here, I direct my attention to

new paternalist programs emerging from the U.S. welfare

reforms of 1996 (under the Personal Responsibility Work

Opportunity Reconciliation Act; PRWORA).2

I look specifically at two programs: workfare and

pregnancy prevention programs. These programs respond

to what many new paternalists claim are the two primary

causes of poverty: nonwork and unwed pregnancy. Work-

fare is by far the most pronounced and largest-scale pater-

nalist program in the reformed welfare states; pregnancy

1Albion College, Albion, MI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Elizabeth Ben-Ishai, Albion College, Department of Political Science,

611 E. Porter St., Albion, MI 49224

Email: ebenishai@albion.edu