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This article examines the persistence of a 'rights' movement in a political environment rife with the language of personal responsibility. Through an analysis of interviews of welfare rights activists in three states, this article explores the frequency and type of both 'rights' and 'needs' discourse frameworks. Neither rights nor needs language is employed frequently in the interviews. Activists do not view the language of rights and needs as necessarily conflictual. Furthermore, race appears to play some role in discourse choices between rights and needs. African American women utilize both rights and needs rhetoric, while White women prefer needs language. The results offer evidence of the centrality of race in understanding discourse choices among those struggling to gain recognition of basic human needs and rights. [Copyright 2007 Elsevier Ltd.]

This article describes a community-based welfare reform-welfare rights organizing coalition that is based on a feminist empowerment model of practice. The experiences of women who have participated in the coalition are highlighted, and suggested courses of action for organizing such coalitions are proposed.

The concepts of Albert O. Hirschman (Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, 1970, no further publication information provided) are applied to the underutilization of welfare rights. Hirschman's contrast between "voice" & "exit" is replaced by a schema of four types of reaction: fight, flight, acquiescence, & revenge. The legal program of the welfare state comprises a body of rights to which the weaker party in a relationship of dependency is entitled. Since nonassertion, from the individual's perspective, in the form of flight or acquiescence, is often preferable to the assertion of rights through fight or revenge, these new rights remain largely law in books. The Weberian method of interpretative sociology, together with empirical data from various studies, give a basis for understanding when & where the different courses will be chosen. Implications for the administration of justice & in particular the contribution of the exit option to justice, are noted. In Welfare Rights in the Welfare State, Norman Furniss (U of Indiana, Bloomington) notes the importance of the question of how far prescribed welfare rights are in fact asserted. Inferential reasoning suggests the importance of three factors: whether the state undertakes ad hoc welfare provisions or advances a general policy of a guaranteed national minimum; whether affected individuals are organized collectively or have to assert rights in isolation; & whether the type of welfare right involves the outcome of market relations or the distribution of government funds. The problem of nonassertion of welfare rights would be greatly reduced in a genuine welfare state. In Rejoinder, Bruinsma notes the contrast between continued advocacy of, & skepticism toward, the welfare state. From the viewpoint of the weaker party, Furniss's distinctions prove to have relatively little importance. 4 Figures. Modified HA.

Abstract
Sen's "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal" was meant to crystallize his fundamental criticism against the welfaristic basis of welfare economics in general, and social choice theory in particular. This paper vindicates Sen's criticism, arguing that its logical relevance is not lost in light of recent criticisms against his method of articulating individual rights in terms of a person's decisive power in social choice. We show that some recent proposals that Sen's articulation failed to capture a strong libertarian tradition of free contract and that an appropriate formulation of this tradition wipes off the Sen impossibility cannot be sustained. We then show that the game form articulation of rights casts serious doubts on the Sen articulation of liberty, but the Sen impossibility strenuously comes back in the context of realizing conferred game form rights as well as in the context of initial conferment of game form rights.