Paper short abstract:

Using ethnographic evidence from fieldwork in the European Voluntary Service, this paper considers to what extent voluntarism has become the ‘ideal’ form of responsibilised, reciprocal and productive citizenship, and its implications for a late modern (post)neoliberal welfare environment.

Paper long abstract:

Since the roll back of the state implemented by conservative neoliberal governments in the 1980s, volunteering has been actively pursued by governments as a neoliberal political project to shift responsibility for social welfare onto citizens. The aim of such a political project is to responsibilise citizens to 'help themselves' and their own communities (Rose 1999, Hyatt 2011) through promoting volunteering as a means to civic participation and socially cohesive communities. In this context, volunteers symbolise the ideal, active neoliberal citizen, righteously deserving of full citizenship due to their productive contribution to society.

This paper explores this new brand of neoliberal voluntarism which plays a central role in the current 'disorganised welfare mix' (Bode 2006), and critically unpacks the assumption that volunteering inherently leads to positive outcomes. Using ethnographic evidence gleaned from 2012 fieldwork in the Netherlands with youth volunteering for the European Voluntary Service, the paper argues that voluntarism, set against a background of austerity measures and a Europe in crisis, has become an instrumental tool for governments in cost-shifting through constructing ideal neoliberal citizens. However whether the citizens constructed end up being those responsible active citizens the program intends is not always the case. Further, the (ir)reciprocal nature of the volunteer-recipient relationship is considered. The paper concludes by posing questions on how the new voluntarism and volunteer-citizens may shape the contours of a late modern hyper- or post-neoliberal welfare landscape.