Reconceptualising the Welfare State: The Rise of a Selective Welfare State' in the United Kingdom?

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the emergence of a ‘selective welfare state’ in the United Kingdom under the prefecture of the current coalition government. It will be argued, that in light of fiscal austerity, the state has been compelled to reconceptualise its traditional role from a ‘full provision welfare providing body’ to a ‘selective welfare providing entity’. Examples of deviation include the Troubled Families Agenda, under the notions of ‘citizens’ empowerment’ and ‘reducing dependencies on the state’. These reforms run parallel to the thicket of mandatory governmental restructuring, evidenced through the Triennial Review and the Red Tape Challenge at the national level. It will be demonstrated that such selective welfare revolution exacerbates an acrimonious struggle between state powers and individual rights, where in turn, the citizens question the legitimacy of the selective welfare concept. Apart from using judicial review, we also seem to be witnessing the rise of non-governmental organisations as the new avenues of social consciousness, used to translate their individual interests into collective and public issues, whose relationship to rights is most precarious, with collective voices through electoral representation as a final forum. Voters decimated the ruling power of the coalition government in the United Kingdom’s local government election in May 2013, a testimony that they do not acquiesce to the selective welfare state agenda. The state is still in search of a plethora of sustainable governance, with the General Election 2015 as a final platform to determine the destiny of the selective welfare state in Britain.