ABSTRACT
In the process of conferring the rights of citizenship, modern nation states constitute their citizens as subjects within a variety of discursive registers. The English sociologist T.H. Marshall was one of the first commentators to point out that this process included the construction of citizens as the bearers of social rights. In Marshall’s schema, social rights embraced a broad range of demands, “from 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” (1964:72). In effect, Marshall argued, to be a citizen of a modern state was to possess the right to demand a certain style of life and to be able to petition the state to insure for its provision.
