The Danish ‘ghetto initiatives’ and the changing nature of social citizenship, 2004–2018

Abstract

This article critically examines the Danish ‘ghetto initiatives’ of 2004, 2010, 2013 and 2018, with a particular focus on their implications for ‘social citizenship’. Its approach is twofold: firstly, it explores how each of the four major ghetto initiatives constructed ghettos and their residents as a problem for the welfare state, and what policy measures were proposed to address the problems identified. Secondly, it examines the legislative changes that resulted from each of the ghetto initiatives and assesses their implications for social citizenship. In doing so, it relates its findings to the different developmental stages of social citizenship in Danish welfare state history. The article argues that the ghetto initiatives have led to an unprecedented spatialization and ethnicization of social citizenship which mark a radical departure from the guiding principles of post-1945 Danish welfare thought and practice.