Abstract
This article explores the emergence of the conservative active citizenship discourse under the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s administration in the late 1980s. The analysis investigates how short-term reasons would lead to the fabrication of this discourse, which emerges in response to a climate of crescent ideological tension - a consequence of distinct views regarding the relationship between individual and the State, as well as their respective roles, duties and assignments - and popular resistance, which would reach its peak with Thatcher’s reforms in the British welfare State. Therefore, this article arguments that the speech of active citizenship is not a straightforward response to British social problems, would rather be a response to the ideological excitement of the end of the decade, which would come to its climax by the putting together different and emerging contemporary factors.
Keywords
Conservatives; political thought; citizenship; Thatcher; history of ideas