Abstract
This study explored discourses surrounding the single payment to couples of Universal Credit). Announced in 2010, Universal Credit is a ‘flagship’ means-tested benefit reform affecting seven million working-age households. Payment to couples involves various interpretations of 'need', which differ between Scotland’s ‘administrative’ devolution and the policy of the UK Government based at Westminster.The research used poststructural discourse analysis by applying Carol Bacchi's (2009) 'What's The Problem Represented to Be?' and the theoretical lens of Nancy Fraser's (2020) 'politics of needs interpretation'. These frameworks enable a policy to be interrogated for what it problematizes and omits, with a particular focus on needs discourses. Using the qualitative methodology of discourse analysis, this research analysed official documents and semi-structured interviews with policy actors inside and outside of government.
Findings highlighted problematizations by the Westminster Government of pre-2010 multiple benefit payments, such as state interference in family life. Newly-devolved powers to Scotland on Universal Credit payment policy created space for thinking differently, and aligning with rights-based social security principles, questioning the framing of devolved payment policy as ‘administrative’. Instead, payment to couples concerned policy choices based on different concepts of needs and rights.
My original contribution to knowledge builds on Bacchi’s concept of problematizations nesting within one another and Fraser's needs interpretation moments, where needs can become 'politicised', rather than private. Needs discourses are contested, engaging different discourse types (dominant, oppositional and expert), and can shift boundaries between political, domestic or economic domains. I identify two 'nesting' dimensions, over time and space, and within wider welfare state discourses. In this study, payment of Universal Credit to couples was nested within the broader discourses of 'family' and UK 'constitutional' issues (whether Scotland should be an independent country).
This research is significant and timely because it can inform debates about similar devolution and means-tested reforms.
| Date of Award | 20 Jun 2023 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Sarah A Ayres (Supervisor) & Ailsa M Cameron (Supervisor) |