Rethinking Citizenship: Welfare, Ideology and Change in Modern Society

Citizenship rights have become vital to our sense of personal identity and social membership in modern society. In this book, Maurice Roche argues that today we have to shift from the conventional post-war politics of social rights to a new politics of social obligations and personal responsibility. Recent social changes have created new problems which require rethinking of both social policy and the welfare state. Providing an analysis and assessment of citizenship in developed societies, the book also includes an assessment of contemporary debates about the rise of the "new poverty", the develoment of an "underclass", as well as other "post-industrial" changes affecting employment and family life.