Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, this three-year project (2024-2027) we examine four connected case studies against an international backdrop: the UK, Germany, Kenya, and Tanzania. We chart ideas about socio-economic rights from the late nineteenth century to the present, and give particular attention to the period between 1945 and 1973. This was the heyday of the welfare state, decolonisation, and state-led modernisation.