Policy focus 20 February 2018 The case for welfare restrictions in an EU “demoicracy” By Richard Bellamy and Joseph Lacey In place of a social contract between individuals, we believe that the EU is better conceived as a social contract between states and citizens. This social contract is referred to as a “demoicracy”. On this account, EU citizens should be entitled to the benefits of free movement and the legal protections of transnational citizenship. However, these benefits run up against a limit: they should be consistent with the normative basis of the national social contract.
