Social Policy and Active Citizenship

Abstract

This study identifies active citizenship as the rationale for restructuring the welfare state in the United Kingdom and its impact on social policy in the 1980s and 1990s. The results of this study show that active citizenship was aimed at reviving social cohesion and demanding that people have civic obligations. However, under the Thatcher’s government, individual social responsibility was emphasised. Consequently, society criticised this rationale as being close to neoliberalism. Subsequently, a committee was established in parliament to promote active citizenship, and attempts were made to reconsider the criticised concept and develop it into a policy.

This study shows that active citizenship played an explicit role in restructuring political thought from focusing on the market and state to including the concept of citizenship. Furthermore, this study reveals that various policies were developed to promote active citizenship in volunteerism and education.