Active social citizenship: the case of disabled peoples' rights to personal assistance

Personal assistance is a welfare scheme that aims at increasing disabled peoples' independence and empowerment. Since the historical beginnings of this scheme, rights have played a crucial role, but are rarely analysed per se. This article presents a social scientific analysis of personal assistance legislation in the Scandinavian countries. Based on a theoretical framework focusing on variations of the concept ‘active citizenship’, it discusses the complex balance between the strength of rights and activation requirements, whether explicitly or implicitly expressed in the legislation. This article concludes that Sweden combines a strong right with implicit requirements, while Denmark and particularly Norway combine a weak right to personal assistance with rather explicit requirements that must be met in order to be eligible for the services. This article is a contribution to the discussion, originally introduced by T.H. Marshall, on how to strengthen peoples' ‘membership of society’ through social rights.