Social policy as interventions by government and as an academic discipline developed in contexts where formal property rights were already well defined. As social policies travel to contexts where property rights are informally defined or where the majority of the population has no property rights, core concepts of the discipline require revision. This themed section revisits the concept of social citizenship in the context of property rights in land.
Both Paine (Reference Paine1797) and Polanyi (Reference Polanyi1944) had pointed out the centrality of the improvement (agriculture, construction, etc.) on the land, beyond the purposes of habitation, for human welfare. In an agrarian setting, Paine thought the obligations of the individual to the society for the use of land would off-set the cost of improvement. In the course of the institutionalisation of democratic States, the property relations underwent transformative changes due to ‘weakened land aristocracy’ (Moore, Reference Moore1966), and the emergence of rule of law (Fukuyama, Reference Fukuyama2011). By the time Polanyi wrote, market economy subdued the natural wealth of land to the capitalist production. Political forces had to respond to this alienation.
In Norway, for example, before the early post-WW2 welfare expansion, democratic reforms had ensured that even small farmers had gained the ownership of the land they farmed. Along the coastal areas, farmers often combined working on the land with fisheries, thereby securing added cash income. Among these groups, political parties evolved to ensure that their interests were represented in both local and central government. This broad representation across the nation and from all social groups, facilitated the key principle of universality in the Nordic model of welfare (Lødemel, Reference Lødemel1997).
Unlike contexts (such as above/in Norway) where capitalism and welfare state made symbiotic progress, countries in the Global South witnessed the emergence of the State either through peasant revolutions (Skocpol, Reference Skocpol1979) or through post-colonial trajectories (Pellissery and Sasidhar, Reference Pellissery, Sasidhar and Greeve2018). The nature of property rights were primarily determined by the primordial institutions (religion, tribal collectives) or lingering feudal forces which gained the legitimacy as elites of new nation-states. The interventionist States, in these newly founded democracies of the Global South, had to deal with property relations in a double-edged manner. On the one hand, capital formation was required for economic growth, and the State had to protect the property holders for productivist purposes. On the other hand, exclusion of the vast majority of citizens from property rights required the State to provide minimal assets to facilitate subsistence livelihood. In an important manner, in the context of a thinly developed formal labour market, access to property became the defining feature of human welfare as well as realisation of the goals of social citizenship. If property rights are central to define social citizenship in the countries of the Global South, is the notion used in the same manner as in the welfare state discourses of the Global North? The aim of this themed section is to respond to this question.
Six articles are included in this themed section, apart from an annotated bibliography. These articles reflect on the changing notions of social citizenship as property relations undergo transformation in a globalised economy. The focus is on the Global South, where economic changes are rapid, and ideals such as social citizenship developed in the Global North are useful to be translated for the realisation of human welfare. The first article by Sony Pellissery and Ivar Lødemel aims to chart the literature on social citizenship since T. H. Marshall’s classic Citizenship and Social Class (Reference Marshall1950). In a review of how the notions of citizenship have undergone changes over seven decades, the editors of this themed section argue that the social function of property is central to realise the ideals of social citizenship in contexts where formal employment is not the primary source of livelihood. Challenges to livelihood are experienced in rural areas throughout the Global South through expropriation of the natural resources by the few property owners. Migration from traditional settlements to urban areas, looking for a roof and a livelihood, create new struggles to gain citizenship status in different geographical locales. The article reviews academic papers which have documented the innovative practices by citizens aspiring for inclusion in order to draw a pattern of emerging ideas of social citizenship in the Global South. The authors identify significant potential for the discipline of social policy to collaborate with the discipline of urban planning in the goal of realising welfare outcomes.
The second article by Jardar Sørvoll and Viggo Nordvik focuses on a theme closer to home for social policy scholars, namely social citizenship through home ownership. Using data from Norway, the authors discuss the question of homeownership through three different conceptions of social citizenship. The authors point out that in countries with a high degree of home ownership such as Norway, the availability of housing for low-income groups remains low, thereby eroding the notions of social citizenship from the perspectives of socio-liberal and republican traditions.
The ideas of social citizenship in property are best translated in the Latin American context. Two articles included in this themed section present cases from that region. The first addresses the issue of how ‘Right to city’ debates have responded to the urban transformation in Brazil, a nation marked by spatial segregation, inequality of land ownership and crime. Abigail Friendly argues that the realisation of urban welfare is through insurgent citizenship, which enforced ‘right to city’ into legislation. The second article demonstrates how in Latin America an alternative model to the institution of private property has been showcased as a viable alternative. Diane E. Davis and José Carlos Fernandez, through their case study of Community Land Trusts in Puerto Rico and Brazil, argue that collective holding of property reduces inequality and strengthens the social citizenship realisations in urban areas.
The fifth article discusses the question of transformation to property rights when an increased flow of global capital takes place. Sattwick Dey Biswas argues that trans-national investment leads to significant changes to land use patterns. Land used hitherto for subsistence purposes may be reallocated for other productive functions. In most rural areas of China, India and Africa conflicts between citizens and the State are around such reallocations, especially when the traditional users have very limited documentary evidence to show their property rights. Sattwick Dey Biswas illuminates these patterns with a study of the conflicts that occurred over land valuation when traditional agrarian land is assigned for the production of cars in India.
The final article is from the context of the United States of America. Full citizenship in America was equalised with ownership over private property. However, in the last 100 years, concerns for environment and the quest for collective prosperity have forced every American government to democratically bring limitations on private property owners. A renegotiation between social rights and individual rights is witnessed primarily on the question of property in land. Harvey M. Jacobs predicts that tensions between citizenship claims and private property owners would increase in the future, and democratic dialogue is the only answer to contain such social conflicts.
All the articles refer to the urbanisation process and how citizens struggle for access to cities. Both the Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 11 specifically) and United Nation’s Habitat III recognise the rapid pace of urbanisation across the world. Rearrangement of property relations in urban areas will determine the quality of life of the majority of the population. Unlike the rural context, both the housing as well as investment in property is clearly driven by speculative aims in urban areas. Infusing the concerns of equity and fairness in these property relations is central to make the New Urban Agenda (as agreed in the Habitat III of 2016) more inclusive. This themed section is also an invitation to social policy scholars to engage with the discipline of urban planning.
Collectively the articles weave a relationship between property and social policy, mediated through the concept of social citizenship. At this stage, it could only be stated that the journey towards realisation of the ideals of social citizenship in the Global South will be through a much different terrain from what we have witnessed so far in the Global North. Property rights will be the fulcrum that determines the course of this journey.
