Freedom, Democratic Citizenship and the Problem of Poverty

A compelling examination of the meanings of citizenship and their relationship with the question of public welfare provision in the United States today.. Public debates on the question of public assistance in the United States reflect long-standing disputes within liberal democratic theory on the meanings of liberty, equality, and citizenship. In Freedom for the Poor , Gaffaney lays out a concept of democratic citizenship that forms the basis for a normative claim to welfare provision for the non-working poor. Based on a perception of liberty as being the capacity to participate in democratic politics, Gaffaney explicates how and why welfare provision is essential to establish the conditions necessary to enable full, participatory, democratic citizenship. Public debates on the question of public assistance in the United States reflect long-standing disputes within liberal democratic theory on the meanings of liberty, equality, and citizenship. And, in a society which seems to prize liberty over equality, egalitarian liberals have surrendered the high ground to the New Right by neglecting to base their reasons for welfare on a solid concept of liberty. In Freedom for the Poor , Gaffaney identifies the limitations of both sides of these debates, and he offers a compelling alternative to liberal theorizing about the meaning of poverty. Drawing on a conception of liberty as being the capacity to participate in democratic politics, Gaffaney concludes that welfare provision is necessary for creating the conditions for full democratic citizenship. Gaffaney explicates how and why welfare benefits enable a participatory vision of democratic politics; he illustrates how and why welfare benefits can be seen as a means by which the state can promote the conditions necessary for the reproduction of a democratic polity.