This project examines the Danish 'ghetto initiatives' of 2004, 2010, 2013 and 2018 in relation to changing official conceptualizations of ‘social citizenship’ as well as their implications for the social rights of individuals. It identifies those policy measures in each of the four ‘ghetto initiatives’ that concern the relationship between the individual and the welfare state.
The approach is twofold: firstly, it is set out how social citizenship has been understood by the Danish government in the context of each of the initiatives. Secondly, the legislative changes that resulted from each of the ghetto initiatives are examined and their implications for social citizenship are assessed. In doing so, the findings are related to the different developmental stages of social citizenship in Danish welfare state history. It is argued that the ghetto initiatives have led to an unprecedented spatialization and an ethnicization of social citizenship that mark a radical departure from the guiding principles of post-1945 Danish welfare thought and practice.
