ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the decline of traditional conceptions of citizenship across Western contexts, in particular through attacks upon the welfare safety net for those at the margins based in neo-liberal ideology. It focuses on the attack on the rights of the vulnerable with their replacement by identity politics and demands for rights by urban educated elites, many of whom possess the resources to actively engage in politics. The chapter also considers the group at the crux of the argument — alienated, marginalised and angry working-class men — across three different contexts. Drawing upon scholarly contributions about the 'precariat' and masculinities, it develops an argument that it is possible to understand the contemporary populist phenomenon as related to and tied into the decline of key elements of citizenship, work and masculinity and the search for an alternative source of meaning by those at the margins.
