ABSTRACT

The object of this chapter is to position social citizenship as a process that is axiomatically global. The chapter proceeds from the premise that rights of citizenship are socially constructed. In that sense, all rights are social. However, the term ‘social rights’ has conventionally applied to the rights supposedly established by modern welfare states (Marshall, 1950 ). But the services and protection that are guaranteed by welfare states are complex contemporary manifestations of social processes that have always been central to human existence.