ABSTRACT
The creation and transformation of Western European welfare states since World War II rests on changing formations of citizenship. This chapter begins by tracing the different welfare ‘settlements’ that inscribed particular forms and meanings of citizenship. The main body of the chapter traces different ways in which these settlements have been contested. Struggles from ‘below’ sought to expand citizenship rights and to encompass the claims of feminism and other social movements. But nation states have also attempted to transform citizenship in order to displace or minimise welfare claims and to mitigate patterns of social and cultural exclusion. In addition a series of citizenship struggles – around gendered inscriptions of public and private, around age and generation, and around nationality and migration – continue to disrupt taken for granted meanings and practices of citizenship. The core concepts that the chapter uses are:
WELFARE SETTLEMENT: The ways in which political, economic, social and organisational lines of contestation were partly and temporarily ‘settled’ in the formation of welfare states.
