Social citizenship beyond the nation-state : A qualitative analysis of the European parliamentary debates concerning the development of an EU welfare

Abstract: Welfare and questions regarding social security have historically been a concern of the nation state, but the development of the European Union’s integration project has created a necessity for an international legal framework that covers that specific field. It has been found that international cooperation on welfare issues is not such an easy task, and numerous scholars have given different answers to why this has been the case. The purpose of this study is to examine if there exists a path dependency in the argumentations in the European parliamentary debates through the following research question: Is it able to see signs of path dependency concerning welfare regimes in the debates of the European parliament and do these affect how far the EU is willing to go concerning the development of the social citizenship, or has this more to do with the ideological stances between party group affiliations? Gösta Esping-Andersen suggests an almost path dependent development of welfare regimes and suggests that they have an impact on political behavior, and his theory on welfare regimes has been used in this study.  This study has been conducted through an analysis of plenary debates in the European parliament between the years 2001-2010 using Toulmin's argumentation analysis model which focuses on deducing underlying warrants in the statements. Based on this model, the result is that the debates are an ideological conflict. The difference in opinion between the representatives are rather ideologically influenced than based on the path dependence of welfare regimes.