Ray Griffin's enquiring nature wasn't blunted by an early career in accountancy, despite the latter's mundane image (in fact it positively helped with the analytical nature of some of his projects and work).
A few years ago he discovered internet marketing through some DIY website ventures for others and was intrigued by its precision and its ability to show real time results. Traditional marketing had always been hampered by its hit-and-miss nature. An American department store owner, John Wannamaker, had declared in the nineteenth century 'Half the money I spend on advertising is...

The sociology of unemployment is an analysis of the experience and governance of unemployment. By considering unemployment as more than just the absence of work, the book explores unemployment as a distinctive experience created by the welfare state. Each chapter explores an aspect of the experience or governance of unemployment, beginning with how people talk about their experience of being unemployed, individually and collectively, then moving on to the places of unemployment, and the processes, policies and forms of the social welfare system. Clear explanations of classic theories are...

Unemployment is not just the absence of work; it is a distinctive experience created by the welfare state. The sociology of unemployment challenges the 'deprivation theory of unemployment' which dominates sociology, psychology and social policy, by focusing on how governmental power forms the experience of unemployment. Governmentality theory is the key perspective, integrating subjective experience and state intervention into a single analysis, and, furthermore, pointing out that unemployment could be governed differently.

The sociology of unemployment is both an introductory text on the...