For Whose Benefit?

The Everyday Realities of Welfare Reform

Patrick, Ruth, Ruth Patrick

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781447333463
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781447333494
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What does day-to-day life involve for those who receive out-of-work benefits? Is the political focus on moving people from 'welfare' and into work the right one? And do mainstream political and media accounts of the 'problem' of 'welfare' accurately reflect lived realities?

For whose benefit? The everyday realities of welfare reform explores these questions by talking to those directly affected by recent reforms. Ruth Patrick interviewed single parents, disabled people and young jobseekers on benefits repeatedly over five years to find out how they experienced the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and whether the welfare state still offers meaningful protection and security in times of need. She reflects on the mismatch between the portrayal of 'welfare' and everyday experiences, and the consequences of this for the UK's ongoing welfare reform programme.

Exploring issues including the meaning of dependency, the impact of benefit sanctions and the reach of benefits stigma, this important book makes a timely contribution to ongoing debates about the efficacy and ethics of welfare reform.

ONE

Social citizenship from above

An individual’s sense of belonging and inclusion within their wider community and nation state is bound up in and contingent upon their citizenship status and practice; on the rights and responsibilities that come with being, and acting as, a citizen (Lister, 2003). Whether we conceive of citizenship as a status that brings with it a bundle of rights and responsibilities or as a practice that demands the fulfilment of particular duties if one is to be a responsible engaged citizen, citizenship focuses attention on questions of inclusion and exclusion – on who is and who is not included within the citizenry and on what basis (Dwyer, 2010).

Citizenship is of value precisely because there are necessarily and always some that it excludes: advantages and rewards are attached to those, but only those, who are considered citizens (Lister, 2003). The ways in which explicit and implicit decisions are made around who is and who is not included as a citizen are fundamental to the nature of the society in which we live and the basis on which it operates. Close attention to these decisions and the more subtle processes that operate to drive inclusionary and exclusionary forces can illuminate the values and social norms that underpin a society, as well as improving our understanding of the bureaucratic, political and societal domains and how these feed into and affect individuals’ everyday politics and lived citizenship realities.

This book adopts social citizenship as a theoretical and analytical lens for better understanding how individuals in receipt of out-of-work benefits experience social welfare and welfare reform. In this chapter, an introduction to ideas of social citizenship is provided, including T. H. Marshall’s (1950) classic liberal theory of citizenship. This is followed by a summary of the intersection between citizenship, poverty and participation. The second part of the chapter is concerned with excavating the dominant citizenship narratives evident in the thinking and policy statements of recent UK governments. This analysis focuses on the period from 1997–2016, which includes New Labour as well as the Coalition and Conservative governments led by David Cameron. This exploration highlights the extent to which recent UK governments have drawn upon liberal and civic republican ideas of social citizenship, often in tandem, to construct an argument that positions welfare reform as a tool of social inclusion. Changes to benefits in general and welfare-to-work policies in particular are presented as measures that can support and empower individuals to become included citizens by participating in the formal labour market. By focusing on articulations of citizenship from above, this chapter lays essential groundwork for the later exploration of how social citizenship is lived and experienced from below.

Understanding social citizenship

What is social citizenship?

Citizenship is best understood as denoting membership of a community (Marshall, 1950). In this context, we are most interested in membership of the nation state and the rights and responsibilities attached to that membership. Determining who should be treated as a citizen, what citizens should be entitled to from the state and what should be expected in return demands recourse to normative matters of social justice and fairness (Lewis, 1998; White, 2003). Citizenship is not an absolute and static state; rather, the boundaries between citizen and non-citizen are often fluid and changing (Clarke et al., 2014). There are always people who – although nominally citizens – experience their status as precarious and sometimes find themselves treated as lesser or second-class citizens (Dwyer, 2010). People can and will experience their citizenship status and practices differently at different times, often related to the extent and nature of their engagement in wider society, whether as workers, parents, volunteers or carers. It is not an all-or-nothing status but rather a continuum that people move along depending on the norms, expectations and demands imposed on ‘citizens’ from above (Lister, 2003). This, of course, gives it a particular relevance to this book’s exploration of how individuals experience and respond to changes in their social security entitlement over time – changes that impact upon what it means ‘to be a citizen’ (Lister, 2003).

Liberal and civic republican theories of citizenship

In exploring theories of citizenship, an important distinction can be made between liberal and civic republican traditions (Plant, 1998), which can also be understood as a distinction between social–contractual and social–solidaristic thinking (Dean and Melrose, 1999). Liberal theories of citizenship focus on the status that social citizenship offers and the rights that come with that status. By contrast, civic republican theories conceive of citizenship as a ‘practice’ and so are more concerned with the responsibilities and duties of the ‘good citizen’. In Plant’s (1999, p. 124) words, liberal theories see citizenship as a relatively unconditional status, ‘not fundamentally altered by the virtue, or lack of it, of the individual citizen’, whereas in republican accounts citizenship is ‘an achievement rather than a status’.

Within the liberal tradition (cf. Marshall, 1950; Kymlicka, 1995; Rawls, 1999; White, 2003), theorists conceptualise the individual citizen as the bearer of individual rights and preferences – stressing the importance of upholding the individual’s freedom to pursue the life of his or her choosing (Dwyer, 2010). Generally, individual freedom is prioritised over the state dictating the form a ‘good’ life should take, creating a key dividing line between these thinkers and those within the civic republican tradition. The liberal citizenship tradition has also been described as ‘social–contractual’ because theorists take as their starting point the idea of a social contract between the individual citizen and the state. Thus, citizenship is most frequently explored as a status to which a bundle of rights and responsibilities – the terms of the contract between the individual and his or her state – is attached.

Social–solidaristic theories of citizenship can be equated with civic republican and communitarian conceptualisations (Dean and Melrose, 1999). Stress is placed on citizenship as a practice and the shared values held by the citizenry as a whole (cf. Walzer, 1983; Taylor, 1990; Sandel, 1998). There is a noted emphasis on the obligations that come with being a citizen, which are often tied to political participation, engagement in paid employment and – in historical accounts – military service. New communitarian thinking is best understood as a particular, often conservative strand of the broader civic republican citizenship tradition. Communitarians focus on the expected behaviour of the ‘good’ citizen; their policy prescriptions often centre on demanding and instilling individual responsibility and duty (Etzioni, 1995; Willetts, 2008). There is a strong behavioural and moralising dimension to the communitarian perspective, with responsibilities seen as arising prior to, and often irrespective of, rights (Lister, 2003). Today, communitarian thinking remains prominent in both academic and political discourses – a legacy of the long tradition of civic republicanism stretching right back to Ancient Greece and its onus on active participation in the polis (Greek city state) (Dwyer, 2010).

Citizenship as engagement

In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on citizenship as ‘engagement’, on the ‘acts’ of citizenship and upon the constitutive (and often fluid) elements of what being a citizen entails (Ellison, 2000; Isin, 2008). This can perhaps best be understood as a contemporary application of civic republican ideas as part of an effort to illuminate how today’s citizens inhabit the ‘everyday worlds of citizenship’ (Desforges et al., 2005, cited in Lister, 2007, p. 58). Ellison (2000) developed an account of citizenship as ‘proactive’ and ‘defensive’ forms of engagement. He argues that citizenship engagement can either be proactive, where individuals assertively seek to secure their citizenship rights (and sometimes acquire new ones), or more defensive, where individuals are only able to reactively attempt to cling onto and reassert their entitlement to existing social citizenship rights (Ellison, 2000). Ellison’s analysis is particularly valuable in drawing attention to the ways in which social citizenship can be enacted and engaged with in different ways at different times, as well as reminding us of the extent to which access to resources and other forms of social, cultural and economic capital can affect – and, where absent, constrain – individuals’ engagement.

A focus on citizenship as engagement also draws attention to the ways in which it is a dynamic concept (Clarke et al., 2014), evolving over time and in response to changes in both how it is conceptualised from above and how it is experienced and lived from below. Citizenship is best understood as ‘imparfaite’ or unfinished; it is constantly being reimagined and reworked, both in theory and practice (Balibar, 2001, cited in Clarke et al., 2014). It is a contested and mobile concept. This gives it particular analytical power, both as a vehicle for tracking changes at the societal level and as a political tool for defending particular policy approaches and agendas. It has been and remains a ‘keyword’, because it is employed in justifications of very different political programmes and ideas, in which it is utilised as a ‘powerful mobilising image for social and political action’ (Clarke et al., 2014, p. 84).

Why employ social citizenship as a theoretical lens for examining processes of welfare reform over time?

This book adopts and develops a distinction between citizenship as it is articulated from above and citizenship as it is lived and experienced from below. It explores how political narratives and policy agendas around welfare reform co-opt and conceptualise social citizenship in their policy defences and discourse (citizenship from above). This is contrasted with how individuals directly affected by these processes live with and experience their own citizenship and the degree of their citizenship inclusion or exclusion (citizenship from below). This reveals the fluid and evolving nature of social citizenship, as well as the ways in which changes to it from above can cumulatively and gradually transform experiences of it from below.

Later in this and subsequent chapters, the ways in which the social rights of citizenship have been reworked and redrawn by successive governments are explored and their implications discussed for our broader understanding of social citizenship’s emancipatory potential, as well as to what social citizenship rights provide to those in receipt of out-of-work benefits. Social citizenship’s malleable, contested and unfinished nature gives it particular potential as a theoretical lens for examining changes in social welfare provision and political narratives about what is expected and (increasingly) demanded in return for social welfare. There is particular scope to engage with the declared motivations behind processes of welfare reform, as well as to explore how these processes are actually experienced by those affected by welfare reform. Here, we are able to contrast the promises made in the name of welfare reform – particularly for transformative positive changes for those directly affected – with the ways in which these reforms are lived, experienced and responded to on the ground.

T. H. Marshall: citizenship as ‘equality of status’

In exploring welfare reform and social citizenship in tandem, T. H. Marshall’s theory of social citizenship is particularly relevant. Marshall developed the classic egalitarian liberal conception of citizenship (Bode, 2008; Dwyer, 2010), emphasising the equality of status of all citizens: ‘Citizenship is a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community. All who possess the status are equal with respect to the rights and duties with which the status is endowed’ (Marshall, 1950, p.18).

Taking a chronological perspective, Marshall charted the emergence of civil, political and social rights of citizenship in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries respectively. For our purposes, we are particularly interested in Marshall’s conceptualisation of the social rights of citizenship. Unfortunately, however, Marshall did not explicitly detail the nature and extent of the social rights to which a citizen should be entitled, defining them in both minimalist and maximalist terms as: ‘the whole range [of social rights] from the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security, to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the civilized life according to the standards prevailing in society’ (Marshall, 1950, p. 8). Much debate since has focused on Marshall’s interpretation of the extent of social rights and how far these should be provided unconditionally (White, 2003). Importantly, Marshall saw social rights as of intrinsic value, with citizenship having real significance and substance for those living in poverty (Dwyer, 2010). This conceptualisation provides the possibility for citizenship to be used instrumentally when making claims on the state. Marshall’s (1950) model can operate as a yardstick against which we can measure and assess how far all citizens in any society obtain the promised ‘security’ and ‘equality of status’.

Further, Marshall’s tripartite model illustrates how civil, political and social rights are inevitably intertwined, such that the denial of one category of rights affects and limits an individual’s capacity to exercise their other rights – what Twine (1994, p. 97) describes as the ‘three legged stool of citizenship’. Further, even in his minimalist definition of social citizenship rights, Marshall emphasised the right to at least a ‘modicum’ of ‘economic welfare and security’ (p. 35); notwithstanding the ‘modicum’ qualifier, this right to an element of security is a relatively challenging benchmark against which to assess current social security provision and reforms.

Marshall’s concern with rights has led to criticisms that he neglected individuals’ responsibilities (Selbourne, 1994; Etzioni, 1995). Although he did not explicitly codify the duties and obligations that citizens should be expected to fulfil, he did emphasise the importance of paid employment and the duty of citizens to live the life of a ‘good citizen’ and to put ‘one’s heart into one’s job’ (Marshall, 1950, p. 46). Marshall has also been criticised for a faulty chronology and, in particular, a neglect of the reality that women’s political rights came much later than his model suggests (Walby, 1994; Delanty, 2000). Combined with a further neglect of issues of disability and gender (Roulstone and Prideaux, 2012; Revi, 2014), this has led some to argue that his model was only ever designed to focus on healthy, white, adult males (Williams, 1992; Dwyer, 2010). While these criticisms are important, Marshall was writing in a particular place, at a particular time and in a particular cultural context. His model was thus inevitably bound up in the emergence of the welfare state during Clement Attlee’s post-war government (Bottomore, 1992).

Nonetheless, almost 70 years on, Marshall’s tripartite model of social citizenship remains valuable in incorporating social citizenship rights and providing a structure that can be mobilised in defending social welfare. By popularising social citizenship and calling on the state to provide some level of decommodified support to citizens in need, Marshall developed a contractual model that makes comparatively onerous demands of the state. Decommodification is the ability to ‘uphold a socially acceptable standard of living independently of market participation’ (Esping-Andersen, 1990, p. 37). The provision of decommodified social security support was a key aspect of the post-war welfare settlement and is a central element of Marshall’s conceptualisation of social rights.

The ambiguities in Marshall’s writing – particularly around his understanding of the nature and extent of social rights – do limit the utility of his ideas. Nonetheless, social citizenship can operate as an ideological discourse (Dean and Melrose, 1999) and Marshall’s emphasis on social rights has real resonance when exploring the nature and consequences of welfare reform. Marshall’s theory is particularly useful when held up against both the dominant narratives of recent governments and out-of-work benefit claimants’ own lived realities.

Social citizenship, poverty and participation

T. H. Marshall’s seminal account illustrates the extent to which social citizenship can be of particular value to those living in poverty by granting them entitlement to social rights, while at the same time indicating how experiences of poverty can undermine affected individuals’ social citizenship – particularly where individuals experience an inequality of status with their fellow citizens. Living in poverty impinges upon affected individuals’ citizenship; all three types of citizenship rights are largely unrealised for those living in poverty (Lister, 1990, 2004; Vincent, 1990). Indeed, Vincent (1991, p. 205) argues that ‘properly understood a poor citizen is a contradiction in terms’.

There has been ongoing debate regarding what – if anything – social citizenship offers to the poorest in society, as well as a questioning of what a more egalitarian and socially just social citizenship might entail. In moving towards a post-Marshallian framework for an egalitarian and truly inclusive social citizenship, writers such as Lister (2003, 2004), Fraser (2009), Gaventa (2002), Williams (2012a) and Taylor (1994) have emphasised the importance of looking beyond access to rights and resources towards questions of participation, recognition, respect and voice. While such writers contend that meaningful access to resources is a vital precondition of social citizenship, they also emphasise ensuring that all individuals have the right to be treated with respect and dignity and to have their needs and preferences acknowledged through a politics of recognition. This becomes particularly pertinent for the poorest in society, who often find their voices ignored and even silenced, while their interactions with state bureaucracies and street-level advisers are frequently characterised by an absence of respect (see chapters four and six).

Having the right to give ‘voice’ to individual experiences and perspectives is closely tied to a right to participate in society. Of course, this right is itself entirely contingent on the right to access those resources to be able to participate fully in society (Gaventa, 2002). Fraser (2003) has written of the importance of seeking to secure ‘parity of participation’ so that all have equal rights to participate; a demanding objective in current western societies in which the poorest typically find it very difficult to participate, particularly in proactive, positive ways (see Chapter Three). For a right to participate to be meaningful it would need to encompass both familial and community forms of participation, as well as the ability to participate in political decision-making – particularly in those decisions that impact directly upon one’s own life. Taken together, then, it is possible to ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables and figures
• Glossary
• Notes on author
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction: Beyond Benefits Street – exploring experiences and narratives of welfare reform
• Chapter one: Social citizenship from above
• Chapter two: The emergence of a framing consensus on ‘welfare’
• Chapter three: The everyday realities of out-of-work benefits receipt
• Chapter four: Is welfare-to-work working? Relationships with work over time
• Chapter five: Ending welfare dependency? Experiencing welfare reform
• Chapter six: Scroungerphobia: living with the stigma of benefits
• Chapter seven: Diverse trajectories between 2011 and 2016
• Conclusion: social insecurity and ‘welfare’
• References