Peter Squires emphasises a longer and more subtle evolution of welfare as ‘workfare’ and social discipline in the UK than appears in Wacquant's analysis but also introduces a key theme of resistance and disorder: on the one hand the Hobbesian ‘war of all against all’ but also the violences that obstructs development and the violences of the state which often provoke resistance. He argues that Wacquant tends to under-estimate resistance. In this respect Squires refers to Francis Fox Piven's critique of Wacquant's relative side-lining of the role of, for example, gangs as collective actors –...

Peter Squires emphasises a longer and more subtle evolution of welfare as ‘workfare’ and social discipline in the UK than appears in Wacquant's analysis but also introduces a key theme of resistance and disorder: on the one hand the Hobbesian ‘war of all against all’ but also the violences that obstructs development and the violences of the state which often provoke resistance. He argues that Wacquant tends to under-estimate resistance. In this respect Squires refers to Francis Fox Piven's critique of Wacquant's relative side-lining of the role of, for example, gangs as collective actors – forms of governance from below.