ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the affective politics of neoliberal moral economies and the particular harnessing of three emotions, that combined, built broadscale populist consensus for neoliberal workfare restructuring within the realm of disability. It illustrates the complex interplay of these three emotions and affective realities for disabled people's subjectivities as they navigate coercive and punitive neoliberal workfare regimes. US President Ronald Reagan referred to single mothers on welfare as 'welfare queens', and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted that disabled people were using disability benefits 'as an excuse to never work again'. Employment services not only had a role in surveillance of the disabled welfare subject but also in monitoring the disabled welfare subject's progress in moving to a state of public respectability. The policy elite at these public information forums clearly depicted the disabled welfare subject as historically shirking their civic responsibilities, thus requiring extensive surveillance and monitoring to ensure they were no longer able to defraud the system.
