Introduction

Structured inequalities give rise to divergent experiences and conceptions of social citizenship. In a number of important of ways, the rich really do differ from the poor. Of course, diversity in public opinion is a valuable feature of any democracy, but welfare services and provisions are also intended to serve an integrative function. The establishment of the welfare state was, in many respects, conceived ‘to heal social divisions or at least mitigate social inequalities; not only in terms of material inequalities, but also in ideological and political terms’ (Mau, 2001: 3). However, citizenship and its attendant systems of welfare have increasingly come to calcify rather than moderate material, social and attitudinal differentiation. When the fault lines of difference and the capacity to influence welfare politics are drawn based on existing socioeconomic divisions, the (political) legitimacy of social citizenship is threatened. In effect, social citizenship becomes a self-reinforcing practice that reformulates itself in a way that continues to privilege some while penalising others. As a result, the channels of policy influence are broadened for those at the top and narrowed for those at the bottom.

This poses a significant challenge to tackling poverty and inequality through the existing levers and practices of welfare citizenship. If those controlling (and benefiting from) the current citizenship paradigm endorse the features that give legitimation to welfare austerity and social differentiation, how then can these structures be feasibly reformulated? And perhaps more importantly, if those most perniciously affected by exclusionary welfare politics are implicated in the reproduction of ideals and practices that advance sociomaterial marginality, what measures can and should be taken to reinvigorate a social democratic commitment to guide policy and practice? Of course, preceding such questions is the increasingly salient tension between the domestic institutions of governance that structure welfare outcomes and the global (political) economic order, which shapes the operation and capacity of the national welfare state.