Citizenship and social power

In: Critical social policy: a journal of theory and practice in social welfare, Band 9, Heft 26, S. 19-31

Abstract

To be of use the concept of citizenship must be taken out of its liberal history and retl?ought. The nationalistic context in which it has evolved is one associated ¡.vith a set ofinclusionary artd exclusionary practices based on a variety of Janns of sodal power. Citizenship has not been realised for excluded groups either through the false collectivism of social democratic welfare, or through the consumerist 'detnocracy'of the market. The state/market dichotomy is ill fact a false one. Neither exist as autonomous spheres but exist only as organisational principles with.ill the totality of social relations. These social relations must be situated in the context of underlying power based not only on property but on 'race'and gender as well. These pmver relations structure the spaces of the market and the state and thus limit the ectent to which either ean fic~f~f the ideal of citizenship. It is not, then, simply> to a set of legal reforms based on universalistic concept of rights that we should look in order to promote active citizenship, but to a 'dynamic' concept of need.