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Australian Welfare Reform: From Citizenship to Supervision
Author(s) -
Shaver Sheila
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
social policy and administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9515
pISSN - 0144-5596
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9515.t01-1-00257
Subject(s) - welfare reform , citizenship , social citizenship , meaning (existential) , appeal , paternalism , social policy , welfare , political science , social welfare , subject (documents) , political economy , sociology , social rights , public administration , law , human rights , psychotherapist , psychology , politics , library science , computer science
This paper examines the implications of welfare reform for the meaning of social citizenship in Australia. Australian welfare reform has been under way since the late 1980s, and reflects the themes of activity and participation that are shaping social policy in many advanced industrial nations. The paper suggests that Australian welfare reform is following a liberal trajectory of change which places a continuing emphasis on market and family as the preferred institutions for social support with a newly salient appeal to moral ideas about the responsibility of citizens to be self‐sustaining. The paper argues that welfare is being transformed from a limited social right to support provided on condition, and from treating the claimant as a sovereign individual to a subject of paternalistic supervision. Together, these changes are redefining the meaning of equality in Australian social citizenship.