1. Social Policy: Ideology, Theory & Practice
Week 3. Citizenship: Ideological & theoretical models/Citizenship in practice
Dr Mark Wilding

2. Overview The classic British approach: T.H. Marshall1
The classic British approach: T.H. Marshall 2
‘Contextualised’ citizenship: e.g. Clarke et al. 3
Challenges to social citizenship

3. Why study citizenship?
Citizenship can determine the nature of our relationships with state & community
Citizenship is contested
Citizenship can also affect individuals and groups differently
For example, on the basis of gender, age, or race/ethnicity

4. What is citizenship? A concept that links state and individual
Implies membership of community
Raises questions of inclusion/exclusion
A social status that allows people to make claims in relation to state-organised welfare services
(Lewis, 1998 cited in Shaw, 2010)

5. Social citizenship
“By the social element I mean the whole range, the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society” (Marshall, 1950: 30)

6. The rise of social citizenship
Civil element
18th Century
Political element
19th Century
Social element
20th Century

7. Civil element Rights necessary for individual freedom
Freedom of speech, thought & faith
Right to own property & to conclude valid contracts
Right to Justice
Came with demise of feudal order & onset of capitalism

8. Political element
Right to participate in the exercise of political power
Either as a candidate/member or voter
Reform Act 1832 extended voting rights
Representation of the People Act 1918 lifted property restrictions for men & introduced the vote for women

9. Political element

10. Social element Right to a modicum of economic welfare & security
Right to share to the full in the social heritage & to live the civilised life according to the standards prevailing in society
An equalisation (of status, not income) between the more & less fortunate at all levels
Healthy & sick/Old & active
Bachelor & father of large family

11. Social element
Marshall thought that citizenship could check the worst excesses of capitalism
He was interested in equal rights rather than equal outcomes

12. Criticisms of T. H. Marshall
Flawed logic
Social class emphasised to the exclusion of:
Gender, race, disability, sexuality, children and young people
Does the liberal notion of citizenship based on equality of opportunity go far enough?
Is a more fundamental re-ordering of the economic system required? (e.g., Bottomore, 1992)
Not everyone sees social rights as a means of ameliorating class inequalities (e.g., Offe, 1982)

13. Discussion question
Is Marshall’s account of citizenship based most in ideology, theory or practice? Why?

14. Reflected the dominant approach?
Marshall reflected the dominant approach to welfare at the time:
Citizenship tied up with nation
Assumed women’s dependence on men
Marginalisation of people with disabilities
Beyond education, no real discussion of children & young people
However, citizenship can be a symbolic marker
To voice & mobilise social and political demands

15. Citizenship in dispute
Citizenship as a continuing focus of dispute (Clarke et al., 2014)
Requires ‘thick contextualisation’
Pluralising the state, reinventing the people, sites & sclaes of citizenship
We are becoming post-national?
Charges of relativism?
Citizenship is a practice and a process rather than a stable form

16. Citizenship is more fluid?
Citizenship is sometimes seen as ‘filling out’
Extending substance & reach
However there is not a permanent baseline (Clarke et al, 2014)
Rights can be taken away or made more conditional
Citizenship can be re-imagined & re-invented

17. Context Anglo-centric
“The British classical model brilliantly exposed by Marshall is only partially relevant to understand citizenship in Spain” (Garcia, 1994: 263 cited in Clarke et al., 2014)
Citizenship can be enacted beyond & between national borders (Bosniak, 2008)

18. Discussion question
To what extent is citizenship always in dispute?

19. Contesting social citizenship
Since the rise of the New Right, social citizenship has been contested
Shift in emphasis from rights to responsibility
Welfare state seen as a major cause of society’s social & economic problems
The poor as the cause rather than symptom of society’s ills

20. Conditional rights
Consequently, welfare benefits have become more residual & more conditional
For example, the 1995 Job Seekers’ Act
New Labour: “no rights without responsibility”
New Deal
Later aimed to achieve 80% employment
Coalition government has continued this trend:
Universal Credit
“Bedroom Tax”

21. Citizens or consumers? Citizen Consumer State Market Public Private
Political
Economic
Collective
Individual
Decommodification
Commodification
Rights
Exchange
Source: Clarke et al. (2007: 3)

22. The Cameron governments
Under Cameron, Conservatives have urged citizen involvement through:
Market mechanisms
Nudges
Citizen exhortation (civic duty)
Aims is responsibilisation rather than civic participation?
Source: Lister (2014)

23. Citizenship tests
A strengthening of national borders & attempt to preserve cultural homogeneity? (Blackledge, 2009). Or...
Emphasising responsibility, empowerment and self improvement? (Turner, 2014)

24. Revisiting Marshall Marshall’s categories as fluid & unfinished?
Best interpreted as a study of citizenship
Can be developed & extended as the meaning & application of citizenship change over time
No universal principle which determines citizenship rights & obligations
Source: Lister (2005)

25. Discussion questions
Is it possible to build a new social citizenship on plural understandings of social needs?
What are the similarities & differences between social citizenship & social inclusion?

26. References
Blackledge, A. (2009). “As a country we do expect”: The further extension of language testing regimes in the United Kingdom. Language assessment quarterly, 6(1), 6-16.
Bosniak, L. (2008) The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership. Princeton University Press.
Bottomore, T. B. (1992) ‘Citizenship & Social Class, Forty Years On’, in Marshall, T. H., & Bottomore, T. B. (1992). Citizenship and social class (Vol. 2). London: Pluto Press.
Clarke, J., Coll, K., Dagnino, E., and Neveu, C. (2014) Disputing citizenship. Bristol: Policy Press.
Lister, M. (2005). ‘Marshall‐ing’Social and Political Citizenship: Towards a Unified Conception of Citizenship1. Government and opposition, 40(4),

27. References
Lister, M. (2015). Citizens, Doing It for Themselves? The Big Society and Government through Community. Parliamentary Affairs, 68(2),
Marshall, T. H. (1950). Citizenship and social class: And other essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Offe, C. (1982). Some contradictions of the modern welfare state. Critical Social Policy, 2(5): 7-16.
Shaw, S. (2010). Parents, Children, Young People and the State. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill International.
Turner, J. (2014). Testing the liberal subject:(in) security, responsibility and ‘self-improvement’in the UK citizenship test. Citizenship Studies, 18(3-4),

28. Group work
Work together to make an essay plan for the following question:
Critically assess the impact of ideology on Citizenship