ABSTRACT
The concern of this chapter is to outline a number of arguments which need to be taken into consideration in making the concept of citizenship relevant to the challenges of the millennium and their impacts on welfare states. The welfare states established in the aftermath of World War II were founded on a series of assumptions which need to be reevaluated in the context of continuing change. Demographic pressures, public expectations, the constraints on government and the globalized economy are all major factors influencing new thinking about welfare states. The concern of this chapter is the relationship between citizenship and welfare states. It will argue for the need to move beyond Marshall’s concept of citizenship. Defining and redefining citizenship has to be located within people’s life experiences-it has to reflect people’s expectations, hopes and aspirations at a certain point in time. In this sense Marshall’s attempt at a definition of citizenship has to be contextualized. Instead of focusing on the limits of that definition it would be better to argue that it represented a discourse which was emancipatory and had validity in the aftermath of war and at a time when the welfare state was still being established. The challenge for the present is to construct a definition which is equally emancipatory, but which has relevance to the expectations of the 1990s and beyond.
