Cruel optimism, affective governmentality and frontline poverty governance: 'You can promise the world'.

Cruel Optimism' (Berlant, 2011) sustains neoliberalism by promising freedom and autonomy through adherence to and performance of competitive behaviours. As Brown (2003) observes, neoliberalism is a discourse which operates, not through repression or restriction, but through promising self-fulfilment and happiness. The role of emotion-management in poverty governance has been widely acknowledged.