Protect or punish debtors? Policymaker discourse on the state’s role in personal debt governance

0573012 - SOÚ 2024 RIV US eng J - Článek v odborném periodiku
Hoření Samec, Tomáš - Trlifajová, Lucie
Protect or punish debtors? Policymaker discourse on the state’s role in personal debt governance.
New Political Economy. Roč. 28, č. 6 (2023), s. 958-970. ISSN 1356-3467. E-ISSN 1469-9923
Grant CEP: GA ČR GA20-04863S
Institucionální podpora: RVO:68378025
Klíčová slova: personal debt * debt governance * financialisation of subjects * political discourse * debt enforcement
Obor OECD: Sociology
Impakt faktor: 4.2, rok: 2022
Způsob publikování: Omezený přístup
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2023.2215703

Personal debt is a device increasing one’s agency but embedded within moral and legal frameworks that constructs people as individualised financial subjects. This article aims to enrich research on the state role in (subject) financialisation through a focus on personal debt governance modes as constructed in policymaker discourse on the state role in personal debt regulation. Our argument is contextualised in the Czech Republic, where, in 2021, 10 per cent of the adult population faced legal debt enforcement, significantly disrupting their economic situation. Through an analysis of 84 parliamentary debate transcripts and 32 regulatory impact assessment documents related to consumer credit and debt relief laws, we illustrate the ambivalence and complexity of debt governance and state roles. Although two main state roles were enacted – punitive and protective – the policymaker discourse forms a continuum of sorts, blending various moral logics, ascribing multiple responsibilities (individual, state and private actors) and intensively negotiating the category of debtor deservingness. We argue that by accenting financial education as a tool to solve perceived market failures (predatory lending), the financialised logic and structures are reaffirmed, albeit leaving certain discursive spaces for renegotiation and potential resistance against such state functions.
Trvalý link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0343546