ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the results of our empirical research on service work at Austria’s postal service provider and public employment agencies in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The transformation of these former state institutions appears to be symptomatic for the neoliberalisation of European welfare states: a new business-like logic governs the affective labour of public employees through performance indicators and competition, aiming at their entrepreneurial and affective involvement in organisational objectives. Our final chapter comprises findings on processes of affective subjectivation as well as forms of resistance against the neoliberal regime of affective exploitation, and we highlight the importance of employees’ agency in this context. Overall, the empirical findings underscore the conclusion that neoliberal governmentality induces an entrepreneurial affective self-government. Gender relations shed light on the ambivalences of neoliberal affective governmentality and the (uneven) distribution of affective capital.
