Welfare, Rights and Discretion

Abstract

Theorists in a variety of disciplines have, for quite some time now, been saying that a-perhaps the-defining feature of the welfare state is its commitment to providing a certain range of goods and services to its citizens 'as of right'.' From T. H. Marshall's classic lectures on 'Citizenship and Social Class' forward, we have grown accustomed to tracing the history of the welfare state in terms of the expanding 'rights of citizenship'.2 From the welfare rights movement of the I96os onward, we have grown accustomed to thinking of welfare rights as the clear alternatives to more odious forms of official discretion. And so on.