What happens when a group traditionally defined as lacking the necessary capacities of citizenship is targeted by government programs that have made ‘citizenship inclusion’ their main goal? Combining theoretical perspectives of political philosophy, social theory, and disability studies, this book untangles the current state of Western intellectual disability politics following the replacement of state institutionalisation by independent and supported living, individual rights, and self-determination. Taking its cue from Foucault’s conception of ‘biopolitics’, denoting the government of the individuals and the totality of the population, its overarching argument is that the ambiguous positioning of people with intellectual disabilities with respect to the ideals of citizenship results in a regime of government that simultaneously includes and excludes people of this group. On the one hand, its members are projected to become ideal-citizens via the cultivation of citizenship capacities. On the other, the right to live independently and by their own choices is curtailed as soon as they are seen as failing with respect to the ideals of reason and rationality. Therefore, coercion, restraints, and paternalism, which were all supposed to end with deinstitutionalisation, are still ingrained in services targeting the group. In equal parts a theoretical work, advancing debates of critical disability theory, social theory, and post-structural philosophy, as well as an empirical engagement with the history of intellectual disability politics and the ways in which present day politics target the group, this book will be of interest to all students and scholars of disability studies, disability politics, and political theory.

In the first sustained examination of disability through the lens of political theory, The Capacity Contract shows how the exclusion of disabled people has shaped democratic politics. Stacy Clifford Simplican demonstrates how disability buttresses systems of domination based on race, sex, and gender. She exposes how democratic theory and politics have long blocked from political citizenship anyone whose cognitive capacity falls below a threshold level⎯marginalization with real-world repercussions on the implementation of disability rights today. Simplican’s compelling ethnographic analysis of the self-advocacy movement describes the obstacles it faces. From the outside, the movement must confront stiff budget cuts and dwindling memberships; internally, self-advocates must find ways to demand political standing without reinforcing entrenched stigma against people with profound cognitive disabilities. And yet Simplican’s investigation also offers democratic theorists and disability activists a more emancipatory vision of democracy as it relates to disability⎯one that focuses on enabling people to engage in public and spontaneous action to disrupt exclusion and stigma. Taking seriously democratic promises of equality and inclusion, The Capacity Contract rejects conceptions of political citizenship that privilege cognitive capacity and, instead, centers such citizenship on action that is accessible to all people.

This handbook questions, debates and subverts commonly held assumptions about disability and citizenship in the global postcolonial context. Discourses of citizenship and human rights, so elemental to strategies for addressing disability-based inequality in wealthier nations, have vastly different ramifications in societies of the Global South, where resources for development are limited, democratic processes may be uncertain, and access to education, health, transport and other key services cannot be taken for granted. In a broad range of areas relevant to disability equity and transformation, an eclectic group of contributors critically consider whether, when and how citizenship may be used as a lever of change in circumstances far removed from UN boardrooms in New York or Geneva. Debate is polyvocal, with voices from the South engaging with those from the North, disabled people with nondisabled, and activists and politicians intersecting with researchers and theoreticians. Along the way, accepted wisdoms on a host of issues in disability and international development are enriched and problematized. The volume explores what life for disabled people in low and middle income countries tells us about subjects such as identity and intersectionality, labour and the global market, family life and intimate relationships, migration, climate change, access to the digital world, participation in sport and the performing arts, and much else.

A guide to getting good support services for people with learning difficulties.

This book aims to raise awareness about the possibility of achieving the goals of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), in order for all disabled people to enjoy the benefit of human rights. The stories of people who have been supported to enjoy their rights and their citizenship will enable readers to focus on how services and support can enable people with a learning disability to have their rights upheld, with an outcome of citizenship, independence and achievement. Despite the UNCRDP being in place since 2006, a significant number of learning disability service provider organisations and professionals in the UK are not aware of its existence. This book aims to bridge the gap between policy and practice to demonstrate the value of a human rights approach as the foundation for services and support for people with a learning disability.

This book provides an international comparative study of the implementation of disability rights law and policy focused on the emerging principles of self-determination and personalisation. It explores how these principles have been enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and how different jurisdictions have implemented them to enable meaningful engagement and participation by persons with disabilities in society. The philosophy of 'active citizenship' underpinning the Convention - that all citizens should (be able to) actively participate in the community - provides the core focal point of this book, which grounds its analysis in exploring how this goal has been imagined and implemented across a range of countries. The case studies examine how different jurisdictions have reformed disability law and policy and reconfigured how support is administered and funded to ensure maximum choice and independence is accorded to people with disabilities.

A sociological history of the fight for civil rights for people with intellectual disabilities. Allison Carey develops a relational practice approach to the issues of intellectual disability & civil rights, looking at how advocacy has progressed over the course of the past century.