Abstract
A discourse of 'choice' has recently emerged as a response to contemporary problems of the western welfare state. However contending notions of choice reflects tensions between conservative liberal critiques of the welfare state and those emerging from progressive social movements. Pivotal to both critiques has been the value accorded to individual agency, which can be understood in terms of three distinct dimensions: the economic, the political and self-responsibility. This paper explores the shifting locus of agency over the last century and a half, from the individual to the state and back to the individual, in relation to the development and transformation of the welfare state. In recent years, conservative liberalism has dominated how individual agency has been understood and expressed. However this paper argues that it is important for individual agency to be retrieved from conservative liberalism and placed into the service of collectivist politics and social justice discourse.