Abstract
Not the party of the welfare state: The boundaries of the concept of the welfare state in the construction of political identities across the British press
Highlights
This paper examines texts in the theme described as political identities, which refer to the welfare state to make a broader point about a political identity, usually one that conveys evaluation
The services-based welfare state serves as an example of a concept whose components, as exemplified in the text, have origins cutting across political divides, allowing the possibility of consensus on what matters in the face of tribalism
Concluding remarks It is notable that in the texts analysed here, or in the broader corpus, there are no instances of concept boundaries being resisted, or attempts to specify or clarify them
Summary
The texts analysed in this paper come from a larger corpus of newspaper articles from four British dailies: two from the conservative side of the political spectrum (The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail) and two described as left-leaning (The Guardian and The Daily Mirror). This variant of the welfare state is here termed the ‘benefits-based welfare state’, and texts where it serves to construct political identities occur in all newspapers under analysis.
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