ABSTRACT
In European welfare states a new type of welfare architecture is taking shape, the Welfare Service State, in which social welfare services become the main terrain for combating poverty. This chapter discusses the way social welfare services construct the relation between anti-poverty strategies and social justice. More specifically, it discusses the Capability Approach as a relevant social justice framework and relates the Capability Approach to Nancy Fraser’s idea of parity of participation. Social welfare services could occupy a privileged position in striving for parity of participation and social justice through a politics of representation in which a so-called cultural forum can be created as a space where the private concerns of people who experience injustice in overlapping cultural, economic, and political realms are translated into public issues. A pertinent challenge in the development of anti-poverty strategies is to pose questions concerning which situations are defined as poverty, and on what grounds and with what arguments are they defined as such, and also consider what the contributions are of diverse actors in this process.
