Social policy and social citizenship: Britain's welfare states

In Britain the imagery and rhetoric of the postwar welfare state remain powerful-citizens should have equal access to public services based on need not place of residence. Devolution is sometimes depicted as a threat to this tradition. This article shows that the immediate risk of a social policy race to the bottom is small. Moreover, because of the peculiarities of British territorial politics the traditional imagery was never borne out in practice; the article traces policy variation before and after devolution. Finally, locating British social policy within the comparative framework of "nationalization" and "citizenship," I argue that Britain lost its status as an exemplary welfare state partly because it failed to provide an adequate territorial framework for the development of social policy.