Imagining Welfare Futures considers the kinds of relationships between the public and the state that will shape the future of social welfare and book explores the emergence of new representations of the public, based around the figures of the consumer, the community and the citizen. It examines the possibilities and problems associated with each of these as ways of imagining the relationships between the state, the public and social welfare. The contributors initiate a timely analysis that takes up questions such as how the state can provide for public good or if welfare has a responsibility in building social solidarity or providing rights, among others.