How to determine whether mobile Union citizens have a right to social assistance? Research has shown how Western European Member States have made efforts to restrict Union citizens’ access to their welfare systems over the past decade, whereby lawful residence has increasingly become the linchpin for entitlement. Member States have responded strikingly differently, however, to the complex administrative puzzle of dealing with open borders, the ability to verify lawful residence and the right to social assistance over time. This article makes an analytical and empirical contribution to existing literature by asking how Member States adjust their welfare/migration administrations to fit the Union’s free movement regime and what implications this has for Union citizens. Based upon comparative case studies into the administration of social assistance rights in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, the article develops a typology of three different models of administering Union citizens’ access to the welfare state: the form, signal and delegation models. Demonstrating how bureaucratic design impacts the stratification of social rights in the Member States in different ways, the article concludes that studying alternative administrative models offers important insights into the functioning of territorial welfare states in open border regimes.

如何确定移动联盟公民是否有权获得社会救助？研究表明，西欧成员国在过去十年中如何努力限制欧盟公民进入其福利系统，合法居留日益成为享有权利的关键。然而，随着时间的推移，对于处理开放边界、核实合法居留的能力和获得社会援助的权利等复杂的行政难题，成员国的反应截然不同。本文通过询问成员国如何调整其福利/移民管理以适应欧盟的自由流动制度以及这对欧盟公民有什么影响，对现有文献做出了分析和实证贡献。表单、信号和委托模型。本文展示了官僚设计如何以不同方式影响成员国的社会权利分层，得出结论，研究替代行政模式为了解开放边界制度中领土福利国家的运作提供了重要见解。