What is Citizenship
The original meaning of citizenship denotes the legal status of an individual as a recognized member of some state (country). This legal status almost always entails specific benefits and obligations - rights, freedoms, liberties, privileges, duties, etc. Specific benefits and obligations related to citizenship vary over time and place. Historically first states that had some form of formal citizenship were Greek city-states, starting from the middle of the first millennia B. C. E. Majority of authors argue that true citizenship came with the emergence of the modern state in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The pivotal events that gave rise to the modern state are the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution. Philosophical inspirations for the modern state and concept of citizenship are the Enlightenment movement and liberalism.
Some authors claim that citizenship only exists in democracies because in democracies power of government is based on the rule of law, while individuals are protected by rights and freedoms, while undemocratic countries don’t respect human rights and there is no rule of law. As undemocratic countries differ greatly in their respect of right of law and human rights it would be wise to assess the existence and quality of citizenship rights in each case individually, by analyzing the situation in a specific country in a specific period.
British sociologist Thomas H. Marshall introduced his highly regarded and widely used conception of citizenship in the book Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (1950). In this book, he gave an ideal type classification of three forms of citizenship: civil citizenship, political citizenship, and social citizenship. Marshal distinguishes these types not only analytically, but also sees them as historically succeeding each other in a process of continuous enlargement of rights. He argues that civil rights came into being in the eighteenth century, political rights emerged in the nineteenth, while social rights started to be recognized only in the twentieth century. Civil citizenship enables all citizens to have equal treatment before the law and also includes rights such as: the right to a fair trial, the right of habeas corpus, freedom of speech, religious freedoms, the right to work and own property, the right to participate in civil life, etc. Political citizenship is related to giving political rights to all adult citizens - the right to participate in elections, vote, and be elected to political office. social citizenship refers to the existence of socio-economic measures by which the state guarantees the satisfaction of the basic socio-economic needs of all citizens. Social citizenship, which Marshall was most concerned with, is linked to the emergence of the welfare state and the "safety net" it creates. He theoretically connected social citizenship and the class nature of modern industrial society. It has to be noted that in most countries in the 19th century right to vote was restricted by property ownership, while no country allowed women to vote. Only after the First World War did universal suffrage (the right to vote for all adult citizens) become a reality in most countries that had elections. Another type of commentary on Marshall’s theory argues that, like Anthony Smith in his book National Identity (1991), the Western model of the nation-state is a product of a specific historical context in the countries of Northwestern Europe after the Middle Ages. Marshall’s approach to citizenship is often labeled as the liberal theory of citizenship.
The Republican Theory of Citizenship
Apart from liberal theory, there are also other theories of citizenship. The republican theory of citizenship emphasizes the importance of involved citizens, via strong civil sphere and active engagement in politics. One of the first examples of this theory is Alexis de Tocqueville’s first volume of Democracy in America (1835,) where he explores American society and institutions. According to him, the United States represents a society without an aristocratic history, and its national character is characterized by a commitment to the ideas of personal and political freedoms and legal equality. Individuals are motivated by the desire to achieve personal success, social cohesion is maintained by local self-government, and there is no need for a rigid social hierarchy or a strong centralized state. America is characterized by a spontaneous form of people's sovereignty, and it is nurtured and strengthened by the effects of lifestyle, upbringing, religion, and law. In America, democratic institutions have enabled individuals to become involved in local political and civic organizations, resulting in a high level of local autonomy. Local associations, because they promote cooperation and solidarity, are precisely the factor that is the main barrier to excessive individualism and the emergence of an atomized society and dictatorship. In America, too, the abolition of aristocratic privileges led to equality of social opportunities, because all professions were open to all citizens. There is a broad and strong middle class in this country, as well as great social mobility. A factor that contributed to the strength of American democracy is the fact that there was no strong and developed capitalist class.
Hannah Arendt presents her republican theory of political action in the book The Human Condition (1958). She believes that the emphasis placed on the welfare state is wrong and that people should lead, what she called, an "active life" (viva activa), which is based on the idea of work, civic engagement, and political action. Dominique Schnapper is an advocate of the republican model of the nation, as is dominant in France, and in that perspective, she researched the integration of national minorities. The republican vision of the nation best solves several practical issues: it guarantees true equality and political rights to all citizens, regardless of ethnicity; meets economic and social needs through the welfare state; and ensures the recognition of the cultural rights of ethnic minorities.
Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone (2000) claims that modern individualism caused citizens to withdraw from voluntarism, associational membership, and civic and political involvement. This process eroded the ability of Americans to generate social capital, which seriously undermined American democracy and the potential for the republican form of citizenship.
Theory of Citizenship in Communitarianism
Communitarianism and its view of citizenship are associated with the writings of Amitai Etzioni, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Philip Selznick, Charles Taylor, and Michael Walzer. Communitarianism is a moral, social, and political intellectual endeavor that started in the early 1980s as a critical reaction to John Rawls’s book A Theory of Justice (1999), but also as an opposition to classical liberalism. Unlike liberalism's emphasis on the rights of individuals, communitarians emphasize the value of community and community life. Communitarians also oppose the political priority of the state. They champion a conception of community based on the values of responsibility, morality, family, and civic values. The communitarian idea of citizenship is based on the individual responsibility to their community (communal commitments, obligations, and allegiances), that comes with being a member of some community, especially in areas of schooling, neighborhood control, and policing. Amitai Etzioni believes that the individual should act and develop within his community. Due to capitalism and excessive individualism, communities are collapsing. Etzioni sees this process as very dangerous because only strong communities can respond to the needs of society efficiently and reflectively. On the other hand, individuals who actively participate in the development of their community become more responsible citizens. Etzioni believes that it is necessary, in cases of a serious emergency and great danger, to limit some constitutionally guaranteed rights, in order to protect the community and individuals, because, according to him, "radical individualism" would jeopardize social responsibility. He also emphasizes the need to increase tolerance and mutual understanding between different communities.
Multicultural Theory of Citizenship
In modern societies increase in the share of the minority population brings the reality of societies that have to manage multiple cultural traditions, and deal with new issues and conflicts. The ethnic and national minorities demand for their culture and cultural identity to be recognized and supported by the state. The multicultural approach to citizenship claims that states have to give formal status, rights and freedoms to minority cultures and to those who belong to them. This constitutes a fourth type of citizenship – cultural citizenship.
Radical Pluralist Theory of Citizenship
The radical pluralist theory of citizenship is a concept rooted in the work of political theorists like Chantal Mouffe, Marion Iris Young, and Jacques Ranciere. This theory emphasizes the importance of pluralism, conflict, and antagonism in democratic societies. Unlike traditional theories that aim for consensus, radical pluralism accepts and even encourages the presence of diverse and conflicting viewpoints within the political community. In essence, it argues that true democracy involves a constant struggle between different groups and ideas, rather than seeking a unified, homogeneous society. This approach to citizenship encourages active participation and engagement in political life, recognizing that power dynamics and conflicts are inherent and necessary parts of democratic processes
In the book Democratic Paradox, Chantal Mouffe and Ernest Laclau advocate for "agonistic pluralism" the concept by which they wants to emphasize the need for citizens to express their opposing views peacefully in a democracy. The democratic process is an arena where fundamental differences in values can be expressed and discussed but in such a way as to prevent hostility and violence. They believes that political participation and democratic engagement of citizens are in the public interest, in themselves. Since democracy is, at the same time, a form of government, but also a symbolic framework with specific rules, democracy can be defined as an "agonistic confrontation". The essence of democracy is not in the annulment of power relations, but in the establishment of forms of power and institutions through which power, that is compatible with democracy, is exercised.
Groups Excluded from Citizenship
In the second half of 20th century many authors recognized that in Western democracies some groups –poor people, racial minorities, individuals institutionalized in prisons and mental hospitals, political dissidents and LGBT population - have been excluded, completely or partially, from citizenship and the rights that come with it.
Ralf Dahrendorf claims, that at the end of the twentieth century, a large subclass emerged in developed economies, which is a consequence of the loss of well-paid manual jobs due to mechanization of production. He believes that members of this class are not full citizens, because they lack the economic security to achieve that.
In Regulating the Poor (1971), Fox Piven and Richard Cloward study how poor people have been excluded. They argue that social policy reforms, both during the New Deal of the 1930s and those of the 1960s, were not primarily aimed at helping the poor, so that they can get out of poverty, but to control them. These social measures and programs were introduced to calm the social dissatisfaction of the poor population during the period of economic and social crisis and mostly ceased after the end of the crisis. Social programs do not serve to limit capitalist institutions but to strengthen and maintain them. These two authors continued to study the poor population, and in the book Poor People’s Movements (1977), they focused on the social movements of this disenfranchised population. For these movements to succeed, the disenfranchised must experience, the situation in which they find themselves, as very unjust, but at the same time, understand that situation can change for the better. However, only during the period of great systemic crises did these movements really manage to get some concessions from the elite. The authors felt that poor movements had a positive impact on other movements, such as the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
In Why Americans Don't Vote (1988), Labor Parties in Post-Industrial Societies (1992), Why Americans Still Don't Vote (2000), and Keeping Down the Black Vote (2009) Piven explores the political and economic reasons that led the poor and other disenfranchised populations not to vote, and therefore not to have adequate political representation in US Congress. Piven shows that the reason for the low turnout in the US elections is the systematic attempt of the political elite to limit the right to vote by making the registration process for voting more difficult. It is precisely such machinations that have led to the interests of the poor not being proportionally represented in government institutions. The weakening of the power of the trade union is another important factor influencing the reduction of the power of the working class. The author concludes that the poor people in the United States are largely excluded from the democratic process and that the enormous economic inequalities created by capitalism substantially limit political equality.
According to Orlando Patterson, the main reason for the unsuccessful integration of African- Americans into the wider American society is not racial difference, but the poverty of this population. He criticizes both social scientists and African-American leaders who use the stereotypes of a racially polarized society, while not paying enough attention to the poverty of the black population, which is present even in households where two people are employed. He believes that changes in the economy and culture can lead to an improvement in the position of African-Americans, while, on the other hand, he remains very skeptical about the strategies of affirmative action.
In his book Asylums (1961), Erving Goffman explores „total institutions“ and how the interactional order develops within them. Total institutions are those in which a person spends all his time, such as prisons, monasteries, boarding schools, etc. After entering the institution, the patient experiences a "civil death", because he loses most of his human and civil liberties. Goffman introduces the term "identity politics" to explain the relationship between the stigmatized and those who are not.
When Senator Joseph McCarthy began a "witch hunt" against Communist Party members and sympathizers in the United States in the early 1950s, Samuel Stouffer conducted a major survey of Americans' attitudes toward communism and civil liberties in response to this encroachment on civil liberties. The results of the research are presented in the book Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties (1955).
Kenneth Plummer, in his book The Making of the Modern Homosexual (1981), portraits sexual preferences as a social construction. Sexual practices are less a matter of biology and are more defined by a complex network of social interactions and definitions. In this context, he also develops the idea of “sexual citizenship” or "intimate citizenship" to emphasize the social and political aspects of sexuality in the conditions of heteronormativity that permeates all social institutions.
The Cosmopolitan Citizenship
David Held made a detailed proposal on how, in the future, national and global processes can be managed through what he calls "cosmopolitan democracy" and "world governance". He proposes the reconstruction of already existing national and international political institutions. The absolute sovereignty of the state would be replaced by the distribution of sovereignty at the world, regional and national levels. At the global level, the United Nations needs to be reformed so that the UN General Assembly becomes a global assembly that would pass the most important laws - on the protection of civil, political, social, and cultural rights of individuals, world market regulation, and environmental regulation. Regional political organizations, at the level of continents, following the example of the European Union, would regulate regional relations. The nation-state would, on the principle of subsidiarity, decide on national issues. Human, political, and economic rights, as well as the freedom of all the inhabitants of the planet, would be guaranteed at the level of the whole world through cosmopolitan citizenship.
Bryan S. Turner conceived a universal theory of citizenship and human rights. The emplacement and embodiment are universal categories in all societies. The need for social ties and the weaknesses of our body is an incentive to formalize empathy in the form of human rights. Also, all societies face economic problems and difficult political decisions. All these factors affect the recognition of the need for a universal approach to citizenship and human rights issues. The state is an important factor in protection, but also in violation of human rights. Other actors are also important: corporations, the media, the medical complex, and the professional class. Turner introduces the concept of cosmopolitan virtue to his study of citizenship and human rights. Cosmopolitan virtue has six dimensions: (1) irony—the recognition of the partiality of perspective; (2) reflexivity— values and action are understood in the context of biography, history, and structure; (3) skepticism—the distrust of totalitarianism and grand narratives; (4) care for others— sympathy, reciprocity, and mutuality; (5) social inclusiveness—the cohesion of civil society based on principles of care for others; and (6) nomadism— travel and displacement are sources of sympathy, mutuality, and reciprocity in civil society. Social conflicts, economic and political inequalities, and conflicts over values are leading to increasing fragmentation and hybridity in culture, which poses a great threat to social solidarity. Turner also studies the freedom of movement of people between countries and concludes that there is a difference in mobility because there is a big difference in the rights and opportunities of people from different countries to travel or work in other countries.
Books:
Alexander. The Civil Sphere (2006);
Arendt. The Human Condition (1958);
Barbalet, J. M. Citizenship: Rights, Struggle and Class Inequality (1989);
Beiner, R. (ed.). Theorizing Citizenship (1995);
Brubaker, R. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (1992);
Delanty, G. Citizenship in a Global Age (2000);
Eder, K. and B. Giesen (eds.). European Citizenship: National Legacies and Transnational Projects (2001);
Habermas. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989, in German 1962);
Heater, D. B. Citizenship: The Civic Ideal in World History, Politics, and Education (1990);
Held. Democracy and the Global Order: from the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (1995);
Isin, E. F. Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship (2002);
Isin, E. F. and Wood, P. K. Citizenship and Identity (1999);
Isin, E. F. and Turner, B. S. Handbook of Citizenship Studies (2002);
- Cosmopolitan Democracy: an Agenda for a New World Order (1995);
Janoski, T. Citizenship and Civil Society: A Framework of Rights and Obligations in Liberal, Traditional and Social Democratic Regimes (1998);
Janowitz, M. „Observations on the Sociology of Citizenship: Obligations and Rights“, Social Forces (1980);
Kivisto, Peter. Multiculturalism in a Global Society (2002);
Kivisto, Peter, and Thomas Faist. Citizenship: Discourse, Theory, and Transnational Prospects (2007);
Kymlicka, W. Multicultural Citizenship (1995);
Kymlicka, W. and W. Norman (eds.). Citizenship in Diverse Societies (2000);
Manville, P. B. The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens (1990);
Marshall. : Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (1950);
- Class, Citizenship and Social Development (1964);
Mouffe. Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community (1992);
Ong, A. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (1999);
Plummer. Inventing Intimate Citizenship (2003);
Tilly. Extending Citizenship, Reconfiguring States (1999);
Turner B. Citizenship and Capitalism: The Debate over Reformism (1986);
- Rights and Virtues: Political Essays on Citizenship and Social Justice (2008);
- Religion and Modern Society: Citizenship, Secularisation and the State (2011);
Turner, B. S. (ed.). Citizenship and Social Theory (1993);
Parsons. Sociological Theory and Modern Society (1967);
- Politics and Social Structure (1969);
Patterson. Freedom: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture, vol. 1. (1991);
- The Ordeal of Integration: Progress and Resentment in America’s „Racial“ Crisis (1997);
- Rituals of Blood: The Consequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries (1998);
- Freedom: Freedom in the Modern World, vol 2. (2006);
Piven. Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (1977);
Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000);
Roche, M. Rethinking Citizenship: Welfare, Ideology and Change in Modern Society (1992);
Smith A. National Identity (1991);
Smith, R. M. Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History (1997);
Soysal, Y. The Limits of Citizenship (1994);
Steenbergen, B. (ed.). The Condition of Citizenship (1994);
Stevenson, Nick (ed.). Culture and Citizenship (2000);
Stouffer. Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties (1955);
Tocqueville. Democracy in America (2021, in French 1935, 1940);
- The Old Regime and the French Revolution (2014, in French 1856);
Vogel, U. & Moran, M. The Frontiers of Citizenship (1991).