“Tangled Up in These Conceptualities”: Sanction, Protest, and Ideology in Berlin, Germany

This article examines one informant's approach to the relationship between ideological concepts and political power. I argue that ideological representation must be understood on its own terms, rather than within a larger theory of discourse. I point toward three key qualities of every encounter with ideological representation: subjectivity, discontinuity, and commitment. The fieldwork on which this article is based occurred in Berlin, Germany, during the fall 2014. During this period, my research focused on activists committed to overturning the sanctioning policy ( Sanktionspolitik ), which allows case managers to dock the unemployment benefits of their clients. [ ideology, subjectivity, welfare state, Germany ]