eprintid: 10086102 rev_number: 21 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/08/61/02 datestamp: 2019-11-20 12:31:11 lastmod: 2021-12-27 07:10:12 status_changed: 2019-11-20 12:31:11 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Oliver, C title: Irrational rationalities and governmentality-effected neglect in immigration practice: legal migrants' entitlements to services and benefits in the United Kingdom ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B16 divisions: B14 divisions: J80 note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. abstract: Governments’ attempts to manage immigration increasingly restrict immigrants’ eligibility to healthcare, education, and welfare benefits. This article examines the operation of these restrictions in the United Kingdom. It draws on qualitative research with civil servants and NGO expert advisors, and applies sociological theories on bureaucracy as a lens to interpret these data. Conceptually, the paper employs a generative synthesis of Ritzer’s notion of “irrational rationality” and Foucault’s perspective on “governmentality” to explain observed outcomes. Findings show that public service workers struggle with complex and opaque regulations, which grant different entitlements to different categories of migrants. The confusion results in mistakes, arbitrary decisions, and hypercorrection, but also a system‐wide indifference to irrational outcomes, supported by human factors in contexts of austerity. I consider this a form of governmentality‐effected neglect, where power operates as much through inaction as well as through intention, but which results in exclusions of legal migrants that are harsher in practice than in law. date: 2020-01 date_type: published publisher: Wiley-Blackwell official_url: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12720 oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1719574 doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.12720 lyricists_name: Oliver, Caroline lyricists_id: COLIV43 actors_name: Oliver, Caroline actors_id: COLIV43 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: British Journal of Sociology volume: 71 number: 1 pagerange: 96-111 citation: Oliver, C; (2020) Irrational rationalities and governmentality-effected neglect in immigration practice: legal migrants' entitlements to services and benefits in the United Kingdom. British Journal of Sociology , 71 (1) pp. 96-111. 10.1111/1468-4446.12720 <https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12720>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10086102/1/Final%20pre-print%20BJS%20Oliver%202020.pdf