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About the Project

Funder: British Academy/Leverhulme
Awarded: £9,437
Duration: January 2019-July 2020
Staff involved: Mark Simpson

Description

This project examines the perspectives of elite policymakers at devolved level within the UK on three elements of social citizenship: the minimum standard of living the state guarantees citizens and others lawfully present, the citizen’s reciprocal obligations and the roles of the UK and devolved governments in defining and realising these rights.

Each of these elements has been profoundly affected by social security and constitutional reforms since 2010. Interviews with policymakers in Scotland and Northern Ireland will be conducted to build on an existing dataset from 2012, facilitating further exploration of the interaction of law, welfare ideologies and pragmatic considerations in driving tentative steps towards, and perhaps back from, divergence from UK government social security policy. This is a follow-up to a PhD study completed at Ulster from 2012 to 2016.