Analysing gaps in European social citizenship. The interaction of capabilities, active agency and social resilience

This paper examines fruitful ways of conceptualizing social citizenship in a multi-scalar and territorially diverse governance system in Europe. Ongoing changes in European welfare states call for a new, dynamic and multifaceted understanding of social citizenship. For most people this situation means that they face new demands, as well as new opportunities, to exercise social citizenship. The paper argues that if we are to understand the changing landscape of social citizenship in Europe, we need to open up the existing ways in which citizenship is conceptualised and empirically approached. In particular, we ought to become more sensitive to how contrasting aspects of citizenship may be combined and reconciled in new and unexpected ways. Based on an innovative and multidimensional conception of social citizenship, the paper offers an analytical framework for a comparative assessment of the gaps or inequalities in the scope for exercising social citizenship.