Ensuring equal citizenship for disabled people: A matter of rights or a matter of costs?

Abstract

While the rights of disabled people are widely recognised by governments around the world, the costs of disability measures seem to be a major barrier to their implementation. Disability research needs therefore to engage with the issue of costs in disability politics. Drawing upon citizenship theory, this article considers the salience of costs in the development of citizenship rights for various groups of citizens in a given socio-economic context. Moreover, it highlights the role of social movements in this development and their need to navigate the recognition-redistribution dilemma. The article proposes that the written claims of disability activists offer a rich empirical material to unpack the complexity of costs in disability politics in a given context. Focusing on the case of Sweden, the article examines 312 blog posts and 162 debate articles. Three different ways of referring to costs are discussed, as the analysis shows that the disability activists criticise, embrace and reframe the issue of costs in disability politics.