Social rights in a post-colonial welfare state: Revisiting ‘universality’ and ‘inclusivity’

Scholars have long overlooked the impact of colonialism on the development of European welfare states and their mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. In this article we address this blind spot by examining the ‘pension gap’ of Surinamese-Dutch elderly residing in the Netherlands, many of whom receive reduced public old age pensions. We examine the historical origins of this exclusion from full benefits through a discursive historical analysis of policy documents and parliamentary debates between 1919 and 2023 as well as political claims made by activists. We find that the Dutch welfare state was built on an exclusionary interpretation of social citizenship, granting social rights only to the citizens residing in the metropole. The exclusion of colonial citizens from social rights was deemed self-evident and anchored in laws and political discourses that, although increasingly contested, remain operative today. Our findings question core assumptions in the welfare state literature, especially those regarding the ‘universality’ of social rights and the taken-for-granted boundaries drawn around deserving polities. Thus, we argue that coloniality, territoriality and racialization are indispensable concepts for scholars to engage with in the analysis of social rights stratifications in Europe.