Social rights in the shadow of poor relief – social assistance in the universal Swedish welfare state

Abstract

The idea of a European social citizenship is being developed by the EU to provide a minimum safety net. Questions about social citizenship are of fundamental importance in people’s everyday lives. Social assistance is a central dimension when studying social citizenship. Before discussing in terms of a European social citizenship, we should determine whether we have a social citizenship at the national level. We therefore analyse the Swedish welfare state, one of the most mature welfare states in the EU. We conclude that the social right to social assistance is not part of modern citizenship, nor does it follow the formal principles of legal citizenship rights. The law presupposes a considerable amount of discretionary power at the local level when it comes to identifying the deserving poor; something that goes against the definition of a legal citizenship right. The right to social assistance is still a reproduction of the old poor-relief logic.

Keywords:

• Social citizenship
• social assistance
• rights
• Marshall
• poor relief
• social rights

Acknowledgements

We take the opportunity to thank Yuri Kazepov, Lars Trägårdh and two anonymous reviewers, for much appreciated and constructive criticism of a previous version of this article.

Notes

1. The idea of European social citizenship, in terms of social rights, has further been strengthened in 2013 with the launch of a European Citizens’ Initiative by the European Commission, intended to discuss minimum safety nets for people at risk of poverty in member states (EU 2013).

2. Any adult citizen can apply, but only those from households that have no or close to no personal assets, and are not able to obtain other support through waged work or another branch of the welfare system, are eligible according to the means test. For example, one of the most common reasons for the unemployed to seek social assistance is that they are not eligible for unemployment benefits: this is particularly true of immigrants and young people who have yet to establish themselves on the labour market.