Cette thèse propose une analyse des notions de justice sociale et d'État-providence au prisme de la politique sociale du SPD dans les années 1980. À la fois parti d'opposition au Bundestag à Bonn et parti au pouvoir dans certains Länder en RFA, le SPD se trouvait dans une position ambiguë, propre au fédéralisme allemand. Afin de peser sur les réformes sociales initiées par le ministre du Travail Norbert Blüm (CDU) pour résoudre la crise de l'État-providence, les sociaux-démocrates adoptèrent une stratégie alternant opposition et coopération avec le gouvernement Kohl. Dans le même temps, ils engagèrent un travail de refondation programmatique en vue de reconquérir le pouvoir en 1990. Aux divisions générationnelles communément admises par la recherche se substitua une fracture entre une « aile sociale » adepte d'une politique traditionnelle et une « aile réformatrice » sensible aux valeurs post-matérialistes et « écosocialistes ». Du fait de son immédiateté, le processus d'unification de l'Allemagne (1989-1990) constitua un révélateur permettant de juger, à l'épreuve des faits, la validité des programmes et des discours sociaux-démocrates. Malgré les propositions concrètes de Rudolf Dreßler pour améliorer l'union sociale entre la RFA et la RDA, le SPD ne parvint ni à se faire entendre sur la question de l'unité allemande ni à imposer sa volonté de refonder l'État-providence. Les réserves d'Oskar Lafontaine sur l'emballement des coûts économiques et sociaux contribuèrent à entretenir la confusion concernant la position du SPD sur l'unité allemande. / This doctoral thesis analyses the concepts of social justice and the welfare state in light of the social policies of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the 1980s. Both in the opposition in the Bundestag in Bonn and in office in some West German Länders, the SPD found itself in an ambiguous position, peculiar to German federalism. The Social Democrats took on a strategy based alternatively on opposition and cooperation with Helmut Kohl’s government, in order to influence the welfare reforms introduced by the Labour Minister Norbert Blüm (Christian Democratic Union, CDU). The SPD simultaneously started to overhaul its political platform with a view to taking back power in 1990. The generational conflicts, which have been widely established by researchers, gave way to a new divide between a “social wing” advocating a traditional policy and a “reforming wing” drawn towards post-materialist and “eco-socialist” values. By virtue of its immediacy, the German unification process (1989-1990) proved to be a litmus test, which allowed the efficiency of the SDP’s agenda and rhetoric to be evaluated. In spite of Rudolf Dreßler’s concrete propositions to improve the social union between East and West Germany, the SDP failed both to share its views on German unification and to impose its determination to overhaul the welfare state. Oskar Lafontaine’s reservations about the economic and social costs spiralling out of control contributed to a blurring of the lines on the SDP’s position on German unification.This doctoral thesis analyses the concepts of social justice and the welfare state in light of the social policies of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the 1980s. Both in the opposition in the Bundestag in Bonn and in office in some West German Länders, the SPD found itself in an ambiguous position, peculiar to German federalism. The Social Democrats took on a strategy based alternatively on opposition and cooperation with Helmut Kohl’s government, in order to influence the welfare reforms introduced by the Labour Minister Norbert Blüm (Christian Democratic Union, CDU). The SPD simultaneously started to overhaul its political platform with a view to taking back power in 1990. The generational conflicts, which have been widely established by researchers, gave way to a new divide between a “social wing” advocating a traditional policy and a “reforming wing” drawn towards post-materialist and “eco-socialist” values. By virtue of its immediacy, the German unification process (1989-1990) proved to be a litmus test, which allowed the efficiency of the SDP’s agenda and rhetoric to be evaluated. In spite of Rudolf Dreßler’s concrete propositions to improve the social union between East and West Germany, the SDP failed both to share its views on German unification and to impose its determination to overhaul the welfare state. Oskar Lafontaine’s reservations about the economic and social costs spiralling out of control contributed to a blurring of the lines on the SDP’s position on German unification.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:29:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciano Velasque Rocha.pdf: 2184775 bytes, checksum: fd75231b91987fe4dc87e50625f35cc5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-08-11 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / For the reason that legal persons are entitled to judicial relief within Brazil s Consumer Code whenever they act as consumers, this essay outlines (i) the extension of such judicial relief and (ii) the conditions for obtaining such legal protection. As a result, this essay takes for granted that investigating (i) and (ii) fundamentally depends on (but not limited to) interpreting article 2 of Federal Law no. 8,078 (Brazil s Consumer Code). Ever since the questions arising from the legal person acting as a consumer deal with interpretation, the essay adopts a position with respect to the nature of the interpretation process and applies it to legal norms governing the legal person when it acts as a consumer. The essay is split in three parts. The first one deals with analyzing the ideas of interpretation , person in legal sense , man , right holder and legal person . Following that, on the second part the so-called hermeneutical vectors deemed applicable are enumerated (a hermeneutical vector stands for a line of reasoning which points hence vector to a specific interpretative choice). In the third and last section, interpretation of judicial norms dealing with the legal person as a consumer takes place, as well as an analysis of relevant Brazilian jurisprudence / A tese de doutorado ora apresentada tem por objetivo o estudo da pessoa jurídica consumidora, especificamente no que diz respeito (i) à exata extensão da tutela que lhe proporciona o ordenamento jurídico brasileiro e (ii) às condições exigidas para que esta tutela seja prestada. Para tanto, a tese assume como dado que a resposta às questões (i) e (ii) depende fundamentalmente (mas não somente) da interpretação que se der ao art. 2º da Lei 8.078/90 (CDC). Identificado o problema da pessoa jurídica consumidora como uma questão de interpretação, o trabalho assume posição quanto à natureza do processo interpretativo e aplica-a à interpretação das disposições legais que se ocupam da pessoa jurídica consumidora. A tese divide-se em três partes: na primeira delas analisamse as noções de interpretação , pessoa , homem , sujeito de direitos e pessoa jurídica . Na segunda enumera-se aquilo que no trabalho se chama de setas ou vetores hermenêuticos , cuja função é a de apontar a direção que no trabalho se entende como correta rumo à construção de sentido do art. 2º da Lei 8.078/90 (CDC). Na terceira e última parte lançamo-nos à tarefa de interpretar a disciplina jurídico-normativa a que está submetida a pessoa jurídica consumidora e paralelamente analisamos como a jurisprudência e a doutrina brasileiras têm enfrentado a questão

Depuis un certain nombre d’années, se manifeste tout spécialement en Europe l’influence de la thématique de l’activation des dépenses sociales dites « passives ». Ce discours politique imprègne les systèmes nationaux et se diffuse sur le plan normatif, conduisant à de nouvelles articulations entre logiques de protection sociale classique (indemnisation ou aide sociale) et d’emploi (droit du travail). Ces politiques actives s’appuient sur les fondements traditionnels du modèle social-démocrate nordique et du modèle anglo-saxon. L’Union européenne a fait sienne la dynamique d’activation et lui a accordé une place centrale dans sa stratégie pour l’emploi et dans la Méthode Ouverte de Coordination en matière de protection sociale. Cette stratégie a produit un impact sur les systèmes nationaux. Cet impact a pu être mesuré aussi bien sur les systèmes béveridgiens que sur les systèmes bismarckiens, laissant apparaître une multiplicité des visages de l’activation selon les Etats-membres, mais selon une référence plus marquée soit à une approche libérale soit à une approche dite « universaliste » ou « prospective », d’amélioration des trajectoires professionnelles. Les transformations récentes des dispositifs français (indemnitaires ou assistantiels), basées sur une logique de conditionnalité des prestations, ont conduit à des bouleversements au sein de la protection sociale qui invitent à questionner les logiques juridiques sous-jacentes de ces mutations et à proposer une analyse critique de la portée d’un tel renouvellement du contrat social. / The influence of the theme of activating "passive" social expenditure has been evidenced over the last few years and especially in Europe. This political discourse has filtered into the national systems and has spread to legislation, leading to new links between the logic of classic social protection (compensatory technique or social assistance claimants) and employment (employment law). These active policies are based on traditional socio-democratic nordic models and the anglo-american model. The European Union has adopted the activation concept and given it central place in its employment strategy and through the Open Method of Coordination for social protection. This strategy has had an impact on the national systems. This impact may be measured in Beveridgian systems as well as in Bismarckian systems, that shows the different aspects of activation depending on the Member States but with a more distinct difference depending on a more liberal or universalist approach. The recent transformations in the French system (unemployment insurance benefits or social assistance schemes) based on the conditionality of social protection, have led to significant changes to social protection which raises the issue of the underlying legal logic of these changes and a critical analysis of the extent of such a renewal of the social contract.

<p>The social dimension in the EU, explored through the document texts of the Treaty of Rome, the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Policy Agenda and the Swedish Strategy Report</p><p>This paper explores the social dimension of EU social policy, except the aspects of the economic and labour market. The EU documents reveal an underlying line of thought stemming from the alignment of the six founding countries, spearheaded by France, with the conservative corporatist welfare model. As one of four European welfare models, the conservative corporatist model emphasises labour market issues, corporate social responsibility and the subsidiarity principle in EU social policy. It also influences how the texts define the terms social, social policy and social exclusion. The definitions determine how policymakers combat problems such as social exclusion and identify the policy issues to be included in EU social policy.</p><p>The Swedish Strategy shows how the country is responding to the objectives that it has been assigned by the EU and how it plans to attain them. Other key issues include how Sweden defines and plans to address the problem of social exclusion domestically.</p><p>The Lisbon Strategy and the Social Policy Agenda of the EU underline the importance of civil trust. Accordingly, I have included Bo Rothstein's theory of social trust, which demonstrates that open dialogue with citizens and written declarations of cooperation in the EU are not enough. Actions that instil trust and impartial universal institutions are also required for the European project to work. Thus, civil trust in the EU requires the existence of such institutions.</p><p> </p>

This thesis provides an ethnography and critical phenomenology of undocumentedness in the Swedish context. By attending to the forces and processes that circumscribe the life-worlds of undocumented persons, as well as the phenomenology and essential experiences of their condition, a complex and multi-layered illustration of what undocumentedness is and means is successively presented. Employing a dual conceptualization of the state, as a juridico-political construct as well as a practiced and embodied set of institutions, the undocumented position emerges as a legal category defined only through omission, produced and reproduced through administrative routine and practice. The health care sector provides empirical examples of state-undocumented interaction where the physical and corporeal presence of the officially absent becomes irrefutable. This research suggests that the Swedish welfare state – universalistic, comprehensive and with digitized administrative routines – becomes a particularly austere environment in which to be undocumented. Drawing on interviews with regional and local health care administrators, NGO-clinics’ representatives and health professionals, as well as extensive participatory observation and interviews with undocumented persons, I argue that the undocumented condition is characterized by simultaneous absence and presence, and a correspondingly paradoxical spatiality. I suggest that the official absence and deportability of undocumented persons deprives them of the capacity to define space and, in an Arendtian sense, appear as themselves to others. There are, however, some opportunities for embodied political protest and dissensus. The paradoxical qualities of the absent-present condition manipulate the undocumented mode of being-in-the-world and I argue that alienation and disorientation are essential experiences of the undocumented situation.

Focusing on Sweden between 1950 and 1980, this doctoral dissertation analyzes and problematizes the process in which a discourse about neurosis and nervous troubles gradually evolved into a discourse about stress. The thesis aims to show how the medical and general discussion about diffuse or vague symptoms transformed and rearticulated ideas and views on society and man, citizenship, gender roles, and medicine. It shows how the discourse on neuroses tended to locate sickness and deviance in the individual, whereas its subsequent transformation into a discourse on stress located the pathological in an external, societal sphere. A particularly prominent issue in the study concerns the role that gender, and in particular female gender, has played in these discourses, and how the place of the feminine can be understood in relation to stress and neuroses. The dissertation shows that female gender was not central to the discourse on neuroses and stress  during the studied period. On the contrary, gender was subordinated to ideas about man and citizenship within the greater context of society and culture. The dissertation takes its starting point in the Swedish 1950’s, often characterized as the era of ”The Strong Society” or ”The People’s Home”. During this period, the neurosis discourse was fixed and remained unchanged. In practice, neurosis was a diagnosis that provided such symptoms that were otherwise difficult to measure and assess with a theory of origin. Neuroses were believed to principally affect a certain category of individuals, who, due to their constitution or disposition, were held to be particularly susceptible to neurotic sufferings. During the 1960s the belief in The Strong Society and its notion of ideal citizenship began to crumble. It was against this background that the Swedish medical profession started discussing ”stress”. Stress, in contrast, could afflict anyone and everyone, according to “the father of stress” Hans Selye and Swedish stress researchers. Stress was assumed to be a potential cause of ”nervous troubles” and disease, but was never considered to be a disease in itself. The concept of the individual as a citizen now gave way for the notion of the individual as a primarily biological organism. Within the stress discourse in the 1960s, the primacy of the universal normal (male) man was a recurring focal point. In the 1970s, the stress researchers distanced themselves from Selyes’ concept of stress by focusing on individual factors. In the discussion about stress during the 1970s, the ”constitutionally weak” individual of the 1950s and the biological organism of the 1960s blended into a hybrid construction of a unique, biological individual.

The social dimension in the EU, explored through the document texts of the Treaty of Rome, the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Policy Agenda and the Swedish Strategy Report This paper explores the social dimension of EU social policy, except the aspects of the economic and labour market. The EU documents reveal an underlying line of thought stemming from the alignment of the six founding countries, spearheaded by France, with the conservative corporatist welfare model. As one of four European welfare models, the conservative corporatist model emphasises labour market issues, corporate social responsibility and the subsidiarity principle in EU social policy. It also influences how the texts define the terms social, social policy and social exclusion. The definitions determine how policymakers combat problems such as social exclusion and identify the policy issues to be included in EU social policy. The Swedish Strategy shows how the country is responding to the objectives that it has been assigned by the EU and how it plans to attain them. Other key issues include how Sweden defines and plans to address the problem of social exclusion domestically. The Lisbon Strategy and the Social Policy Agenda of the EU underline the importance of civil trust. Accordingly, I have included Bo Rothstein's theory of social trust, which demonstrates that open dialogue with citizens and written declarations of cooperation in the EU are not enough. Actions that instil trust and impartial universal institutions are also required for the European project to work. Thus, civil trust in the EU requires the existence of such institutions.

Les évolutions contemporaines de la famille ainsi que leur dynamique sont le point de départ de notre recherche. Notre objet est de montrer en quoi et comment ces changements placent nécessairement les relations de l'enfant avec ses deux parents au centre de l'attention et de la normalisation sociale. Nous appelons ce processus le "parentalisme" que nous analysons dans ses deux versions sociétales française et allemande. A cet effet, nous comparons les modes de construction de la parentalité dans ces deux pays, comme le résultat des pratiques familiales, des effets sur ces pratiques de la participation des parents au marché du travail, d'une part, des politiques familiales et des dispositifs publiques de protection sociale, de l'autre.Dans le premier chapitre, nous étudions les formes de parentalité à partir d'un bilan de l'évolution socio-démographique des configurations familiales et des pratiques parentales pour mettre en évidence la manière dont la parentalité s'est peu à peu imposée comme une nouvelle unité "théorique", puis comment il est possible de définir les formes actuelles de parentalité ("bilatérale" et "unilatérale" ; "première" et "composée"). Puis, nous comparons l'activité professionnelle des pères et des mères et leurs effets sur la nature et la forme du lien entre l'enfant et ses parents. Enfin, nous nous consacrons à ce que les évolutions des politiques sociales et familiales donne à lire du rôle parental et de son partage entre les genres, mais aussi entre les parents et les pouvoirs publics. Une nouvelle distinction est proposée entre le modèle de la "parentalité exclusive" (quant le parent est inactif) et celui de la "parentalité conciliée" (quant il y a un exercice concomitant d'une activité professionnelle et des fonctions parentales).Le deuxième chapitre est consacré aux normes de parentalité à travers le traitement des risques familiaux engendrés par les ruptures conjugales. D'abord envisagée sous l'angle des évolutions du traitement juridique du risque familial, nous analysons ensuite la manière dont la norme actuelle de parentalité est construite dans les cas des familles unies et séparées. Et si la place de l'enfant est bien la même dans les deux pays, les rôles des pères et des mères, dans leurs relations personnelles à l'enfant, comme dans leur dimension conjugale, sont différents. La conception des rapports de genre mais aussi la nature du rapport entre l'Etat et la famille expliquent ces divergences. Le chapitre conclut sur le modèle de la "coparentalité" dans le cas français (véhiculant une norme de coopération parentale) et de la "biparentalité" dans le cas allemand (qui désigne une différenciation sexuée, une individualisation du rapport à l'enfant, et une non- ingérence des pouvoirs publics dans les rapports conjugaux).Le troisième chapitre est consacré aux pratiques de parentalité et au partage du "travail familial" en tenant compte des possibilités de délégation à des institutions, à l'effet de l'activité professionnelle de chaque parent et au rôle du réseau informel des ménages. Notre concept de "travail familial" désigne la négociation de l'ensemble des activités effectuées par les mères et les pères : professionnelles, parentales et domestiques. Notre objectif est de montrer, comment varient les pratiques familiales de partage du "travail familial", en fonction des différents modes d'intégration au marché de l'emploi. La répartition du travail parental ne s'effectue plus uniquement suivant les distinctions de genre, mais surtout suivant l'exercice de la parentalité (laquelle s'oriente de plus en plus vers une norme égalitaire malgré des inégalités encore persistantes).En conclusion, nous montrons que les rapports entre l'enfant et ses deux parents régulent actuellement les rapports familiaux, le risque familial et le partage du travail familial, définissant ainsi le "parentalisme". Puis, nous retraçons l'évolution des modes de régulation publique de la famille : le "parentalisme" fait suite en France au "familialisme" de l'après-guerre, puis au "féminisme" des années 1970 et 1980. En Allemagne, le "parentalisme" a succédé dans les années 1990 au "conjugalisme" de l'après-guerre. Ainsi, les deux pays convergent actuellement vers ce nouveau mode de régulation sociale, au delà de leurs différences sociétales dues aux effets spécifiques entre le marché du travail, l'Etat et la famille.

Cette thèse porte sur le rôle des organismes communautaires entre 1994 et 2002 dans l’élaboration de politiques pour lutter contre la pauvreté au Québec et en Irlande et ce, dans un contexte de gouvernance. Au cours de années 1980 et 1990, des gouvernements, dont ceux du Québec et de l’Irlande, ont fait appel à des organismes communautaires pour que ceux-ci participent à la gestion des services sociaux ainsi qu’à la formulation des politiques sociales. Cette participation s’est inscrite dans le cadre de nouveaux arrangements politiques, soit des nouvelles formes de gouvernance alors que les gouvernements éprouvaient des difficultés à remédier à l’accroissement des inégalités sociales. Cependant, il demeure difficile de discerner en quoi l’établissement de ces nouvelles formes de gouvernance a façonné le rôle des organismes communautaires dans l’élaboration des politiques pour lutter contre la pauvreté. De plus, les partenariats sociaux en Irlande relèvent d’un processus davantage institué que la concertation au Québec, ce qui a entraîné des différences au plan des mobilisations sociales. L’objectif de cette thèse est donc celui de mieux cerner le lien entre les nouvelles formes de gouvernance et la mobilisation sociale des organismes communautaires dans l’élaboration de politiques pour lutter contre la pauvreté. L’hypothèse mise en avant est que l’efficacité de l’action collective dépend de la manière dont les organismes communautaires s’y prennent pour pallier l’incertitude qui caractérise les modes de gouvernance. Sur le plan théorique, cette thèse mise sur les interactions entre acteurs et, plus particulièrement, sur la formation de réseaux de politiques publiques. Cela implique plus précisément de cerner comment les acteurs coordonnent des activités entre eux et se rallient autour d’un même thème, comme celui de la lutte contre la pauvreté. Lorsque la coordination des activités est forte et que le ralliement autour d’un même thème est important, on parle de coalition de cause. La nécessité de former une coalition se produit dans le contexte d’un champ institutionnel incertain, comme c’est le cas pour les mécanismes de concertation au Québec. Mais le caractère incertain du champ institutionnel entraîne aussi des divergences à l’intérieur de la coalition instaurée à cette occasion, ayant pour effet d’affaiblir la mobilisation sociale. Ainsi, l’interprétation que font les organismes communautaires des nouvelles formes de gouvernance façonne la manière dont ces organismes vont définir la lutte contre la pauvreté et élaborer leurs stratégies. Sur le plan méthodologique, le choix des cas de l’Irlande et du Québec repose dans les différences qui existent en termes de gouvernance et ce, alors qu’ils partagent de fortes similarités. Tant l’Irlande que le Québec sont caractérisés par des économies de marché ouvertes, des régimes d’État-providence de type libéral ainsi que l’emprise, par le passé, de l’Église catholique dans les services sociaux. Cependant, ces deux cas diffèrent en ce qui concerne le rôle de l’État, le système électoral, le statut juridico-politique, le caractère de leur économie et la place occupée par le milieu communautaire par rapport à l’État. Ces différences permettent de rendre compte du moins en ce qui concerne le Québec et l’Irlande, de la manière dont l’action collective découle de la relation entre les stratégies des acteurs et le contexte dans lequel ils se situent. Cette thèse montre comment, dans un processus davantage institué, comme c’est le cas des partenariats sociaux en Irlande, la mobilisation sociale s’avère plus efficace que lorsqu’elle se situe dans le cadre d’un processus moins institué, comme ce qu’on peut observer avec la concertation au Québec. Bien que, dans les deux cas, l’influence du milieu communautaire en matière des politiques sociales demeure mitigée, la mobilisation sociale des organismes communautaires irlandais s’est avérée plus efficace que celle de leurs homologues québécois eu égard de la formulation de politiques pour lutter contre la pauvreté. Au Québec, bien que les organismes communautaires sont parvenus à former une coalition, soit le Collectif pour une loi sur l’élimination de la pauvreté, leur mobilisation s’est trouvée affaiblie en raison de la prédominance de divergences entre acteurs communautaires. De telles divergences étaient aggravées en raison du caractère incertain du champ institutionnel lié à la concertation. En Irlande, bien que les organismes communautaires ont dû faire face à des contraintes qui rendaient difficiles la formation d’une coalition, ceux-ci ont pu néanmoins se mobiliser autrement, notamment en raison de liens formés avec des fonctionnaires dans le cadre des ententes partenariales. / This dissertation concentrates on the role community organisations played between 1994 and 2002 in the development of anti-poverty policies in Québec and in Ireland. The elaboration of these policies took place within a context characterized by new forms of governance, that is new political arrangements designed to include non-governmental actors in the policy process. Indeed, since the 1980s and 1990s, community organizations have been called upon by their governments to take part in the delivery of social services and, in particular, in the development of anti-poverty policies. This comes at a time when governments are having difficulty addressing social inequalities. But despite greater inclusion of community organizations into the policy process, the extent of their role in social policy development remains difficult to ascertain. This is made all the more difficult on account of institutional differences, like those that exist between social partnerships in Ireland and cooperation-based initiatives (« la concertation ») in Québec. The objective of this dissertation is therefore to understand how new forms of governance shaped community organizations’ efforts to mobilize around the fight against poverty. The hypothesis put forth in this dissertation is that collective action is shaped by the way in which community organizations compose with the uncertainty which characterizes new modes of governance. The theoretical framework focuses on the way in which actors interact in the course of the development of anti-poverty policies. These interactions are characterized by the formation of policy networks. Their cohesion depends on the extent to which actors coordinate their activities and also rally around a similar theme, like that of fighting against poverty and social exclusion. When a policy network is highly cohesive, it resembles an advocacy coalition. This happens when actors’ mobilization efforts take place within a less institutionalized process. Because such a process is marked by uncertainty, it becomes necessary for actors such as community organizations to form a coalition. However, with that uncertainty differences emerge over strategy within such a coalition. As a result, the formation of a coalition does not, in and of itself, guarantee a strong mobilization. Put simply, community organizations’ efforts depend on the way in which they interpret the new forms of governance in which they participate. From a methodological standpoint, the choice to study Québec and Ireland on a comparative basis lies in the fact that although the two cases share strong similarities, they differ sharply when it comes to governance. Both are small open economies, have liberal welfare states and have, in the past, been characterized by the Catholic Church’s predominance in social services. However, these cases differ in terms of the role of the state, their electoral systems, their judicial and political status, the nature of their economies and the role of the community sector in public policy. Such a comparison renders it possible to better understand in what way actors’ strategies are related to the wider context in which they find themselves. This dissertation has found that while social mobilization may, in the context of an institutionalized process, seem weak, it is more effective in enabling community organizations to exert influence in the development of anti-poverty policies. This was the case in Ireland. Indeed, while the social partnership process constrained community organizations in forming a coalition, it also enabled them to form ties with key civil servants. This gave community organizations the opportunity to tailor their demands in an effective manner. Such a margin of manoeuver did not exist for community organizations in Québec. Moreover, the need to form a coalition resulted in community organizations diverging over strategy. Their divergences stemmed from the uncertain form « la concertation » took in the development of Bill 112, the anti-poverty bill. While community organizations did form a coalition, the Collective to Eliminate Poverty, disagreements over strategy took over, thus weakening mobilization efforts.

This thesis provides an ethnography and critical phenomenology of undocumentedness in the Swedish context. By attending to the forces and processes that circumscribe the life-worlds of undocumented persons, as well as the phenomenology and essential experiences of their condition, a complex and multi-layered illustration of what undocumentedness is and means is successively presented. Employing a dual conceptualization of the state, as a juridico-political construct as well as a practiced and embodied set of institutions, the undocumented position emerges as a legal category defined only through omission, produced and reproduced through administrative routine and practice. The health care sector provides empirical examples of state-undocumented interaction where the physical and corporeal presence of the officially absent becomes irrefutable. This research suggests that the Swedish welfare state – universalistic, comprehensive and with digitized administrative routines – becomes a particularly austere environment in which to be undocumented. Drawing on interviews with regional and local health care administrators, NGO-clinics’ representatives and health professionals, as well as extensive participatory observation and interviews with undocumented persons, I argue that the undocumented condition is characterized by simultaneous absence and presence, and a correspondingly paradoxical spatiality. I suggest that the official absence and deportability of undocumented persons deprives them of the capacity to define space and, in an Arendtian sense, appear as themselves to others. There are, however, some opportunities for embodied political protest and dissensus. The paradoxical qualities of the absent-present condition manipulate the undocumented mode of being-in-the-world and I argue that alienation and disorientation are essential experiences of the undocumented situation.