Politics of citizenship: Towards an analytical framework

2012

The institution of citizenship has traditionally been understood as equal membership of a political community. Developments in the Theory and Practice of Citizenship comes at a time when this is undergoing a period of intense scrutiny. Academics have questioned the extent to which we can refer to unified, homogeneous national citizenries in a world characterised by globalisation, international migration, socio-cultural pluralism and regional devolution, whilst on the other hand in political practice we find the declared Death of Multiculturalism, policy-makers urging for active, responsible citizens, and members of social movements calling for a more equitative, equal and participatory democracy. Citizenship is being reassessed and redefined both from above and from below in politics and society. The contributions to this volume engage in analysis of the processes which are bringing about an evolution of our understanding of citizenship and the individual s relationship to the state, the polity and globalisation. Through empirical case studies, they highlight how in practice the terms of membership of a citizenry are negotiated in society through laws, political discourse, cultural associations, participatory processes, rituals and ceremonies. In doing so, these contributions offer an illustration of the diversity of venues and processes of citizenship and illustrate the benefits of an understanding of citizenship as a social practice. The book thus provides an opportunity to pose theoretical, practical and moral questions relating to these issues, as well as offering avenues for further research in the future.

This article takes a critical look at equality and the masked instances of exclusion throughout citizenship theorising. One way this is done is to examine the spaces for democratic citizenship and how citizens are supposed to engage in this space; the goal of a common good allows for the deconstruction of abstract conceptions. This analysis highlights the gendering of spaces and practices, structural inequalities marginalising citizens, and concerns arising from a universal idea of citizenship values. The status of citizen is assigned to those able to measure up as a ‘good’ or ‘active’ citizen, and consequently the rights received reflect the duties performed. However this conception is modelled off a very small percentage of the population and does not deal with structural barriers limiting an individual’s agency to actively participate. In our increasingly globalised world, citizenship theorising needs to broaden its horizons and embrace fluid and diverse identities, but this introduces questions of maintaining a shared citizen sentiment. Future discussions will need to tackle issues of diversity and inequality, as well as continuing to build on T.H. Marshall’s social, political, and civil rights, as these are increasingly not enough for all citizens; their implementation and definition need to be expanded.

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The movement of people across borders has triggered the proliferation of plurinational states in which multiple ethnic groups have come to reside alongside each other. These circumstances challenge the nation-state model and the fundamental pillars on which the notion of citizenship depends. Historically based on notions of loyalty, contribution and national defence, the existing citizenship model is limited given that many immigrants have come to develop these sentiments towards their nation of residence.

"Concepts of citizenship have been formulated and thought about for centuries, from Plato and Aristotle to more recent accounts by the likes of Jürgen Habermas and Michael Ignatieff. All of them rely on a particular and divisive view of human nature. The division generalises between those who think that people can lead themselves and those who think that people need to be led by others. But such a division relies on both a misreading of human nature and the classical literature of citizenship and democratic theory. I intend to chart the development of the definition of citizenship and how the theory of citizenship differs from the actuality of citizenship. Part of this process will involve examining and clarifying the various misreadings of citizenship, which continue to this day. Once this is accomplished, it is then possible to look at how the theory of citizenship acts as a “conceptual cover” for the practice of citizenship. States use this “conceptual cover” to discriminate against some of their citizenry. That is, they undermine or completely negate the citizenship rights of some of their citizens, whilst at the same time claiming to respect equally the rights of all citizens under their jurisdiction. How they utilise this cover will be examined in detail within the context of a new theory of citizenship."

Comparative Migration Studies 8 (1), 2020

Notions, features, and forms of citizenship, understood as legal membership in a state, are changing the world over. While contestations of the monolithic understanding of citizenship generally focus on the content of individuals’ rights and their belonging and participation in social and political institutions, this essay shows that official membership categories that are labeled ‘citizenship’ by state actors vary. Drawing on the experiences of the Overseas Citizenship of India, the British Overseas Citizenship, and Citizenship of the European Union the essay proposes an analytical framework that aims at advancing the comparative study of state membership policies by introducing six key dimensions that policy actors consider when designing citizenship policies. Apart from systematizing the content of citizenship, the framework sheds light on the importance of citizenship terminology, as states employ the label of citizenship and use the status as a vehicle of communication. The essay highlights differences in the construction of special subjects, moral obligations and the exercise of power, analyzes the aspirations of political actors, the political rhetoric, and explores the interplay between tangible rights and intangible narratives. The discussion of the three atypical membership regimes reveals that states operate in grey areas of membership statuses that partly mimic existing forms of state membership and partly push the boundaries of what state membership means. This has significant repercussions for comparative citizenship and democracy theory and the meaning of membership.

2001

Law & Social Inquiry, 1994

Traditional notions of citizenship have focused on formal membership , including access to rights, in a national community. More recent scholarship has expanded this definition beyond citizenship as a legal status to focus on struggles for societal inclusion of and justice for marginalized populations, citizenship as both a social and symbolic boundary of exclusion, and post‐colonial and post‐ national citizenship. In this article, I review conceptions of citizenship that involve more than legal rights. After reviewing this scholarship, I discuss the theoretical framework of cultural citizenship – a move to center the cultural underpinnings of modern citizenship in analyses of citizenship as a boundary of inclusion and exclusion. I use the example of France as one site to locate the connections between citizenship and culture and the cultural underpinnings and implications of citizenship more broadly.

2021

The concept of citizenship and it's correlation to nationality is certainly sui generis. The very essence of this concept of citizenship circumvents the possibility of membership in the intangible legal community of the nation which oftenly needs the intervention of theories of citizenship attached thereon. In this regard, the bond between a state and a citizen cannot be ignored, as it brings about the inherency and entitlement between a state and its persons. In any jurisdiction, the legal nature of citizenship tells of an antidote of the relationship between rights and duties and the corresponding obligations by states by virtue of the sovereignty of a people. In the end, this doesn't befit any other description other than the right to own rights in that jurisdiction obligatory upon the state to fulfill them. That in essence is the concept of citizenship that this paper will interrogate.