Social investment: Diffusing ideas for redesigning citizenship after neo-liberalism?

Abstract

Social investment has become the dominant approach to welfare reform in Europe and elsewhere. Scholars supporting this perspective have argued that it represents a paradigm shift from neo-liberalism – defined as the ideology of the minimal state and welfare retrenchment. This article challenges this claim, arguing that this definition of neo-liberalism is simplistic and empirically weak. It states that under a more accurate definition, social investment reflects four characteristics of neo-liberalism: the de-politicisation of the economy and of welfare reform; the economic understanding of the state; the extension of economic rationale to non-economic domains; and the anthropology of human capital. Taking this view, while social investment is preferable to welfare retrenchment, it promotes the same kind of citizenship as neo-liberalism, especially in terms of the marginalisation of the role of democracy in regulating the economy.