ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how two Swedish welfare state agencies, the Social Insurance Agency (SIA) and the Public Employment Service (PES), use emotions as governance tools to elicit staff commitment and exert control. The study details SIA’s shift from an empathy-based client-customer approach to a bureaucratic model emphasizing pride in compliance, detachment, and strict eligibility enforcement, aligning with a top-down, ‘insurance guardian’ role. The study shows caseworker regime compliance as SIA caseworkers reproduce it through local routines and rituals and gain emotional rewards from being ‘tough on clients’. By contrast, the PES operates under a vertically divided emotional regime: while management promotes digital self-service and efficiency, local caseworkers maintain close, supportive client relationships. This dual structure allows PES caseworkers to balance organizational demands of client distance with empathy, deriving satisfaction from client interactions rather than managerial praise. This chapter highlights the complex role of emotional governance in shaping public service work cultures and reveals tensions between managerial goals and caseworker autonomy.
