Imperial Citizenship and the Origins of Malta’s Welfare State, 1942-1956

This paper examines how imperial conceptions of citizenship shaped and were shaped by welfare-state-building in the case of the British colony of Malta. Malta was one of a small number of British colonies to establish a welfare state comprising both social insurance and social assistance prior to independence (in 1964). It was also unusual in the British Empire in that it was seen as part of Europe. Given racialized conceptions of citizenship, the question of Malta’s political future remained open through the 1950s. In Malta, as elsewhere at this time, welfare reforms were framed by debates over citizenship: Were the Maltese citizens of Malta or of the Empire or even of a greater United Kingdom? Should citizenship entail social citizenship in the form of state-funded and administered welfare programmes? I argue that welfare-state-building in Malta reflected imperial conceptions of citizenship during and after the Second World War (which transformed the claims that Maltese could make of the Maltese and British governments). Following the war, the scope and cost of a welfare state was an integral component of debates over Malta’s political future. Welfare-state-building was driven primarily by the local Labour Party, which aspired (at that time) to the full scope of citizenship manifested in the postwar welfare state in Britain. But, in Malta, the Labour Party was compelled to proceed cautiously given both fiscal constraints and ideological opposition from the Roman Catholic church and the Nationalist Party. The result was a welfare state that combined elements of the British welfare state combined with features of Christian Democratic welfare states. This paper engages both with the literatures on mid-century welfare state-building and the literature (by Cooper and others) on late imperial citizenship. The paper draws on archival research in London and Malta.