Social citizenship and inequalities. Is there a future for a social Europe?

The repeated crises of different kinds – amongst which the financial crisis, the refugee crisis, Brexit – have placed renewed attention on those issues of inequality, solidarity and social justice which were tackled in Europe in the twentieth century through the institutionalization of social citizenship within the nation states, setting out the welfare state, the redistribution of material resources and the guarantee of entitlements.This contribution retraces the constituent elements of social citizenship, in a sociological sense, in terms of full social participation [Marshall 1950] and social practices [Turner 1993, 2]. It will go beyond the mere juridical and state-centric conception to grasp its fluid and decentralized aspects, continually transformed by social and political conflicts, and rethink them in light of the great transformations that have modified the processes and characteristics of social inequality over time.