This is the second edition of a book first published in 2003, with some updating of discussion to take account of recent policy developments. It covers an extensive literature on citizenship, and especially social citizenship, in an accessible form which is student friendly, well argued and clearly presented. It does not significantly advance debate in any of the specific areas covered, but there is considerable advantage to be gained from grouping together, as it does, the different aspects of citizenship which have emerged as foci for debate.

The book is divided into three parts. The first is largely conceptual; after outlining the idea of social citizenship and its underpinning principles it moves on to review civic republicanism, liberalism and communitarianism, before examining the development of social citizenship in Britain through a discussion of T.H. Marshall. The closing chapter considers challenges to social citizenship from both the left and the right, the emergence of a ‘new communitarianism’ and its influence on New Labour's ‘third way’. Predicting a victory for the Conservative Party in the 2010 election, it ends by highlighting their emphasis on responsibility and independence in an ‘active citizenship’ that promises (or threatens) to go further than New Labour's contract and conditionality approach.

The part works well both in terms of conceptual coherence and also in tracing the key characteristics of critical historical and political moments, to show how Britain has moved from Marshall's guarantee of full membership of the community to a ‘new culture of responsibility’ based on a workfare system. Dwyer also shows how Marshall himself shifted his ideas over the period of his writing to express ‘a growing ambivalence or even hostility to proliferation of social rights’ (p. 55).

The second part of the book deals with issues of difference in relation to social citizenship. The four chapters therefore respectively cover class and poverty, gender, disability and race/ethnicity. There is an apology for the absence of age − which could have featured both with respect to children and to pensioners. The topics that do appear are handled well, though discussion of the ‘underclass’ might have fitted better in this part of the book than in an earlier part on contemporary approaches to social citizenship. This perhaps illustrates one of the problems which confronts all attempts at reviewing social policy: how to balance a policy-focussed account with more sociological analysis which looks at the ideas and assumptions underpinning policy. Here an account of the shift from rights to responsibilities (and thereby the ‘New Communitarianism’) inevitably goes by way of the notion of the ‘underclass’. But as a result, the chapter on class, poverty, citizenship and welfare seems to be robbed of some of its conceptual meat.

In contrast, the chapter on gender, citizenship and welfare is conceptually well grounded in an account of how the gendered spheres of public and private have historically been a barrier to the development of citizenship (and, in fact, a connection with the underclass debate could have been made here too). The chapter deals well with the political conundrums which follow from women's ambiguous position – sometimes described as the sameness/difference dilemma. Should women strive to be like men and reap the same rewards, or have their ‘difference’ recognised at the cost of being tied more firmly to their gender stereotype? Some parallels are drawn in relation to sexuality and citizenship. A similar theme can also be detected in the discussion of disability, in the way that a language of special needs can be an impediment to an active struggle for equal citizenship. This debate becomes more complex when we see that the backdrop for deliberation about policy options has been rising expenditure on benefits for the sick and disabled. What might in one context seem like an enabling right to work agenda can quickly turn into a more punitive policy.

The chapter on race and ethnicity begins with a distinction between formal and substantive equality and moves on to a discussion of the complexity of ethnic divisions in Britain – beyond black and white. We also find parallels with the rights and responsibilities agenda through the idea of earned citizenship. However, the shift from race/ethnicity to a discussion of immigration and asylum is a difficult one. The chapter in effect tries to deal with two different issues – one being how the black and Asian British population stand in relation to class and the state, and the other being nationality and immigration. I would have liked more discussion of the former, notably how the black and Asian citizen population experience the welfare state, while immigration and asylum could perhaps have been better placed in the third part of the book.

The third part of the book looks ‘beyond the nation state’; one chapter focusing on the implications of EU developments and the other on a putative ‘global citizenship’. Discussion of the former (perhaps accidentally) points to some continuity with the growing emphasis on labour market participation noted in earlier chapters. A key theme is the distinctions which operate within EU citizenship, and which are partially built on the worker/non-worker divide. There is some reference to the ECJ, which has in fact been active in expanding the social rights associated with free movement for categories who were initially excluded. I would have liked more discussion of this crucial role of the court. The whole issue of trans-national rights is writ large in the penultimate chapter, which discusses the likelihood of a decline of nation-based citizenship, and the scope for non-citizen rights based on universal human rights. This, however, is a topic which needs a book of its own, and this chapter has to settle for signalling the key questions and positions apparent in the literature thus far. Given the conclusion of the book, that welfare rights are being increasingly transformed into conditional entitlements, the prospects of a true global social citizenship look some way away.