Investing in the Citizen‐workers of the Future: Transformations in Citizenship and the State under New Labour

There is growing interest in the idea of the “social investment state”. This paper analyses the emergence of such a state in the UK, in the context of a brief account of the more general transformations of citizenship and the state under New Labour. It argues that, despite the iconic status of the child in the social investment state, it is the child as “citizen-worker” of the future rather than “citizen-child” of the present who is invoked by the future-oriented discourse of social investment.