Multilevel Social Citizenship: Free Movement and Minimum Social Protection (International Policy Exchange)

Access to minimum social rights for EU citizens who move across member state borders is highly contested in the EU. At the same time, these and other limits to EU social citizenship are often identified in relation to national citizenship. However, the EU and EU citizenship is in many ways comparable to federations and other multi-tiered jurisdictions, which is often overlooked.

By comparing how internal migrants gain-or are denied-access to basic social benefits in multi-level political systems, Multilevel Social Citizenship: Free Movement and Minimum Social Protection reveals the political forces that shape who qualifies for help and why. It offers an account of the determinants of social citizenship in federal contexts where freedom of movement of persons is combined with sub-federal welfare provision. We understand social citizenship as the entitlement and access to minimum social benefits and therefore examine the political processes behind the extension and contraction of social assistance rights for internally migrating citizens across time and space, comparing 19th and early 20th century imperial Germany, 20th century United States of America, and the EU, with a focus on Germany.

Multilevel Social Citizenship stands out for its use of detailed case studies, each undertaken by experts in their respective fields, and its historical and international comparative analyses. Archival data, policy documents, statistical data, and interviews allow for an original analysis of a broad range of issues from multiple perspectives. This solid empirical foundation permits for an in-depth analysis of a broad range of topics, from political debates at all levels of multi-tiered federal systems to the implementation of the resulting legislation on the ground.

Cecilia Bruzelius is Professor of Comparative Social Policy and Migration at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Tübingen. She received her doctorate from University of Oxford and has previously held posts at University of Tübingen and University of Copenhagen. Her research centres on the intersections of migration, mobility and socioeconomic policy, with a focus on the EU, free movement, EU citizenship and social rights.

Martin Seeleib-Kaiser is Professor of Comparative Public Policy at the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen; he held previous appointments at the University of Oxford, Duke University, and Bremen University. He studied political science, American Studies, and Public Law at Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, from which he also received his PhD in 1992. He specializes in comparative welfare state research; in addition to having published 10 books, his many scholarly articles have appeared among others in American Sociological Review, Politics and Society, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Social Policy, Social Policy and Administration, and West European Politics.

Dominic Afscharian is a political scientist based in Berlin, Germany. He works as a Project Manager at the think tank Zentrum für neue Sozialpolitik. He completed his PhD on European social policy at the University of Tübingen where he worked as a research officer from 2019 to 2024. Dominic holds degrees in political science and economics from Heidelberg University and has worked with think tanks, consultancies, and academic institutions. His work focuses on social policy and its intersections with other policy fields.

Thore Menze holds a master's degree in history awarded by Berlin's Humboldt University. His research interests include nationalism and the nation state, administrative state capacity, and the history of modernity.

Edward Mohr is a Migrant Integration Coordinator for the city of Aachen, Germany. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Tübingen, an MSc in International Migration and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in Sociology from Tufts University. Edward previously worked as a Research Officer at the University of Tübingen as well as a Research Analyst at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. His work focuses on the integration of migrants into labor markets and systems of social assistance.