scholarly journals Hybrid entitlement: Welfare recipients’ perceptions of entitlement to social rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
EINAT LAVEE
Keyword(s):  
Public Support ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Labour Market Participation ◽  
Neoliberal Ideology ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Reduced State

Abstract Recent decades have witnessed changes in welfare states, shaped by a neoliberal ideology that has reduced state responsibility for weakened populations and transformed definitions of citizenship from the universalist notion of social citizenship to the idea of market citizenship. Contemporary welfare policy is based on a disciplinary regime, which aims to produce self-disciplined citizens who adhere to market rules as the most essential civic rules. Following this change in social contract between the state and its citizens, the notion of entitlement to social rights has been transformed into disentitlement to public support. However, economic independence via labour market participation is not always possible and many must rely on welfare support for material survival. This study aims to pinpoint the factors shaping welfare recipients’ perceptions of entitlement. Drawing on 76 in-depth interviews with welfare recipients in Israel, we argue that people’s perceptions of their entitlement to public support are disciplined by the “new” welfare regime of market citizenship, yet simultaneously influenced by “old” perceptions of universal citizenship rights. This kind of “hybrid entitlement” allows welfare recipients to resist exclusion and to avoid disconnection from work and welfare.

Breaking the Mold

2019 ◽  
pp. 92-173
Author(s):  
Jason Beckfield
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Political Inequality ◽  
European Welfare State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Distribution Of Income

This chapter describes how the resources generated by the integrated European economy have been distributed as social rights of citizenship. As the European economy has developed, have European welfare states expanded, stabilized, or retrenched? These trends and effects matter because they reveal the changing structure of political inequality in Europe, and because the European welfare state has a strong effect on the distribution of income across European households. The first part of the chapter addresses the question of whether the development of the integrated European economy contributed to expansion of the social rights of citizenship, which would be a sign of reduced political inequality within European nations. The second part addresses the subject of political inequality in Europe as an integrating whole more directly by engaging with the convergence debate: with respect to citizenship rights, does it now matter more or less which national political economy one inhabits?

scholarly journals Non-for-Profits and EU Citizens’ Cross-Border Social Rights in Different Welfare States

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 601-621
Author(s):  
CECILIA BRUZELIUS
Keyword(s):  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Welfare Mix ◽  
Provision Of Services

AbstractThis paper looks at rights in practice to understand how migrant EU citizens’ formal social rights translate into substantive ones. It highlights a factor thus far overlooked in the literature on welfare states and migrants’ social rights: namely, the actors involved in welfare delivery. The argument is based, first, on non-profit organisations’ (NPOs) function as ‘rights intermediaries’; and second, on the distinct make-up of the ‘welfare mix’ across countries, with which NPO’s role in the provision of services, and hence their capacities and autonomy, varies. Focusing on EU citizens’ cross-border social rights, and drawing on in-depth research in Germany and Sweden, the paper reveals how NPOs defend and facilitate access to rights in both countries. Yet NPOs’ extensive role in the German welfare sector generates greater capacities for NPOs to pursue inclusive objectives than what is available to their Swedish counterparts, which occupy a much more limited position as welfare providers. This, it is argued, can be important for understanding how boundaries of social citizenship are drawn in each country.

scholarly journals Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor? Support for Social Citizenship Rights in the United States and Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Oser ◽  
Marc Hooghe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
The United States ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Parallel Module

This article investigates whether the commitment to social rights as integral to a well-functioning democracy exists among Americans in comparison with their European counterparts. In our comparison of data from the European Social Survey in 2012 with a special parallel module of the U.S. Cooperative Congressional Election Survey in 2014, the findings suggest that similar conceptions of ideal democracy are found on both sides of the Atlantic. Although Americans are less likely than Europeans to consider fighting poverty and reducing income inequality as important democratic ideals, the analysis shows that the United States is not exceptional in the existence of a social rights conception of democracy. A distinct feature of U.S. public opinion is that support for social rights is more strongly associated with a left-right divide than in Europe. The observed congruence between policy and public opinion in the United States highlights the importance of investigating the direction of causality between both phenomena.

Basic Income

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Birnbaum
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Research Effort ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Work Requirement ◽  
Minimum Income ◽  
The Many

The idea that states should provide a means-tested guaranteed minimum income for citizens who are unable to meet their basic needs is widely shared and has been a central component in the evolution of social citizenship rights in existing welfare states. However, an increasing number of activists and scholars defend the more radical option of establishing a universal basic income, that is, an unconditional income paid to all members of society on an individual basis without any means test or work requirement. Indeed, some political philosophers have argued that basic income is one of the most important reforms in the development of a just and democratic society, comparable to other milestones in the history of citizenship rights, such as universal suffrage or even the abolishment of slavery. Basic income or similar ideas, such as a basic capital or a negative income tax, have been advanced in many versions since the 18th century in different parts of the world and under a great variety of names. However, while these were previously often isolated and disconnected initiatives, basic income has more recently become the object of an increasingly cumulative research effort to shed light on the many aspects of this idea. It has also inspired policy developments and given rise to experiments and pilot projects in several countries.

When work is punishment: Penal subjectivities in punitive labor regimes

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Hatton
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Welfare Regime ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Labor Regimes

Scholars have persuasively argued that U.S. penal and welfare institutions comprise a single policy regime that has taken a punitive turn with carceral expansion and welfare contraction. Less recognized, however, is the centrality of labor to this regime. Not only has labor been the lynchpin of welfare reform with the expansion of workfare, it has also been an important yet overlooked dimension of mass incarceration, as most able-bodied American prisoners are required to work. For prisoners and welfare recipients, work is a punitive curtailment of citizenship rights, even as it is a foundation of such rights for others. This article thus conceptualizes work as a form of punishment in the penal-welfare regime. Drawing on 83 in-depth interviews with incarcerated and workfare workers, it examines these workers’ penal subjectivities—how they ideologically navigate their labor qua punishment. Through this negotiation, it finds, incarcerated and workfare workers deploy, contest, and reify the cultural narratives that justify their relegation to punitive labor regimes.

Conclusion: social insecurity and ‘welfare’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Social Insecurity ◽  
Central Argument

This concluding chapter summarises the central argument of this book: that there is a considerable disjunct between citizenship from above, and citizenship as it is lived and experienced from below. The citizenship consequences of this disjunct are discussed, and the implications for the future social in/exclusion of those who rely on benefits for all or most of their income. Further, this chapter considers whether a call for greater social citizenship rights is still a pertinent and effective one, or whether instead social citizenship has been co-opted by the dominant work-based citizenship narrative from above. Although citizenship’s original emancipatory intent has been subverted by recent governments, there remains scope in calls for genuine and meaningful social inclusion and social rights that offer protection and support to all citizens. Here, there is particular potential in a focus on social security as a mechanism for addressing the pervasive insecurity that characterises everyday life. Policy makers also need to listen much more closely to those with the ‘expertise by experience’ that comes with living with poverty and welfare reform, and these voices need to be better incorporated into political and public debates.

Recommodification and the Welfare State in Re/Financialised Austerity Capitalism: Further Eroding Social Citizenship?

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-141
Author(s):  
Fiona Dukelow
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Market Risks ◽  
Labour Market Participation ◽  
Market Pressures ◽  
Recent Policy ◽  
The Welfare State

This article reviews the recommodification of social policy in the context of financialised austerity capitalism and post-crisis welfare states. It sets out an understanding of recommodification as a multiple set of processes that involve the state in labour market-making, by shaping labour’s ‘saleability’. Under conditions of finance-dominated austerity capitalism, the article argues that recent dynamics of recommodification complicate the long established Piersonian observations. For Pierson, recommodification signifies how elements of the welfare state that shelter individuals from market pressures are dismantled and replaced with measures which buffer their labour market participation. This article examines ways in which recent policy trends in recommodification, whether by incentivising or coercive means, increase exposure to labour market risks and connect with the growing inequalities between capital and labour under post-crisis re/financialised austerity capitalism. This analysis is paired with a synoptic review of recent labour market trends and reforms across the European Union. As recommodification evolves, the insecurity it institutes raises fundamental questions about the underlying nature of social citizenship which are also addressed.

Social Rights Advocacy and State Building: T. H. Marshall in the Hands of Social Reformers

1995 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jytte Klausen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Retirement Benefits ◽  
Flat Rate ◽  
State Expansion ◽  
Electoral Coalitions

This article argues that it is a fallacy to regard “social citizenship” as granting social rights equivalent to civil rights and suffrage. The argument is based partly upon a textual analysis showing that in formulating his influential “trinity” of citizenship, T. H. Marshall obfuscated differences between the distributional logic of redistributive policy and political and civil rights. The second part of the argument is based upon an empirical discussion of how social citizenship arguments have been applied to create comprehensive social reform.The Scandinavian welfare states play a central role in the discussion as examples of the inclu-sionary benefits of social citizenship. Three instances of welfare state expansion are discussed: the passage of legislation establishing flat-rate retirement benefits, the institution of supplementary earnings-related retirement benefits, and feminist mobilization in the 1980s for a “woman-friendly” welfare state. It is shown that claims to social citizenship are used by out-groups to demand inclusion in electoral coalitions aiming at welfare state expansion.The article concludes that social citizenship is inextricably linked to redistributive political conflict between in-groups and out-groups and depends upon state capacity to raise revenues and to police entitlement. A key difference between social rights and political and civil rights is that consumption of the former hinges on both the consent of the community and the willingness of others to pay for such consumption, while consumption of the latter does not impose direct costs upon others.

Enforceability of rights in the temporary agency sector: The case of Belgium

2021 ◽  
pp. 0143831X2110172
Author(s):  
Kim Bosmans ◽  
Deborah De Moortel ◽  
Christophe Vanroelen
Keyword(s):  
Social Rights ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Temporary Agency Workers

This study explores why temporary agency workers are disadvantaged compared to regular workers regarding their employment-related and social rights in Belgium despite extensive equal rights regulation. Fifteen in-depth interviews among temporary agency workers were analysed thematically. The enforceability of rights poses the main problem in temporary agency workers’ disadvantaged position. The following manifestations of a lack of enforceability are discussed: (1) lack of enforceability due to ignorance and indifference about rights; (2) vulnerability hindering enforceability; and (3) lack of enforceability due to misuse by employers and cutting corners. It is argued that this problem of enforceability is mainly caused by a lack of a clear allocation of responsibilities as to who should ensure the rights of temporary agency workers.

“Willing to Do Anything for My Kids”: Inventive Mothering, Diapers, and the Inequalities of Carework

2020 ◽  
pp. 000312242097748
Author(s):  
Jennifer Randles
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Labor ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Safety Net ◽  
Intensive Mothering ◽  
Child Centered ◽  
White Mothers ◽  
Mothers Of Color ◽  
Depth Interviews

Prior research highlights how mothers across social classes express similar beliefs that good parenting adheres to the tenets of intensive mothering by being child-centered, time-consuming, and self-sacrificing. Yet intensive mothering ideologies emphasize parenting tactics that assume children’s basic needs are met, while ignoring how mothers in poverty devise distinctive childrearing strategies and logics to perform carework demanded by deprivation, discrimination, and a meager social safety net. I theorize inventive mothering that instead highlights the complexity and agency of poor mothers’ innovative efforts to ensure children’s access to resources, protect children from the harms of poverty and racism, and present themselves as fit parents in the context of intersecting gender, class, and race stigma. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 70 mothers who experienced diaper need, I conceptualize diaper work as a case of inventive mothering that involves extensive physical, cognitive, and emotional labor. These findings show how focusing on childrearing practices experienced as “intense” from the point of view of more affluent, white mothers perpetuates inequalities by obscuring the complex labor poor mothers, especially poor mothers of color, perform when there is limited public support for fundamental aspects of childcare.

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