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20 Critical Soc. Pol'y 5 (2000)

handle is hein.journals/critsplcy20 and id is 1 raw text is: O SELMA SEVENHUIJSEN University of Utrecht Caring in the third way: the relation between obligation, responsibility and care in Third Way discourse Abstract In his book The Third Way Anthony Giddens develops the outlines of a new normative framework for New Labour and sketches ensuing policy proposals. Based on his diagnosis of current socio-political problems, Giddens proposes a new relation between rights and obligations and elaborates on this for issues of welfare and family politics. This article critically investigates his normative framework, and argues that a considerable part of the ideas on a third way in politics could be better grounded and refined by taking care into account. It spells out what the consequences would be of taking the ethic of care as a normative guide- line for the new programmatic ideas and compares the British discussion with recent policy proposals in the Netherlands. It is argued that care should be seen as a democratic practice, and that democratic citizenship supposes that everybody would be guaranteed equal access to the giving and receiving of care. Introduction The notion of obligation is currently a focal point in public debate. In the past decade there has been increasing unease among key political actors (political parties, government officials, political theorists) about the political language of rights. The idea, which had its origins in welfare discourses, that rights can easily turn individuals into passive claimants seems now to be common currency and is also winning ground in other policy domains. In contrast with ten years ago, the slogan 'no rights without obligations' no longer seems to evoke wide- spread contestation. Yet there are divergent views on how to think Copyright @ 2000 Critical Social Policy 62 0261-0183(200002) 20:1 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol. 20(1): 5-37; 011433. 5

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