CHAPTER ONE: THE NATURE OF CITIZENSHIP

1.1.1 Definition, Need, Goals and components of citizenship education

What does it mean to be a citizen?

A citizen is a member of a political community or state. How you become a citizen depends
upon different factors, for example place of birth, family ties or period of residence in a country.
What is citizenship?

Nowadays, the idea of citizenship concerns society and is a controversial subject. Migration,
globalization, political and social changes, the foundation of democracies, the development of
new international pacts and agreements, education for citizenship or the development of rights
and duties oblige us to revise the notion of citizenship as a status of belonging, of inclusion and
exclusion. The concept of citizenship is an open, flexible, changing and polysemic term, which
has had different meanings depending on the socio-cultural context, the political organization of
the state, the era and various political, social and cultural circumstances. The idea of citizenship
is now becoming a topical issue, partly due to the transformations taking place in society:
migration, the effect of globalization, political and social change or "the renewed emphasis put
on the issues of collective identity (whether national, cultural, gender, etc..) necessary to revise
the notion of citizenship as a status of belonging and inclusion and exclusion.”
Dear students, the term ‘citizenship’ have several different meanings and let us look few of them
in the following discussions.
 A legal and political status

In its simplest meaning, ‘citizenship’ is used to refer to the status of being a citizen that is, to
being a member of a particular political community or state. Citizenship in this sense brings with
it certain rights and responsibilities that are defined in law, such as the right to vote, the
responsibility to pay tax and so on. It is sometimes referred to as nationality, and is what is meant
when someone talks about ‘applying for’, ‘getting’, or being ‘refused’ citizenship.
 Involvement in public life and affairs

The term ‘citizenship’ is also used to refer to involvement in public life and affairs that is, to the

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behaviour and actions of a citizen. Citizenship in this sense is applied to a wide range of
activities from voting in elections and standing for political office to taking an interest in politics

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and current affairs. It refers not only to rights and responsibilities laid down in the law, but also
to general forms of behaviour social and moral which societies expect of their citizens.
Dear students, do you know why teach citizenship across the world?

The principal justification for citizenship education derives from the nature of democracy.

Democracies need active, informed and responsible citizens’ who are willing and able to take
responsibility for themselves and their communities and contribute to the political process. These
capacities do not develop unaided. They have to be learned. While a certain amount of
citizenship may be picked up through ordinary experience in the home or at work, it can never in
itself be sufficient to equip citizens for the sort of active role required of them in today’s
complex and diverse society. If citizens are to become genuinely involved in public life and
affairs, a more explicit approach to citizenship education is required this approach which should
be:
 Inclusive – an entitlement for all young people regardless of their ability or background

 pervasive – not limited to schools, but an integral part of all education for young people

 Lifelong – continuing throughout life.

What is the aim of citizenship education?

Wherever it occurs, citizenship education has the same basic aims and purposes. It is education
for citizenship – that is, education which aims to help people learn how to become active,
informed and responsible citizens. More specifically, it aims to prepare them for life as citizens
of a democracy. Different characteristics are required by citizens in different types of political
system. The characteristics required of people living as free and equal citizens in a democratic
society differ significantly from those of people living under, say, a totalitarian regime. Overall,
citizenship education helps you to be:
 aware of your rights and responsibilities as citizens

 informed about the social and political world

 concerned about the welfare of others

 articulate your own opinions and arguments

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  capable of having an influence on the world

 Active in their communities and responsible in how they act as citizens.

What are its essential elements?

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Citizenship education involves a wide range of different elements of learning, including:

1. Civil rights: Rights necessary for individual freedom, liberty of the person, freedom of
speech,thought and faith, the right to own propertyand to conclude valid contracts, and
theright to justice.
2. Political rights: Right to participate in the exercise of political power, as a member of a
body invested with political authority or as an elector of the members of such a body.
3. Social rights: The right to a modicum of economic welfare and security.

Dear students, some scholars look citizenship from three dimensions which include status,
exercise and conscience. Citizenship statusis the set of rights and obligations between
individuals and the state. Only those individuals and groups which fulfil all the requirements that
define citizenship in a country will have the formal recognition of the state.

Citizenship exerciserefers to the conditions necessary for the realization of citizenship rights and
the incorporation of new rights (the transformation of needs into legitimate rights), redefining
and expanding the previous notion of citizenship. Last, but not least, citizenship
consciencemakes reference to the conviction of being a citizen, with the recognition of the state
expressed in concrete practices that assure citizenship exercise. Dear students, citizenship
conscience is, in turn, formed by three elements:

I. The knowledge of citizenship rights and duties;

II. The identification of the state as responsible of granting those rights and duties by
means of laws and policies that guarantee their fulfilment; and
III. The recognition of legitimate means to make demands.

Citizenship and Nationality

In its narrowest definition, citizenship describes the legal relationship between the individual and
the polity. Today the terms citizenship and nationality both refer to the national state. In a
technical legal sense, while essentially the same concept, each term reflects a different legal
framework. Both identify the legal status of an individual in terms of state membership. But
citizenship is largely confined to the national dimension, while nationality refers to the
international legal dimension in the context of an interstate system. The legal status entails the
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specifics of whom the state recognizes as a citizen and the formal basis for the rights and

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responsibilities of the individual in relation to the state. International law affirms that each state
may determine who will be considered a citizen of that state.
Political Citizenship: Foundations of Rights

Citizenship is grounded in the guarantee of legal and political protections from raw coercive
power whether that power comes in the form of the sword blade or gun barrel of soldiers, the
fists of an abusing spouse or parent, or an employer’s shout of ‘you’re fired’ that leads to a loss
of work, income, status and possibly nourishment. These protections involve ‘the many’
obtaining control of the legitimate means of violence, the state, in order to enforce protections or
rights against élites who wield public and private power.
Equally important, citizenship involves protecting ‘the few’ who have little power (e.g.
minorities of race, class, gender, and religious affiliations) who need shelter from the tyranny of
the ‘the many’ and/or élites. These rights and protections also involve obligations or duties to
interact within and promote the commonweal and political system in as much as they are needed.
At a foundational level, all citizenship rights are legal and political because citizenship rights are
legislated by governmental decision-making bodies, promulgated by executive orders, or enacted
and later enforced by legal decisions. And what these legal and political bodies primarily make is
‘law’. Thus, legal and political rights undergird many other citizenship rights.
Citizenship may be defined as passive and active membership of individuals in a nation-state
with universalistic rights and obligations at a specified level of equality. Therefore, there are four
main points of this definition based on political foundation of citizenship.
1. First, citizenship begins with determining membership in a nation-state, which means
establishing ‘personhood’ or who out of the totality of denizens, natives, and subjects of a
territory are recognized as being citizens with specific rights. Personhood began with a
restricted group of élite citizens and then developed to encompass more people. Noncitizens
within a state (e.g. stigmatized ethnic, racial, gender, class, or disabled groups) have slowly
gained rights and achieved membership. External membership concerns how aliens obtain
entry and then become accepted or naturalized as citizens.
2. Second, citizenship involves active capacities to influence politics and passive rights of
existence under a legal system. With passive rights alone, a beneficent dictator could rule
with limited legal rights and extensive social rights in a redistributive system. Active rights
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 bring citizens in a democracy to the foreground in politics and even the economy. When
citizens become active in citizenship rights, social scientists will be concerned with
measuring the levels, causes, and consequences of their participation.
3. Third, citizenship rights are universalistic rights enacted into law and implemented for all
citizens, and not informal, unenacted or special rights. Private organizations or groups can
advance claims or proposals for citizenship rights, but claims often derive from norms within
subcultures and are enforced by social pressures or group rules, and they often conflict with
norms in other subcultures. The process of enacting citizenship rights is an attempt to make
these rights as complementary as possible.
4. Fourth, citizenship is a statement of equality, with rights and obligations being balanced
within certain limits. The equality is not complete, but it most often entails an increase in
subordinate rights vis-à-vis social élites. This equality is mainly procedural – the ability to
enter the public courts, legislatures and bureaucracies – but it may also include guaranteed
payments and services that have a direct impact upon substantive equality. The extent of
rights actually used by citizens may also vary considerably with class and status group
power.
Based on political foundation of citizenship, its rights and obligations exist at three levels.

A. At the societal level, they refer to the development of citizenship rights and obligations in
countries, and the focus is on the existence, breadth, and extent of rights and obligations.
B. At the organizational level, they concern the rights and obligations of groups to form and
act in public arenas.
C. At the micro-level, the individual definition of citizenship focuses on how each person
sees the relationship of rights and obligations within a framework of balance or exchange.
It traces the development of the ‘self’ in relation to various political groups and the state
as a critical part of citizenship, especially the development of social movement or
community-oriented attitudes and behaviours.
Category of right in Citizenship

In a comprehensive approach to citizenship, four rights can be identified.

1. Legal or civil rights are mainly procedural rights (Rawls, 1982; Raz, 1984;

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Blackburn, 1993).7 In this sense, legal (and political) rights that create law are

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 foundational and underlie other citizenship rights. Social rights of public assistance and
medical care are not legal rights, but legal rights to access the court system may be
necessary in protecting these social rights.
 Legal rights include personal security rights that protect citizens against illegal
imprisonment, torture and death. They are also protections against invasions of privacy
and aids for controlling one’s body such as abortion rights.
 Legal rights include important procedural and access rights of legal representation: the
ability to confront witnesses, the right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers, and the waiver of
legal fees when citizens cannot pay for court costs. In a less procedural vein, legal rights
also include rights to freedom of conscience (e.g. rights to free speech at the personal
level, freedom of the press, free expression of religion) and choice (e.g. unencumbered
selection of one’s occupation or profession, free choice of ethnic or multiracial identities,
and freedoms of sexual expression including marriage).
2. Political rights refer to participation in the public arena and are also largely procedural
because the process of enacting legislation is not synonymous with the substance of any
particular right. Legislation may also deal with many laws that have no direct effect on
citizenship. Political rights include citizens’ rights to vote and participate in the political
process. They also involve the procedures for electing political representatives, creating
new laws, and running for and holding political office.
 Political rights for organizations may include legal ways of raising campaign funds,
consulting with legislators on proposals, nominating political candidates, and lobbying
for particular policies. Finally, political rights include oppositional rights, minority
protections, protest and demonstration rights, free access to government information (e.g.
Freedom of Information Act in the USA), and the ability to conduct political inquiries.
3. Social rights and participation rights are not the direct subject of this chapter, but to
complete our foundational purposes, we briefly include them. Social rights support
citizens’ claims to social status and economic subsistence. Social rights are largely
individual and consist of four parts. Enabling rights consist of health care, old age
pensions, rehabilitation and family or individual counseling. Opportunity rights consist of

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 the various forms of education from pre-primary programs to postgraduate university
education.
4. Redistributive and compensatory rights involve payments for rights deprivations and
they can include war injury benefits, work injury benefits, programs for the
disadvantaged, unemployment compensation, and other programs involving rights
violations.
Legal Right

1. Personal Security (Torture protection, Illegal disappearances, Capital punishment,

Abortion, Invasion of privacy)
2. Justice-Access and process (Legal representation, Waive legal fees, free legal aid,
Confront witnesses, right to contract, Jury trial )
3. Conscience and choice (Free speech, Free press, Freedom of religion, Martial choice,
occupational choice, Gender/ethnic choice )
Political Rights

1. Personal Political ( Vote, Stand for office, Freedom of information, Right)

2. Organizational (Form political party, Form trade/economic union, Social

movement/opposition, Group right to assemble and protest, Cultural/minority rights)
3. Membership Rights (Immigration and denizen right, Naturalization rights, Asylum right,
Cultural right).
2. Social Foundation of Citizenship

Marshall defined social citizenship in two general ways right at the start of his essay: “the
right to a modicum of economic welfare and security” and “the right to live the life of a
civilized being.”
Social citizenship is most of the time give attention for the following issues.

1. Associated with equality of status and horizontal redistribution rather than vertical
redistribution.
2. Advocates “class abatement,” not a classless society.

3. Equality of status is more important than equality of outcome.

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 4. Universal benefits symbolise the fact of social equality by conferring on everybody a
badge of citizenship, eliminating any public distinction between the social classes,
between rich and poor, the eligible and the non-eligible.
5. Universalism was not seen as an end in itself, rather as a means to the end of
integration. Fundamental historical reason for universality is the avoidance of stigma.
6. Targeted towards the ‘helpless and hopeless of the population’ … and was now
extended to all citizens”
7. The inequalities of the market had to be contained by the state in order to promote
social stability, balancing the socially divisive effects of market-based inequalities by
the integrative experience of solidarity generated by social citizenship rights”
8. Equality of status and equality of opportunity

9. Incorporating positive freedom into citizenship

4. Cultural foundation of citizenship

I. First, the debate over the rights of ethnic minorities in multiethnic Societies,
discussed in such terms as multiculturalism and the politics of recognition;
II. Second, the responsibilities of democratic citizenship, in what some have called the
civic virtue debate
III. Multiculturalism: a social theory that seeks to understand how different cultures
might best live together.
IV. Cultural citizenship is a politics of ‘educated’ dialogue, contested forms of
understanding, respect and democratic public space. Arguably, many current social
movements, from the anti-globalization protestors to proponents of multiculturalism,
have the deepening and widening of democracy as one of their central aims.
V. Cultural citizenship should be viewed in terms of satisfying demands for full
inclusion into the social community. Such claims should be seen in the context of the
waning of the welfare state and class identities, and the formation of new social and
cultural movements focusing on the rights of groups from children to the disabled.
Cultural rights, in this sense, herald ‘a new breed of claims for unhindered
representation, recognition without marginalisation, acceptance and integration

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without normalising distortion.

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Chapter 2: Citizenship in theory and History

Genesis of Citizenship

Historically, the distinctive core of citizenship has been the possession of the formal status of
membership of a political and legal entity and having particular sorts of rights and obligations
within it. Citizenship is the legal institution that designates full membership in a state and the
associated rights and duties. Most scholars agree that there two eras in the genesis of citizenship.
1. Before French revolution

 Legacy of the first era existed from the time of the Greek city-state.

 “Small-scaled, culturally monolithic, hierarchical, and discriminatory and also

moral, idealistic, spiritual, active, participatory, communitarian, and even heroic
in that it commanded personal military service from its citizens.”
 Truly considered a citizen only if one participates.

 One could only gain civic virtue “through active participation in governing

2. Post French revolution

Citizenship as “civic virtue being drained out of the citizenship an ideal from the
beginning
Some contributing factors for genesis of citizenship

1. Assumption of citizenship as necessary for individual freedom, such as the rights to free
speech and assembly, property rights, and equal rights before the law
2. Emergence of Political citizenship in the 19th century.

3. The practice of self-government within the confines of ethnic communities

4. Allegiance, first to one’s family, and then to one’s ethnic community

5. Conceptions of citizenship in terms of privilege and status.

6. Women, minorities, and poor people waged battles well into the 20th century to gain
universal suffrage, which was previously granted only to male property owners.
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7. Social citizenship emerged against the background of the growing inequities of the 20th
century.
8. Focus on minimum rights and standards of economic, cultural and social well-being.

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 9. Disadvantaged groups and their allies are currently still working to gain legitimacy for
this view of citizenship and rights.

Ancient Greek Citizenship

 For Greeks, the very core of identity and citizenship was the polis, the term and concept
from which come all our words cognate with “politics”—political, polity, metropolitan,
etc. Often, this fundamental term is simply translated as “city-state,”
 Elements and standards of citizenship varied from polis to polis.

 In Athens (and in colonies founded by Athenians), for example, all free males were
enrolled as citizens. In some poleis, a citizen was required convincingly to claim descent
from a distant ancestor (real or imagined). In some poleis, one had to own land in order to
be truly trusted to defend the polis as a citizen.
 Citizens collectively had a sense of shared responsibilities; these included voting,
fighting, judging, administration and privileges, which included access to land, various
types of grants, and social and political power.
 Citizenship was a key Feature of ancient Greek political life, only about a third to a half
of the population were actually citizens. The rest of the population was made up of
slaves, foreigners, and Greeks from other cities.
 The classical Athenian, to be able to participate, a citizen must be “a male of known
genealogy, a patriarch, a warrior, and a master of the labor of others and these
prerequisites excluded most of the people from access to it.
 In ancient Greece, Aristotle conceived of citizenship as a male status and virtue; women,
together with slaves, were non-citizens, excluded from political participation.
 To be a citizen of Athens it was necessary to be a male aged 20 or over, of known
genealogy as being born to an Athenian citizen family, a patriarch of a household, a
warrior – possessing the arms and ability to fight, and a master of the labour of others –
notably slaves.

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Ancient Roman Citizenship

 Civitas, or citizenship, was a legal status, the possession of which would determine the
availability of legal remedies, as well as a number of obligations one was expected to
fulfill in order to enable those remedies.
 Roman citizenship, thus, seems to have been ‘a precise expression of one particular set of
rights and duties’, defined by Roman civil law.
 The possibility of choice between Roman citizenship and an exclusively Roman right of
appeal accompanied by local privileges, points to the mitigation of boundaries of Roman
citizenship policy, as well as the overtly articulated significance of civitas Romana prior
to the Social War.
 Ancient as well as modern authorities have thus been appraising the inclusive and
generous nature of Roman citizenship policy.
 Beginning in 89 BC, the Romans gradually offered their citizenship even to loyal allies
who lived outside of Italy. They sometimes enfranchise individuals who had fought
bravely for Rome. Since the 1st century AD, the most frequent way of becoming a
Roman citizen was to serve in the army for 25 years.
 The Romans provided at least some legal protection to foreigners as early as the 5th century
BC. Roman citizenship policy as a model for a modern nation state any longer.
 Roman citizenship was a radically different set-up from the Greek civic model in important
ways.
 The Romans shocked Greeks by the way they would incorporate whole communities at
times.
 The general pattern was to extend citizenship rights to the elites of incorporated or even
captured communities.
 Republic of Virtue, full of active citizens was its central ideology.

 If a touchstone of classical Greek citizenship was a powerful community identity that

assumed exclusion, a central theme of Roman citizenship through time was inclusion of
outsiders.
Citizenship expanded from small-scale communities to the entire empire. Romans realized that
granting citizenship to people from all over the empire legitimized Roman rule over conquered
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areas. Roman citizenship was no longer a status of political agency; it had been reduced to a
judicial safeguard and the expression of rule and law. In generally, a citizen came to be
understood as a person "free to act by law, free to ask and expect the law's protection, a citizen of
such and such a legal community, of such and such a legal standing in that
community".Citizenship meant having rights to have possessions, immunities, expectations,
which were "available in many kinds and degrees, available or unavailable to many kinds of
person for many kinds of reason".
Medieval Citizenship as Equal Legal Status
The Imperial Rome
The following the conception of citizenship under imperial Rome.

 Citizenship as rights enables people to act as agents

 A powerful word, with connotations of respect, rights and dignity.

 Working against terrible exclusions and the denial of respect, rights, dignity and even
humanity by some groups to others.
 Changing notions of citizenship (inclusion and exclusion)

 Making more inclusive through a broadening of the rights of the citizen to include social
rights.
The following are some challenges in the process of realization of citizenship in medieval period.

A. Citizenship and political contestation

Attempts to formulate citizenship rights and duties are fraught with difficulty in any context
characterised by diversity. Attempts to address this problem through differentiated principles of
citizenship which seek to balance local and national interests, individual and collective rights,
have given rise to their own set of problems in the form of persisting conflicts of interests and
loyalties.
B. Citizenship and social inequality

A second problem of citizenship stems from definitions and practices associated with it which
serve to reinforce, rather than eradicate, pre-existing forms of social inequality.

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C. Citizenship and economic dependency

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The third challenge to the practice of inclusive citizenship in poorer countries comes from
poverty itself. In situations of extreme scarcity, the formal guarantee of rights is likely to be
irrelevant since seeking redress for the violation of even the most basic of civil rights entails
unaffordable costs.
D. Citizenship and cultural devaluation

The final challenge to 'inclusive' citizenship relates to issues of culture and identity. Citizenship
is a particular way of defining personhood that is in contradistinction to definitions based on
status within hierarchical social relationships.
Feudalism, Serfdom, and the discourse on ‘Subject’

As a term of art used by historians, the adjective “feudal” and the noun “feudalism” may mean
many things, most of them variants on one or more of three basic conceptions.
1. The legal rules, rights, and obligations that governed the holding of fiefs (feudain Medieval
Latin), especially in the middle Ages. Later, this definition was extended to encompass the
nature of government at the time when fiefs were a prominent form of landholding, Often in
this definition such grants and usurpations are referred to as “the privatization of public
powers.
2. A social economy in which landed lords dominated a subject peasantry from whom they
demanded rents, labor services, and various other dues, and over whom they exercised
justice. This was essentially the meaning given to the term by Adam Smith.
3. A form of socio-political organization dominated by a military class or Estate, who were
connected to each other by ties of lordship and honourable subordination (“vassalage”) and
who in turn dominated a subject peasantry. Lordship gave protection and defence, vassalage
required service, especially service in arms.
In generally, Feudalism was a highly decentralized form of government that stressed alliance of
mutual protection between monarchs and nobles of varying degrees of power lack of a centralize
government caused feudal societies to be attacked often, and the hierarchy created a lack in
genuine loyalty to the king.
Serfdom: it is the state of being in the condition of serf. In the past, serf is someone who lived
and worked on land belonging to others person and who could not leave without the permission

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of that person. It is a person who forced to live and work on land that belongs to a landowner
who they had to obey.
Subject is someone who lives in a country that is controlled by king or queen and have no equal
status with another citizens who live in that particular country. The difference between subject
and citizen is simply the matter of recognition or status in front of the leader of that country.
Modern Citizenship

 The modern concepts of citizenship and peopleness are bound up in a package of other
concepts such as state sovereignty, territorial nation state, democracy and legitimacy.
 Modern citizenship refers to membership in a political community that is unified by a
single order of law within a discrete territory.
 The invention of (modern) citizenship is tied to the revolutionary moments in which the
first modern constitutions were aimed with the protection of individual rights as well as
the constitution that makes the realization of self-government possible.
 Democratic legitimacy is dependent on a deliberate act of (direct or indirect)
authorization of binding laws.
Democratic citizenship

 Democratic citizenship is about inclusion rather than exclusion, participation rather than
marginalisation, culture and values rather than simple procedural issues (such as voting)
 It is about being active in shaping understandings and practices of citizenship.

 Making young people and adults better equipped to participate actively in democratic life by
assuming and exercising their rights and responsibilities in society.
 Core competencies associated with democratic citizenship are those called for by the
construction of a free and autonomous person, aware of his rights and duties in a society
where the power to establish the law.
 citizenship as the product of the interrelated processes of state building, the emergence of
commercial and industrial society, and the construction of a national consciousness.
 The citizen’s ultimate responsibility is to further democratize his or her state through
dialogue, participation in civic life, and a general concern for social justice.

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 Equips men and women to play an active part in public life and to shape in a responsible way
their own destiny and that of their society;

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 Aims to instil a culture of human rights

 Prepares people to live in a multicultural society and to deal with difference knowledgeably,
sensibly, tolerantly and morally
 Strengthens social cohesion, mutual understanding and solidarity

 Greater participation, social cohesion, access, equity and solidarity.

Chapter Three: Approach to citizenship

1. Liberal approach to citizenship

A. How liberals understand citizenship?

It looks citizenship from the nature of individual, group, and civil society, state and supranational
respectively. It looks individual as a key point and apprehend to the world in terms of
spirituality, motivation, rationality and behaviour. It Restrict the power of church and tyranny
from individual affairs. It gives value or attention to individual choice than societal issues. It
assumes nature made man to inter into decision of civil and political society and to act in
community. As a result, it looks citizenship from individual context because man was endowed
by reason and characterized as the voice of God. Private property is an essential condition for
individual freedom and it is also principal goal of existence. In generally, there are three major
notions/elements of that are central to liberal approach to citizenship.
1. Individual create property

2. Need government/law for protection of protection private property than public.

3. Lawful exercises of private property rights are naturally reduce inequality and
injustice in society.
B. Basic feature/characteristics of liberal notion of citizenship

 Individual focus than collective life

 Public engagement in subordinate

 Private property than public property

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  Maximizing individual liberty and maintaining supremacy of individual right

 Empowering individual in different institution

 Display politics as means expression of human value and possibility

C. Some strong side of liberal notion of citizenship

 It advocate individual freedom and economic equality

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  Relatively, stable and tolerant regime internally

 Easier to acquire and harder to lose

 It enhance individuals’ basic level of political knowledge and skills

 Advocation of redistributive policy to enrol individuals in public spheres

 Promotion social and political membership based on paramount/supremacy of the

value of individual freedom.
D. Threats or criticism against the liberal notion of citizenship

 Religious fundamentalism and diminishing of social prestige

 Materialism and spirituality of liberals

 Prioritizing of individual right over common right and privatization of personality

 Environmental pressure, human migration and humanitarian emergencies

 Less interest in to participate in participate in politics and other public life

2. The Republican approach to citizenship

A. How Republican understand citizenship?

Republican defines citizenship from perspective of common good than private. It also defines
citizenship based on man political nature and what citizen should be and citizenship is all about
democratic participation and it is related with citizen’s political institutions. It highlights the need
for citizens to learn civic competences, including the values of public spiritedness, solidarity, and
the responsibility to act for the common good. It places higher demands on the citizen in terms of
the maintenance of the democratic processes and institutions that, in turn, assure greater
freedoms, which means, it promotes civic virtues. Citizens become the actors of positive laws for
social change and the instruments to prevent corruption. It emphasizes that, without civic virtues,
too much self-interest can lead to corruption. Furthermore, the republican believes that
citizenship is commitment of citizen to wider community, civic identity that that all citizen can
share equally and citizenship right is subject to decision of politics. The focus of the model is on
political and equal citizenship at a national level, and the consequence is a greater emphasis on

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policies on political participation, and a lesser emphasis on volunteering and community level
organizations.
B. Basic feature/characteristics of Republican notion of citizenship

 Promotion of ethical dimension of citizenship

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  Mixed with constitution and civic virtue

 Integrative experiences that bring multiple role of citizen in community

 Promotion of publicity, self government, non-individualism, participation as pre-

requisite for freedom and giving priority for common good.
 Autonomy relates to active participation in public life

C. Some strong side of Republican notion of citizenship

 Support democracy based on deliberative creation

 It is good because it promotes that true citizenship requires commitment to common

good and active participation in public affairs and civic virtue
 It advocates that rulers must be accountable to citizen, citizenship as ethical and legal
dimension and government or state is necessarily based on public matter.
D. Threats or criticism against the Republican notion of citizenship

 Individual right is second choice

 More or less stringent, deny difference, single conception of political community

 Threat to egalitarian society, sustain oppression and bias in society(public first)

3. The Radical Democratic approach to citizenship

A. How Radical Democratic understand citizenship?

This approach looks citizenship as not purely understand as a relationship among the political
agent, but also interaction between agencies. Any conception of citizenship would also need to
be critical, in that it would need to critique existing unjust conditions and include the need for
greater representation and engagement of women, lower social classes, and minority and
immigrant groups, within decision making and representative politics. In addition, the following
are some conceptions of citizenship by radical democratic approach to citizenship.
 Politics and citizenship is constantly shifting phenomenon

 Citizenship could not be understood only as abstract

 Citizenship can be continually reshaped via actual political participation

27
  Democracy is open and changing project both theoretically and practically

 Citizenship can be liberatory identity by remaining an open site of struggle

In generally, there are three conceptions about nexus between politics and citizenship based up
on notion of radical democratic approach to citizenship.

28
 1. Politics and citizenship is temporary and contextual

2. Politics and citizenship is not only achievement or possession but also continual
struggle
3. The location of struggle is in terms of citizen relation to political world

B. Basic feature/characteristics of Radical Democratic notion of citizenship

 Identity as identification with groups

 Developing non-essentialist of individual in community

 Emphasis on diversity

 Citizenship as identity and activity

 Find out location of citizenship in politics

C. Some strong side of Radical Democratic notion of citizenship

 It rethinks the position/location of citizenship in politics

 Supports all elements of identity to engage in politics

 Support belongingness to political community without exclusion

 It actualize political engagement of diverse citizen

 Attempt to retain egalitarian impulse in the ideology of citizenship

D. Threats or criticism against the Radical Democratic notion of citizenship

 Religious fundamentalism

 Anti-essentialist of individual

 Weak in realizing commitment of universal citizenship

4. The Communitarian approach to citizenship

A. How Communitarian understand citizenship?

The communitarian model takes communities as its starting point, rather than the nation or city
state of the civic republican model, and focuses on how social groups influence values and
29
behaviours. Citizenship in this context focuses on the identity and feelings of belonging to a
group, and the need to work towards the collective benefit of this group. As compared to the
liberal and civic republican models, the communitarian model is more associated with more
hierarchical and top-down decision making. The communitarian model of citizenship has fewer
direct associations with a specific country as it focuses on communities rather than countries. It
emphasize on the responsibility and duties of individuals to others in their community, as well as

30
the need to support structures that undergird and maintain communities and shared values. In
addition, the following are some conceptions of citizenship by communitarian approach to
citizenship.
 Individual is not isolated from community

 Citizenship is rooted in culturally defined community

 Identity of citizen cannot understood outside territory

 Rules, procedures and legal policy is shared common good

 Community is rooted prior to political order of the state

 Political community is rooted in cultural community

 Social reconstruction through social democracy

 National state as reference point for the revival of community

 Citizenship is more than membership of democratic state

 Community is open and incomplete

 Community assumed as ontological foundation of citizenship

B. Basic feature/characteristics of Communitarian notion of citizenship

 Cosmo political community and communication to narrow societal difference

 Highly relational and primordial community

 Cultural community and opposition to modernity

 Favours traditional world and it too formalistic (appearance)

 Characterized by moral community than individual morality

 Cultural essentialist than materialism and reject self government

 Characterized by preservation of identity

C. Some strong side of Communitarian notion of citizenship

 Moral collectivism
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 Developing of cultural values

 Cooperation between groups

 Identify individual with in community

 Develop civic morality

 Develop cultural democracy

 Develop trust and solidarity in community

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  Develop consciousness among groups

 Display facts as community is important for citizenship

D. Threats or criticism against the Communitarian notion of citizenship

 Dynamics of group formation

 Lacks consistency like liberal approach

 Cultural particularism

 Loss absolute commitment to universalism of culture

 Attack moral individualism

 Diversity of cultural groups right in common good

CHAPTER 4: MEMBERSHIP AND BELONGING: BEING AND BECOMING (8Hrs)

Introduction

This chapter introduces subject, nationalism, and ethnicity, and multiculturalism, cultural
citizenship, theories of citizenship among the others. To deliver this chapter, there will be
student-cantered teaching-learning approach.

Chapter objectives

At the end of this chapter, students will be able to

 Define subject

 Define nationalism

 Examine theories of nationalism on citizenship

 Explain what is cultural citizenship

 Evaluatetransnational citizenship
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 4.1 From Subject to
Citizen Subject
This category puts some citizens a little below the participant political culture. It is one that the
authors said was prevalent in Germany and Italy. People categorized as subjects do understand
their rights as citizens. They do pay attention to politics, but in a more passive manner. Though
they follow political news, they are not proud of their country's political system. They do not
exhibit a strong emotional commitment toward their government. They are not uncomfortable in

34
discussing politics. But their influence on politics, they believe, is limited to a large extent in
speaking with local officials.
They do not, under normal circumstances, try to organize a group when they want something to
be done by the state. The political competence and efficacy of a subject person is lower than that
of the participant. Many feel powerless. They do vote, but without much enthusiasm. They are
less likely to trust others. They rarely raise their voice to express views as children. When there
are many with such a condition and frame of mind, democracy has difficulty sinking roots.
Subjects are people who are used to thinking of themselves as obedient individuals rather than as
active participants in their country’s political process.
From Subject to Citizen: The Internal Dimension of Inclusion and
Exclusion The efficacy of the concept social inclusion depends on:
I. The extent and degree to which it successfully deals with social exclusion and

II. The extent to which it promotes social cohesion in a society that is fractured along
numerous fault lines.
There is distinguishing line between weak versions of the social exclusion discourse which
focus on changing the excluded and integrating them into society, and stronger versions of
the discourse which focus on power relations between the excluded and those doing the
excluding.
It is important to distinguish between weak and strong versions of the social inclusion
discourse.
 Exclusion focus simply on integration of the excluded (via a state commitment to
multiculturalism), while the inclusion take a structural approach that focuses on
historical processes that continually reproduce oppression, discrimination and
exclusion.
 Strong approaches to the social inclusion discourse therefore are intimately concerned
with rights, citizenship and restructured relations between racialized communities and
the institutions of the dominant society. The focus is on valued recognition and
valued participation by those excluded from full participation in society and the
benefits of society. Those who recognize the salience of social exclusion as an

35
 explanatory tool need to be cognizant of one possible unintended consequence of the
analysis – the re-victimization and marginalization of the excluded.
Individuals and groups who are excluded on the basis of race (or other socially constructed
criteria) need to be included both in the discussions about their social conditions of existence
and in the debate about the eradication of exclusion.
Racism is a form of social exclusion, and racial discrimination in all its forms and
manifestations is the process by which that exclusion occurs. The term “social exclusion” is
used in contemporary discourse and then link it to a broader discussion of racism, racial
discrimination and racialized poverty.
Walker and Walker define social exclusion as “… a comprehensive formulation, which refers
to the dynamic process of being shut out, fully or partially, from any of the social, economic,
political or cultural systems which determine the social integration of a person in a society.
Social exclusion may therefore be seen as the denial (non-realization) of the civil, political
and social rights of citizenship”(Walker and Walker 1997).
Social Inclusion

Social inclusion begins from the principle that it is democratic citizenship that is at risk when
a society fails to develop the talents and capacities of all its members. The move to social
inclusion is eroded when the rights of minorities are not respected and accommodated and
minorities feel “othered”.
For social inclusion, there is no contradiction between democratic citizenship and
differentiated citizenship (where people can hold dual and even multiple loyalties).
Democratic citizenship is about valued participation, valued recognition and belonging.

At a minimum, it is characterized by: All the political rights associated with formal
equality; • A right to equality and a right to be free from discrimination;
• An intimate relationship between the individual and the community;

•Mutual relationship of rights and obligations;

•Barrier free access, a sense of belonging and not being “otherness”and marginalized;

•A commitment on the part of the state to ensure that all members of society have equal
access to developing their talents and capacities; and
36
•Providing all members of society with the resources to exercise democratic citizenship.

37
  Accommodating differences and eliminating barriers to equality of opportunity are
the hallmarks of social inclusion. Social inclusion is more than the removal of
barriers, it is a comprehensive vision that includes all, It is valued recognition and
valued participation in the struggle for an inclusive society, Social inclusion is
practical, It is anti-discrimination, It is not the passive protection of rights; rather, it is
the active intervention to promote rights, It deliberates responsibility on the state to
adopt and enforce policies that will ensure social inclusion of all members of society,
It also demands that the actions of the state be proactive in advancing an antiracist,
inclusive vision of society, Social inclusion promotes solidarity, Individuals,
organizations and communities from diverse backgrounds can come together on the
basis of a common purpose and engage in an inclusionary politics, directed at the
creation of inclusive communities, cities and an inclusive society. Social inclusion, by
virtue of the fact that it is both a process and an outcome, can hold governments and
institutions accountable for their policies.
The cornerstones of social inclusion

The five critical dimensions, or cornerstones, of social inclusion:

1. Valued recognition– Discussing recognition and respect on individuals and groups.

 extending the notion to recognizing common worth through universal programs such
as health care, education.
 supporting community schools that are sensitive to cultural and gender
differences 2.Human development
 Nurturing the talents, skills, capacities and choices of children and adults to live a life
they value and
 to make a contribution both they and others find worthwhile. Examples in: learning and
developmental opportunities for all children and adults; community child care and
recreation programs for children that are growth-promoting and challenging rather than
merely custodial(protective).
3. Involvement and engagement:- Having the right and the necessary support to make/be
involved in decisions affecting oneself, family and community, and to be engaged in community

38
life.

39
Examples include: youth engagement and control of services for youth; parental input into
school curriculum or placement decisions affecting their child; citizen engagement in municipal
policy decisions; and political participation.
4. Proximity: Sharing physical and social -spaces to provide opportunities for interactions, if
desired, and to reduce social distances between people. This includes shared public spaces such
as parks and libraries; mixed income neighbor hoods and housing.
5. Material well being:- Having the material resources to allow children and their parents to
participate fully in community life. This includes being safely and securely housed and having an
adequate income.
Exclusion:-refers to “the inability to participate effectively in economic, social, political and
cultural life, and, in some characterizations, alienation and distance from the mainstream
society”.
Social exclusion:- refers to the “process of social disintegration”, a “rupture” in the relationship
between the individual and society which resulted from structural changes in the economy. And
seriously inhibited the mobility and integration into the labour market of younger workers and
created long-term unemployment for unskilled workers and immigrant workers. This in turn has
resulted in increased social problems and a tearing of the social fabric, increased homelessness,
increased social tensions and periodic violence.
Social exclusion as rupture is linked to Silver’s solidarity paradigm – one of three paradigms
which links exclusion, citizenship and social integration (Silver 1995).
For many, including Walker and Walker, the opposite of exclusion is integration – into the
labour market or more generally into a broader conception of citizenship with an interlocking
set of mutual rights and obligations.
The link between social exclusion and citizenship then centers for example, on the degree to
which individuals from racialized and marginalized communities encounter structural and
systemic barriers and are denied or restricted from participating in society.
This concept of social exclusion is highly persuasive because it speaks the language of
oppression and enables the marginalized and the victimized to give voice and expression to
the way in which they experience globalization, the way in which they experience market
forces and the way in which they experience liberal democratic society.

40
The concept of social exclusion echoes with many including those who:

(i) are denied access to the valued goods and services in society because of their race,
gender, religion, disability,
(ii) lack adequate resources to be effective, contributing members of society; and

(iii) are not recognized as full and equal participants in society.

The roots of exclusion are deep, historical and indeed are continually reproduced in both old
and new ways in contemporary society. In the postindustrial developed world, “exclusion is a
crucial contemporary form of exploitation, and indeed there is nothing new about it. The
battle against exclusion is a “battle against exploitation”. The contemporary discourse on
social exclusion is too narrowly focused on poverty and integration into the paid labour
market, and it potentially obscures a bigger debate about exploitation and the extent to which
racism creates a dual labour market that leads to the super-exploitation of workers of colour.
Within the European arena this could include a more systematic analysis of the super
exploitation of “guest workers” and the concomitant denial of certain rights. In the North
American arena this could include an analysis of the way in which formal sanction processes
restrict access to certain trades and professions for newcomers to Canada. Include an analysis
of the way in which the delays associated with seeking asylum in Canada create an
underground economy in which asylum seekers end up working at low- paid, marginalized
and insecure jobs.
4.1.1 Property and the properties of citizenship

In ancient Greece, being the patriarch of a household was much more than simply owning a
home. The house was the basic component of the economyin deed, the term ‘economy’
derives from the Greek words for house hold ( oikos ) and rules( nomos ). T o be a house
holder signified being economically self-sufficient, with one’s material needs taken care of
by a range of domestic servants, not least one’s wife as an unpaid house hold manager.
Three features of this condition were thought important for politics.

1. Citizens could dedicate themselves to their civic duties, being freed from the need to earn a
livelihood. Less conceivably,they were also evidently aboveany need to follow their private
interests.
41
 2. They were not only freed from a dependency on things but also from being the dependents
of other people.
Of course, they still needed food and soon to survive, and relied on others to provide the
necessary goods. But they could direct those others as they wished, sell them. If they failed to
act as they wished. Unlike their dependents, they were independent–able to act and think as
they believed best rather than as those on whom they depended for their living.
3. They literally had a stake in the political community ,with their fate–or at least that of their
assets, intimately bound to its destiny, to the extent of being willing to fight and possibly die
for their country.
These three proper ties of commitment to the public good, independence ,and possession
of as take in the political community remain important for thinking about politics, but over
time the qualities associated with them have become disconnected from the possession of
private property.
There has been a general setback of assumptions: instead of private autonomy being the basis
of public autonomy in the political realm, political participation and the regulation of the
private sphere have become the guarantees of personal freedom.
4.1.2 Gender and the Feminist Critique

Feminism is a social movement whose basic goal is equality between women and men. As an
organized movement, modern feminism rose in the 19th century in Europe, America, and Japan
in response to the great inequalities between the legal statuses of women and men citizens.
 The first-wave feminists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries fought for
rights we take for granted today. It is hard to believe these rights were among those once
denied to women of every social class, racial category, ethnicity, and religion-religion-the
right to vote (suffrage), to own property and capital, to borrow money, to inherit, to keep
money earned,to initiate a divorce, to retain custody of children, to go to college, to
become a professionally certified physician, to argue cases in court, and to serve on a
jury.
The theory of equality that feminists of the 19 th c. used in their fight for women's rights came out
of liberal political philosophy, which said that all men should be equal under the law, that no one
should have special privileges or rights.
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 First-wave feminism's goal was to get equal legal rights for women: specially the vote, or
suffrage, (Feminists were often called suffragists.) in the United States, women did not get
the right to vote nationally until 1920, Many European countries also gave women the right
to vote after World War I, in repayment for their war efforts. French women, did not get
suffrage until after World War II, when a grateful Charles de Gaulle empowered them for
their work in the underground fight against the Nazis and the collaborationist government of
Nazi- occupied France. Japanese women were also granted the right to vote after World War
II in the constitution written under the American occupation of Japan. The Russian revolution
of the early twentieth century gave women equal rights, even though the Bolsheviks
criticized the individualism of "bourgeois feminism." Their emphasis was on work in the
collective economy, with prenatal care and child care provided by the state so women could
be both workers and mothers. Chinese women had legal equal rights after the Chinese
communist revolution of 1948, but patriarchal families, specially in rural areas, restricted
their actual liberty.
 Suffrage was the main goal of women's liberation in the first wave of feminism in western
countries, but rights concerning property, earnings, and higher education-many of which
were granted by the end of the 19thC. gave women a chance for economic independence.
These rights were vital for raising married women's status from childlike dependence in a
husband and for giving widows and single women some way of living on their own instead of as
a poor relation in their father's or brother's or son's household.
Another branch of nineteenth-century feminism did not focus on equal rights but on a woman's
right to "own" her body and to plan her pregnancies.
 The Second and Third Wave

The second wave of the modern feminist movement began with the publication in France in 1949
of Simone de Beauvoir's ‘The Second Sex’. This sweeping account of the historical and current
status of women in the Western world argues that men set the standards and values, and women
are the Other who lack the qualities the dominants exhibit. Men are the actors, women the
reactors; Men thus are the first sex, women always the second sex.
The second wave of feminism did not take shape as an organized political movement until the
late 1960s, when young people were publicly criticizing many aspects of Western Society.
43
In the years since, the feminist movement has made many contributions to social change by
focusing attention on the continued ways women are more socially disadvantaged than men, by
analyzing the sexual oppressions women suffer, and by proposing interpersonal as well as
political and legal solutions.
The feminist view of what makes women and men unequal is less unified today than in first-
wave feminism, and there is a unnumbered of feminist solutions to gender inequality. It is the
result of a deeper understanding of the sources of gender inequality. It is also the contradictory
effect of uneven success.
In the 1970s and 1980s.many feminists concentrated on increasing women's legal rights, political
representation, and entry into occupations and professions dominated by men.
Other feminists worked to eliminate sexual violence, prostitution, and pornography; sexist
depictions of women in the media and cultural productions; and sexual harassment of women
workers and students. Still others focused on changing language, knowledge, and history to
reflect women's previously invisible experiences and contributions.
 Feminist critique

Many of the traditional features of citizenship have been associated with male roles, such as
soldiering ,from which women were excluded.
This fact has produced a two- pronged feminist critique of the way citizenship has come to be
defined and practiced.
First, feminists have argued that the public practice of citizenship has often rested on the private
domination of women.
Second, they have argued that citizenship has been conceived in terms of masculine qualities.
The first criticism is undeniable. Both in the past and to some extent today ,men have turned
women into personal dependents, whom they can treat as unpaid domestic servants and direct as
they will.
Economic dependency resulting from the man being the main ‘bread-winner ’and, up to the 19th
century y ,coming into possession of his wife’s assets on marriage, was often reinforced by
coercion, including the legally sanctioned use of physical force–marital rape, for example, was
not recognized in law or criminalized until well into the 20 C. in many jurisdictions.

44
Control of women’s domestic labour allowed ‘male ’ jobs, including politics, to be so structured
that the maintenance of a home and raising a family became factored out as not being a post-
holder’s responsibility. A recent survey in the UK revealed that women who work part-time earn,
on average,38% less per hour than men working full-time. Even women working full-time earn
17% less per hour relative to full-time men.
Control of women’s domestic labour allowed ‘male ’ jobs, including politics, to be so structured
that the maintenance of a home and raising a family became factored out as not being a post-
holder’s responsibility.

 Moderate Feminism

This branch of feminism tends to be populated mostly by younger women who that they have not
directly experienced discrimination. They often believe that the ideals of the feminism
movement are no longer viable, and therefore question the need for further efforts. They often
view feminism as overbearing and too overt. Often this group espouses feminists ideas while not
accepting or wanting the label of 'feniminst'.
 Radical Feminism

Radical feminism is the breeding ground for many of the ideas arising from feminism.

• Radical feminism was the cutting edge of feminist theory from approximately 1967-1975.

• It is no longer as universally accepted as it was then, and no longer serves to solely define the
term, "feminism.“
• This group views the oppression of women as the most fundamental form of oppression, one
that cuts across boundaries of race, culture, and economic class.
• This is a movement intent on social change, change of rather revolutionary proportions.

• Radical feminism questions why women must adopt certain roles based on their biology, just as
it questions why men adopt certain other roles based on gender.
Radical feminism attempts to draw lines between biologically-determined behavior and
culturally determined behavior in order to free both men and women as much as possible from
their previous narrow gender roles.

45
In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, women were only viewed as mothers and housewives, within
development policies and programs. Their economic activities and contributions were ignored
and not valued.

4.3. Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Multiculturalism

Nationalism is essentially a shared group feeling in the significance of a geographical and

sometimes demographic region seeking independence for its culture and/or ethnicity that holds
that group together, this can be expressed as a belief or political ideology that involves an
individual identifying with, or becoming attached to, one's nation. Nationalism involves
nationalidentity, by contrast with the related concept of patriotism, which involves the
socialconditioning and personal behaviours that support a state's decisions and actions.
According to Heywood (2014), nationalism is the doctrine that asserts the nation as the basic
political unit in organizing society. Nationalism in the first part of the 19th century was a liberal
sentiment concerning self-determination.

4.3.1 Theories of Nationalism

1. Primordialism

46
Smith’s initial polemics were directed at two contrasting vogues in scholarly research:
primordialism and instrumentalism. Primordialists appeal to emotional and instinctive constraints
as ultimate explanations for national mobilisation. Their approach is often associated with
nationalist discourse, which occasionally reverberates in academia. Primordial refers to the
‘significance of vitality which man attributes to, and is constitutive of, both nativity and
structures of nativity’, including lineage, family, and, most importantly, territory.

47
Classic nationalists proclaim the immutable nature of their symbolic universes. ‘Nation-states’
seem to have the power, tools (media) and legally enforceable apparatus (official education) to
impose their primordialist vision as the only acceptable one. An approach that encompasses both
primordialism and instrumentalism is socio-biology. Socio-biological and ‘kinship’ perspectives
bring forth the centrality of descent in defining ethnic groups. Indeed, nationalism conveys the
idea that members of the nation are somehow related by birth. No real biological relationship is
needed; a mere unproven belief could turn nationalism into a placebo, a potion with no
chemically active ingredients but miraculous effects.

2. Instrumentalism

Instrumentalism conceives ethnicity as a dependent variable, externally controlled according to

its strategic utility for achieving more secular goods (formally in the name of the group, in fact
solely to the elites’ advantage). Instrumentalism is also oft en referred to as constructivism, while
‘the claim that ethnic group boundaries are not primordial, but socially constructed is now the
dominant view’. For radical instrumentalists, the category ‘nation’ does not correspond to any
objective reality. In short, instrumentalists try to single out the ‘manufacturers’ of nations among
those social groups that have most to gain from it.
3. Modernism

Modernists date their formation to the rise of modernity, in whatever form the latter is defined;
perennialistssee them as enduring, inveterate, century-long, even millennial phenomena,
certainly predating modernity. Modernism remains one of the few postulates overwhelmingly
embraced by most scholars, in itself a rare achievement: even primordialists may see nationalism
as the modern re-enactment of a pre-modern idea.
Modernism has long been the dominant trend not only in nationalism studies, but also in related
fields: for genocide scholars, ethnic cleansing tends to be a substantially modern phenomenon,
whether or not one includes ‘colonial’ (antipodal) genocides within an expanded definition of

48
modernity. Similarly, and more obviously, Fascism studies and totalitarianism studies share a
fully fledged modernist view of history, arguing that both these phenomena cannot develop

49
outside modernity. Most scholars of nationalism are also modernists and entirely associate the
nation, not only nationalism, with modernity.
4. Perennialism

To the perennialists, the nation is reassuringly granted for posterity, indeed destined to eternity.
This double projection towards past and future represents nationalism’s greatest force, but also
its greatest weakness as a generalisable principle. Again, it is the idea of ethnic choosiness,
which can better explain persistence and articulate the stress on continuity. Smith has provided
one of the staunchest critiques of modernism and has therefore been often identified as a
‘perennialist’. His novel approach, perhaps not yet a fully fledged theory, has come to the fore to
bridge the gap: to overcome the dichotomy between perennialism and modernism, has developed
his own ethno-symbolic approach.
5. Ethno-symbolism

Ethno-symbolism underlines the continuity between pre-modern and modern forms of social
cohesion, without overlooking the changes brought about by modernity. The persisting features
in the formation and continuity of national identities are myths, memories, values, traditions and
symbols. This is a complex set of elements that Smith tends to use interchangeably, oft en
without sufficient specification to allow critical analysis or easy application. Myths of ethnic
descent, particularly myths of ‘ethnic choosiness’, lie at its core. Of all these myths, the myth of
a ‘golden age’ of past splendour is perhaps the most important.
In general, the intellectuals’ role is seen by ethno-symbolists as providing a skeleton upon which
to build a larger movement: ‘bridges’ must be built between past and present, between ethnic
myths and their modern translation into viable, coherent identities and political programmes. If
the focus is on the incipient stages of nationalism, then we could hardly conceive a nation
without intellectuals. A first generation of amateur scholars is needed to envision the nation, to
spawn an embryonic ‘image’ of the nation. Yet, nationalism can and does exist without them.
Indeed, the worst nationalist excesses are oft en carried out in a wholly militarised environment,
in which intellectuals may be routinely executed. Under such polarisation, their role – and the
fate of culture in general – will be inevitably limited.
The Limits of Ethno-symbolism

50
Although ethno-symbolism remains broadly unchallenged on its own ground, some internal
weaknesses may be signalled.
The first weakness lies in its fragile conceptual foundations. Smith defines the nation as ‘a
named human population occupying an historic territory, and sharing myths, memories, a single
public culture and common rights and duties for all members’ (Smith 2004: 65, my emphasis).
This is somewhat unclear. The inclusion of ‘common rights and duties’ in the definition seems to
refer to citizenship rights, which can only be fully granted by the existence of a state or
autonomous region.
A second weakness of ethno-symbolism relates to its apparent difficulty in explaining the
variability of nationalist movements and their different motivations. Failing this task, ethno-
symbolism risks remaining a descriptive endeavour. Until recently, ethno-symbolism had been
relatively immune to criticism. Some authors have now come to describe it as a sort of scholarly
romanticism.

4.4 Ethnicity:-

An ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared
attributes that distinguish them from other groups such as a common set of traditions, ancestry,
language, history, society, culture, nation, religion or social treatment within their residing
area. Ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases
of ethnic nationalism, and is separate from, but related to the concept of races.Ethnicity can be an
inherited status or based on the society within which one lives. Membership of an ethnic group
tends to be defined by a shared cultural
heritage, ancestry, originmyth, history, homeland, language or dialect, symbolic systems such
as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art or physical appearance. Ethnic
groups often continue to speak related languages and share a similar gene pool.

4.4.1 The Fundamental Theories of Ethnicity

Although theories of the formation of ethnic groups are driven by the constructivist assumption
that ethnic identities can change over time, theories of the effect of ethnicity on economic and
political outcomes are driven by the primordialist assumption that these identities are fixed.

51
While constructivist assumptions dominate studies of ethno genesis and ethnic identity change
(indeed, even asking the question of how ethnic identities are created and change presumes a
constructivist perspective), primordialist assumptions dominate theories that are concerned with
the effect of ethnic identity on some political or economic outcome.

52
1 The primordialist approach to ethnicity
Classic primordialist accounts generally view ethnic identity as innate, fixed and permanent.
They claim each individual is born into an ethnic group or 'tribe' – the term commonly used up
until the 1970s – perceived as a culturally defined unit. This led to tribes and later ethnic groups
being classified by aspects of their material culture in addition to biological and territorial
features. Primordialist accounts imply that ethnic identity serves a fundamental human need for
belonging and meaning. The primordial approach also suggests – in what is more commonly
known as the 'ancient hatreds' argument – that the fundamental cultural differences and divergent
values between ethnic groups inevitably results in a 'clash of cultures' and the emergence of
ethnic violence.

2 The instrumentalist approach to ethnicity

Two main contributions initiated the challenge to the classic primordialist approach. In his 1969
seminal essay, Barth (1998) challenged the primordialist belief that ethnic groups were distinct
bounded units with innate cultural characteristics. Rather than focusing on the cultural 'content'
of ethnic groups he adopted a subjectivist standpoint, suggesting that individuals selectively
emphasise those forms of cultural differentiation that are important to them. He contends that the
maintenance of ethnic boundaries occurs through interaction of 'us' and 'them' across a group
boundary. Moreover, the cultural features that are drawn upon in this interaction are not fixed;
they are situationally defined. In this way Barth emphasised the relational, interactional and
situational nature of ethnicity.

The second group of contributors to challenge primordialist theories were members of the
'Manchester School'. These anthropologists analysed the relationship between black tribes and
white colonialists in the African Copperbelt from the 1950s to the late 1970s. He argued that
political elites in some cases create but also use and exploit 'primordial' symbols to gain the
allegiance of potential followers.

They posit that elites agitate ethnic tensions and, in some cases, intentionally provoke ethnic
violence as a method to seize power, protect their existing authority, or defend against group

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threats. These claims began a long running debate in the literature regarding the ways that the
ethnic allegiance of the masses can be exploited, often for political ends, by elites.

The scholarly works of Barth and the Manchester School brought about a fundamental shift in
the theoretical foundation of anthropology.

This was, however, not the only shift taking place in anthropology throughout the 1960s.
Anthropology also passed through an intense phase of self-criticism following a growing
awareness of its complicity in aiding and benefiting from colonialism (Davies 2008).
Ethnographers had, for example, contributed to the reification of tribes in colonial states. This
critique led to a preoccupation with reflexivity in anthropology, but also the emergence of a trend
of critical reflection to avoid the reification of ethnic groups in the anthropological literature.

Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan (1975) also made a significant contribution to the
instrumentalist approach of ethnicity. They framed their discussion of ethnicity in relation to the

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state. Crucially, Glazer and Moynihan argue that ethnicity has a 'strategic efficacy' in making
claims upon the modern state. They claim that this is the result of state officials appeasing blocs
of voters, who mobilise around constitutional commitments to 'collective rights'.

3 The materialist approach to ethnicity

Materialist approaches to ethnicity are relatively underdeveloped in the literature. 'Crude'
Marxist theories, including the work of Michael Hechter (1978), view ethnicity as an
epiphenomenon, or a result, of class relations. These crude Marxist theories also suggest that
violence between ethnically aligned groups is the result of economic inequalities and elite
exploitation.
The claims of crude Marxists received heavy empirical criticism from a wide range of scholars.
It is now generally acknowledged that ethnicity is not a product of class relations and that there
is no one-to-one relationship between the two categories (Eriksen 2002).
4 The constructionist approach to ethnicity
At the heart of the constructionist approach, as with its instrumentalist predecessor, is the belief
that ethnicity is socially constructed. However, unlike the earlier instrumentalist conception,
ethnicity is 'constructed', and done so continuously through social interaction, by both elites and
ordinary people.
The constructionist approach initiated a shift of focus in the literature, from what ethnicity is to
how it is constructed. Constructionist theory can largely be divided into three subsets of literature
based upon the manner in which the construction of ethnicity is characterised.They are
differentiated based upon whether individuals, discursive formations or broad structural forces
are the chief agent in the construction of ethnicity.
Individuals as agents of social construction: The first subset of constructionist literature is mainly
based on an expansion of earlier theories regarding the instrumental approach to ethnicity. Yet
this newer strand of theory recognises the agency of ordinary people in addition to that of elites.
With regard to the role of ordinary people, this body of literature sees ethnicity created and
recreated through the everyday actions of individuals, who perceiving themselves as associated
with a certain ethnic identity act to confirm, contest or propagate that identity.
In discussions of ethnic conflict, the majority of constructionist literature focuses on the role of

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individuals – primarily of elites but also of ordinary people – in instigating violence.
Constructionist theories, building on instrumentalist thought, account for the way ordinary
individuals contribute to ethnic conflict. It is suggested that marginalised members of ethnic
groups contest existing ethnic identities, thereby constructing new ones.
Discursive formations as agents of social construction: The second set of constructionist theory
states that discursive formations, or cultural systems, intrinsically result in the construction of
ethnic difference. Yet, such arguments have received criticism. They border on primordialism, as
they portray culture as an unchanging force central to the construction of ethnicity.
With regard to ethnic conflict, this body of constructionist literature focuses on the capacity of
discourse to predispose members of one ethnic group to view members of another as natural
targets of violence. While such theories of ethnicity are generally critiqued for adopting a
primordialist approach, the construction-by-discourse view of ethnic conflict is widely critiqued
for not being able to account for the wide variety in, and variance of, ethnic violence across the
globe.

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5 Postmodern critiques of ethnicity
A number of critiques have been levelled at ethnicity theory since the rise of postmodernism in
the 1980s. These critiques are of two main types. On the one hand, there are those scholars who
call for a 'rethinking' of ethnicity (Jenkins 2008). Greater conceptual and analytical clarity is
called for.
On the other hand, some scholars argue for the outright abandonment of ethnicity. Critics point
out how the tendency to use ethnicity as a catch-all concept for many varieties of group identity
results in a loss of analytical depth. Ethnicity, it is argued, is therefore everything and
nothing.These critiques stem from the all-embracing usage of ethnicity in social analysis, which
has led to what a number of scholars argue is an overethnicised interpretation of social reality.
In part, this critical perspective on ethnicity has emerged as postmodernist thought has
complicated the conceptualisation of identity.
A decentring of identity has been witnessed in the social sciences, with the idea of identity being
innate and persistent being systematically challenged. Contemporary studies of identity are
increasingly pointing to its multi-faceted and fragmented nature (Wetherell 2010).
One body of scholarship that is being taken up to respond to this critique is the literature on
intersectionality. At its core, intersectionality theory 'stresses that systems of power (e.g. race,
gender, class, sexuality, ability, age, country of origin, citizenship status) cannot be understood
in isolation from one another'.Intersectionality, therefore, calls for a profound shift in the scope
of analysis regarding ethnicity: a shift from the study of ethnic identity to the study of identities
and their interrelationship.

4.5. Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism describes the existence, acceptance, or promotion of multiple cultural traditions

within a single jurisdiction, usually considered in terms of the culture associated with an ethnic
group. This can happen when a jurisdiction is created or expanded by amalgamating areas with
two or more different cultures. (e.g. French Canada and English Canada) or through immigration
from different jurisdictions around the world.
It is the view that cultures, races, and ethnicities, particularly those of minority groups, deserve
special acknowledgment of their differences within a dominant political culture. That
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acknowledgment can take the forms of recognition of contributions to the cultural life of the
political community as a whole, a demand for special protection under the law for certain
cultural groups, or autonomous rights of governance for certain cultures. Multiculturalism is both
a response to the fact of cultural pluralism in modern democracies and a way of compensating
cultural groups for past exclusion, discrimination, and oppression. Most modern
democracies comprise members with diverse cultural viewpoints, practices, and contributions.
Many minority cultural groups have experienced exclusion or the denigration of their
contributions and identities in the past. Multiculturalism seeks the inclusion of the views and

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contributions of diverse members of society while maintaining respect for their differences and
withholding the demand for their assimilation into the dominant culture.
 Cultural Variety

The diversity of human cultures — the wealth of languages, ideas, beliefs, kinship systems,
customs, tools, artistic works, rituals and other expressions they collectively embody —admits of
many explanations and interpretations. These range from philosophical considerations, through
an emphasis on cultures as emergent systems or in terms of intercultural contacts, to approaches
that highlight the complex interactions between cultures and the human habitat. A current
consensus regards cultures as systems that continually evolve through internal processes and in
contact with the environment and other cultures. What is certain is that no society has ever been
frozen in its history, even if some cultures have been viewed as ‘timeless’ from the perspective
of others characterized by rapid change.
Cultural diversity, beyond the mere fact of its existence, has aesthetic, moral and instrumental
value as the expression of human creativity, the embodiment of human strivings and the sum of
humanity’s collective experience. In the contemporary world — characterized as it is by space-
time compression linked to the speed of new communication and transportation technologies,
and by the growing complexity of social interactions and the increasing overlap of individual and
collective identities — cultural diversity has become a key concern, amid accelerating
globalization processes, as a resource to be preserved and as a lever for sustainable development.
In the context of the threats to cultural diversity, the international community has adopted a
panoply of binding and non-binding instruments covering a wide range of cultural forms,
including monuments and natural sites, tangible and intangible heritage, cultural expressions, and
intellectual and artistic heritage. These instruments are dedicated to preserving and promoting
such testimonies to human creativity as expressions of the common heritage of humankind. Part I
of this report reviews some of these safeguarding mechanisms, with reference to the most recent
developments. However, its main concern is with the wider phenomenon and multiple aspects of
cultural diversity and with the related issue of intercultural dialogue. Indeed, cultural diversity
and dialogue are mutually reinforcing, such that the maintenance of cultural diversity is
intimately linked to the ability to establish dialogue and the ultimate challenge of cultural
diversity is that of intercultural dialogue.
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4.6. Cultural Citizenship

One of the striking developments in recent political discourse has been the increasing confluence
of culture and citizenship. Until recently the concerns of most practices of citizenship have been
quite different from cultural issues and conflicts over identity. As is well known, citizenship has
been historically formed around civic, political and social rights. Citizenship had been held to be
based on formal rights and had relatively little to do with substantive issues of cultural
belonging. In the civic republican tradition, which emphasized more strongly participation and
an active as opposed to a passive view of the citizen, the cultural dimension of citizenship did not
receive much more attention.
The contributions to Culture and Citizenship provide a striking contrast to the more normative
political theory in Citizenship in Diverse Societies. Thus, citizenship as cultural citizenship is
about the status of culture as discursively constructed. In this view what is at stake is cultural
rights rather than minority rights. Cultural rights – which can be compared to civil, political and
social rights are important in expanding the legal framework of governance into the cultural
sphere, but the main issues are less normative than symbolic and cognitive, since it is about the
construction of cultural discourses.
The advantage of cultural citizenship in this sense of, what I would prefer to call, ‘cosmopolitan
citizenship’ is that it shifts the focus of citizenship onto common experiences, learning processes
and discourses of empowerment. In this regard what needs to be stressed is the learning
dimension of citizenship as a constructivist process. The volume argues how citizens learn
citizenship, which mostly takes place in the informal context of everyday life and is also heavily
influenced by critical and formative events in people’s lives. Citizenship is not entirely about
rights, but is a matter of participation in the political community and begins early in life. It
concerns the learning of a capacity for action and for responsibility but, essentially, it is about the
learning of the self and of the relationship of self and other.

4.7. From Alien to Citizen: The External Dimension of Exclusion and Inclusion

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Recognizing that it is not necessarily incoherent to speak of the “citizenship of noncitizens”—or
the citizenship of aliens, in legal terminology is analytically important in a discursive context in

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which citizenship has become so central.It makes clear that citizenship is not a unitary or
monolithic whole: the concept is comprised of distinct discourses designating a range of
institutions and experiences and social practices that are overlapping but not always coextensive.

Citizenship is a divided concept. The fact that citizenship is divided in this way might suggest
that the initial apprehension about the increasing salience of citizenship talk among progressives
is misplaced. Strictly speaking, to embrace citizenship as our normative benchmark is not
necessarily to exclude status noncitizens. The trouble, however, is that we tend not to speak or to
hear strictly. In conventional usage, citizenship’s meanings are conflated. It is easy and no doubt
common to hear a reference to citizenship and to think simultaneously of universal citizenship
and of the citizenship of borders, or to be uncertain which meaning is intended. It is hardly
surprising that, when the term is used aspirationally, we tend to suppose that what is at stake is
universal citizenship for formal holders of citizenship status.

4.7.1 Transnational Citizenship

Transnational citizenship redefines traditional notions of citizenship and replaces an individual's

singular national loyalties with the ability to belong to multiple nation states, as made visible
in the political, cultural, social and economic realms. Unlike national citizenship, where
individuals interact in such capacities with one sovereign state, transnational citizenship
transcends pre-established territorial boundaries in order to create a modern meaning of
"belonging" in an increasingly globalized society. Additionally, while preconceived notions of
citizenship are often divided between national, social and individual forms of identity, all three
categories serve to contribute to the meaning of transnational citizenship.

State citizenship can be defined as an individual establishing their sense of belonging by

espousing to the liberal-democratic values of the state in the public sphere. When applied to
transnational citizenship, an individual would have the opportunity to be civically engaged in
multiple societies.

In terms of the categories of social and individual forms of belonging, transnational citizens are

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marked by multiple identities and allegiances, and often travel between two or more countries,
all in which they have created sizeable networks of differing functions. Similar to global or

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cosmopolitan citizenship, it is composed of cross-national and multi-layered memberships to
certain societies. Transnational citizenship is based on the idea that a new global framework
consistent of subgroups of national identities will eventually replace membership to one sole
nation-state.

In a hyper-realized version of transnational citizenship, "states become intermediaries between

the local and the global." Institutionalizing transnational citizenship would loosen ties between
territories and citizenship and would ultimately result in a reconstruction of world order that
forever changes the capacity in which individuals interact with government institutions.

4.7.2 Membership and Rights in Transnational Migration

Dear students, we will discuss the right of citizen in transitional migration from three
perspectives as the following. We can define citizenship broadly as a status of full and equal
membership in a self-governing political community that entails rights and obligations and is
supported by certain virtues. In its narrowest sense, citizenship boils down to ‘nationality’, i.e. a
formal affiliation of persons to states. International migration creates a mismatch between
territory and citizenship in this sense: emigrant citizens who live abroad and foreign immigrants
who settle in receiving countries. This double incongruity generates two kinds of problems that
must be solved.

One problem is which rights and obligations states can assign to their emigrants without
interfering with the host state’s territorial sovereignty. ‘External citizenship’ entails minimally
the right to diplomatic protection and to be (re)admitted to the state of one’s citizenship.
Sometimes it also includes voting rights that can be exercised from abroad or obligations to do
military service in the ‘home country’.
The presence of foreign citizens in a state’s territory creates another set of problems associated
with liberal and democratic legitimations of political authority. In a liberal perspective
government is legitimate only to the extent that it guarantees equal freedom and protection to
everybody under its rule. External protection for foreign residents by sending states is not
enough when they face arbitrary legislation that discriminates against them in the receiving
country. Two solutions to this problem have been combined in liberal democracies: traditional
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privileges of citizenship have been disconnected from nationality by redefining them as universal
human rights or by attaching them to residence and employment. The list includes civil and
political liberties and social welfare entitlements as well as rights that are specifically relevant
for migrants, such as family reunification or immunity from deportation.
Migrants are different from other groups of the population that had been excluded on grounds of
class, gender, race or religion because the former, but not the latter, are perceived as belonging to
a different polity and owing allegiance to another sovereign. Although universalistic moral and
political principles of justice might be sufficient to state the case for inclusive citizenship, when
it comes to including migrants these arguments are filtered through more particularistic
perceptions of who belongs and who doesn’t. Firm political consensuses for inclusion can only
be established when societies receiving migrants, but also those sending them, develop a
collective identity that supports such inclusion.
What proponents of rights-based integration rarely ask is how societies must see themselves so
that they can see migrants as having a right to integrate. Citizenship in its narrow sense is a legal
relation between states and individuals, but in its comprehensive sense it signifies membership in
a self-governing community. This distinction allows us to reformulate the question as one about
the relation between state and political community. Which conception of political community
will support an extension of the legal rights and the status of citizenship that are administered by
the state? The key to answering this question is how migration links different political
communities to each other. Migration across state borders can be interpreted as involving each of
these three relations. And migrants’ claims to membership and rights will be seen quite
differently through these three looking glasses.
Transnational citizenship in receiving countries

From a transnational perspective, migration connects sending and receiving societies not only
through economic flows and cultural exchange, but generates overlapping boundaries of
membership. This condition of belonging simultaneously to two societies organized as
independent states is reflected in migrants’ subjective experiences and creates opportunities but
also burdens. The opportunities will be restricted and the burdens will be heavy if the condition
is not recognized by the states concerned. Recognizing the condition of migrant transnationalism
means, however, not merely making concessions to a particular group, but questioning the very
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foundations of traditional conceptions of citizenship as an exclusive membership in a single
political community. Combined with a multinational conception of federalism, a transnational
conception of citizenship contributes to redefining the boundaries of democratic community in
response to the dual challenge of globalization and identity struggles.
The theory of multinational federalism addresses the problems of devolving power and
membership in multinational states and of aggregating them at the supranational level, while a
theory of political transnationalism examines how lateral linkages between political communities
generate new rules for coordinating power and allocating membership between states. The
former theory envisages a multiplication of levels of nested self-government and the latter a
progressive blurring of boundaries that distinguish the inside of a political community from the
outside. In the sociological and anthropological literature the relevance of migrant
transnationalism is still under dispute.
4.7.2.1 Citizenship and Migration

Citizenship is a status of full and equal membership in a self governing political community.
Relations between such communities can be of three different kinds: international, multinational
or transnational. International relations are external ones between independent states;
multinational relations are internal ones between different national communities within a larger
polity; transnational relations refer to overlapping spheres of sovereignty, membership and
political activity between independent polities. Migration across state borders can be interpreted
as involving each of these three relations. Seen from an international perspective, migration does
not affect the conception of citizenship in the receiving society because migrants’ rights depend
primarily on their citizenship of origin and on international human rights. Alternatively,
migration has been seen as creating new forms of multinational diversity through an export of
national cultures from countries of origin to countries of destination.
4.7.2.2 .On The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens

Human rights activists and cosmopolitan theorists who rail against exclusive political borders
will be disappointed in The Rights of Others. Equally frustrated will be sovereignty stalwarts and
communitarians believing in the sanctity of those borders. From the principle that political
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inclusion is key to individual equality and rights realization, it is argued that exclusion of

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refugees and migrants from democratic processes is not ethically defensible, but neither are calls
for egalitarian membership in a global polity. Some scholars uses Immanuel Kant's right of
universal hospitality and Hannah Arendt's challenge to universal rights to elucidate a tension in
rights discourse: belief in a universal norm of equal treatment versus real equality being
embedded within particular communities. Kant's cosmopolitanism calls for the existence of
borders, but these borders are made porous by a universal right to sojourn in others' territories.
4.7.3. Cosmopolitan Citizenship

The idea of cosmopolitan or world citizenship seems to have first appeared in Ancient

Greece in the fourth century BC when the polis and the civic virtues associated with it were in
obvious decline. The cynic philosopher, Diogenes, called himself a citizen of the world because
he believed the polis no longer had first claim upon the individual’s political allegiances. In
Diogenes’ thought, the idea of world citizenship was used to criticise the polis rather than to
develop some vision of a universal community of humankind. Enlightenment thinkers such as
Kant used the concept of world citizenship more positively to promote a stronger sense of moral
obligation between the members of separate sovereign states. Since the Second World War,
members of global social movements have resurrected the notion of cosmopolitan citizenship to
defend a stronger sense of collective and individual responsibility for the world as a whole and to
support the development of effective global institutions for tackling global poverty and
inequality, environmental degradation and the violation of human
rights.

In the Stoic tradition, cosmopolitanism was a moral outlook that did not require building global
political institutions of government and citizenship. Since the Enlightenment political theorists
have, however, debated whether the growing global interdependency of human societies calls not
merely for universal rights but also for democratically accountable political authority at the
global level.
Cosmopolitan political theorists and political sociologists argue that the significance of formal
citizenship as legal status is diminished and informal forms of citizenship evolve: activities,
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practices, identities and solidarities of people that are not citizens in a formal legal sense and/or
that act in those social spheres that transcend traditional political locales. From a normative point

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of view criticism is raised that our thinking about democracy continues to hold on to traditional
conceptualizations that have become inadequate in light of new social facts, especially growing
interdependence and increasing vulnerability to domination in the global era. Under these
conditions ‘more of the same democracy’ cannot be the solution. The semantics of citizenship
that are trying to cover the new modalities of civic engagement are multiplying: the language of
global, cosmopolitan, trans- or post-national citizenship has become common currency.
4.7.4. The ‘Right To Have Rights’: State Citizenship And Global Justice

Second class citizens who find it hard to express their interests and demands through the
traditional institutions of liberal democracy may resort to forms of political participation outside
the institutional channels, and sometimes this kind of participation is adverse to democratic
principles and practices. However these heterodox from traditional liberal democratic point of
view forms of participation are not necessarily incompatible with democracy.
New conceptions of citizenship, representation and political participation that can strengthen
political equality and popular control over authorities, without threatening traditional civil
liberties, could be part of the solution to the shortcomings of the liberal democracy model of
citizenship, caused by poverty, inequality and the effects of globalisation on sovereignty of
national states. After all, "citizenship is, as it were, pushed along by the development of social
conflicts and social struggles (…) as social groups compete with each other over access to
resources" (Turner 1990:204). As Isin and Turner have pointed out:
The modern conception of citizenship as merely a status held under the authority of the state has
been contested and broadened to include various political and social struggles of recognition
and redistribution as instances of claim-making, and hence, by extension, of citizenship. As a
result, various struggles based upon identity and difference (whether sexual, racial, ethnic,
diasporic, ecological, technological and cosmopolitan) have found new ways of articulating
their claims as claims to citizenship understood not simple as a legal status, but as political and
social recognition and economic redistribution (Isin and Turner 2003:2).
Some scholars argue that, in order to eliminate or reduce social exclusion, it is necessary to
provide institutionalised means for the explicit recognition and representation of oppressed
groups. If a differentiatedcitizenship means special rights for disadvantaged groups, but

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invariably subordinated to universal human rights (specially civil rights), then it can be

71
consistent with democracy, and can strengthen it. Even when for orthodox liberals the idea of
differentiated citizenship and collective rights is unacceptable, from a historic perspective, civil,
political, and social rights have been changing, and many times expanding what in certain times
was considered as consistent with the conventional idea of citizenship –universal suffrage, for
example, which now is considered as an elemental citizen right, was seen by most liberal
thinkers as a threat to social order and rule during the nineteenth and the early twentieth
century’s.

CHAPTER FIVE: CITIZENSHIP AND DEMOCRACY

Introduction

This chapter introduces nexus between citizenship and democracy, global citizenship and global
civics, the end of citizenship? And other aspects of citizenship among the others. To deliver this
chapter, there will be student-centered teaching-learning approach.

Chapter objectives

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At the end of this chapter, students will be able to

 Define guardianship

 Examine the role and responsibilities of guardians

5.1 Deliberative Democracy and Citizenship

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Generally, deliberative democratic theory holds that an institutional framework is legitimate
when those affected bythe institution could reasonably be persuaded to be bound by it. In
deliberative democracy, every person, and every moral agent who has interests and whom my
actions and the consequences of my actions can impact and affect in some manner or another, is
potentially a moral-conversation partner with me: I have a moral obligation to justify myactions
with reasons to this individual or to the representatives of this being.' A serious challenge for
such a theory, however, is that any inquiry into the norms through which communities articulate
their boundaries leads to the dilemma that shared feature of all norms of membership, including
but not only norms of citizenship, is that those who are affected by the consequences of these
norms and, in the first place, by criteria of exclusion, per definitionem, cannot be party to their
articulation.

5.2 Guardianship

Dear students, who are a guardian, who can be a guardian, and what the role involves, how
long guardianship lasts?
A guardian is the person who makes the important decisions about the children's life. He/she
takes on all the duties, rights, responsibilities and powers that a parent has in bringing up that
child. As well as parents there are a range of people who can be appointed guardians. If a
relationship breaks up and one of the children's parents enters into a new relationship, the new
husband, wife or partner can be made a guardian of the children.

The role and responsibilities of guardians

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Guardianship is about parents' rights and responsibilities towards their children. Guardians have
a responsibility for the child's care, development, and upbringing. In particular, a guardian's
responsibilities to a child include:

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 I. Having the responsibility for the child's day-to-day care and upbringing. This means a safe
and secure home, loving care and attention, proper arrangements for school, for example.
A guardian appointed by a parent in their will does not have the right to have the child in
their care - if they want this they must apply to the Family Court for a Parenting Order.
II. Contributing to the child's development as a person - their intellectual, emotional, physical,
social, cultural and other development.
III. Making or helping the child make the important decisions in a child's life. These include
things like:
o where they live

o where they go to school

o medical treatment (other than routine medical matters)

o what their culture, language and religion will be

o any changes to their name.

The Care of Children Act envisages that when children are very young a guardian will make
decisions on their behalf about important matters affecting the child but that this will gradually
shift to a shared (sometimes sole) responsibility as children grow in maturity and understanding.

5.3. Citizenship and Democracy Today

Aristotle conceived of six forms of governance

1. Royalty, where one person rules in the name of the common interest;

2. Tyranny, that he considered a deviant form of royalty, where one person rules according
to his own private interests;
3. Aristocracy – a rule by a narrow clientele in the interest of the few;

4. Oligarchy, that he considered a deviant form of aristocracy, characterized as a form of

government where most political power effectively rests with a small segment of society
typically the most powerful, whether by wealth, military strength, ruthlessness, or
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 political influence;
5. Polity, or the proper rule of the many; and

6. Peoples Government or Democracy, a deviation of a polity.

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For Aristotle, democracy is exercised through the rule of the many and achieved by the people
who exercise self-government. He notes that democracy is not perfect. But he strongly argues
that democracy expresses the common good and involves citizens at the base.
People lack self-respect, and possibly respect for others too, in a regime under which they do not
have the possibility of expressing their views and being counted, no matter how benevolently
and efficiently it is run. Rulers need no longer see the ruled as equals, as entitled to give an
opinion and have their interests considered on the same terms as everyone else. And so they need
not take them into account. Democratic citizenship changes the way power is exercised and the
attitudes of citizens to each other. Because democracy gives us a share in ruling and in being
ruled in the ways indicated above, citizenship allows us both to control our political leaders and
to control ourselves and collaborate with our fellow citizens on a basis of equal concern and
respect.

The components of citizenship: towards a definition Citizenship, therefore, has an intrinsic link
to democratic politics. It involves membership of an exclusive club – those who take the key
decisions about the collective life of a given political community. And the character of that
community in many ways reflects what people make it. In particular, their participation or lack
of it plays an important role in determining how far, and in what ways, it treats people as equals.
Three linked components of citizenship emerge from this analysis – membership of a democratic
political community, the collective benefits and rights associated with membership, and
participation in the community’s political, economic, and social processes all of which combine
in different ways to establish a condition of civic equality.
The first component, membership or belonging, concerns who is a citizen. In the past, many
have been excluded from within as well as outside the political community. Internal exclusions
have included those designated as natural inferiors on racial, gender, or other grounds; or as
unqualified due to a lack of property or education; or as disqualified through having committed a
crime or become jobless, homeless, or mentally ill. So, in most established democracies women
obtained the vote long after the achievement of universal male suffrage, before which many
workers were excluded, while prisoners often lose their right to vote, as does – by default –
anyone who does not have a fixed address.

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The second component, rights, has often been seen as the defining criterion of citizenship.
Contemporary political philosophers have adopted two main approaches to identifying these
rights. A first approach seeks to identify those rights that citizens ought to acknowledge if they
are to treat each other as free individuals worthy of equal concern and respect. A second
approach tries, more modestly, simply to identify the rights that are necessary if citizens are to
participate in democratic decision-making on free and equal terms. Both approaches prove
problematic. Even if most committed democrats broadly accept the legitimacy of one or other of
these accounts of citizens’ rights as being implicit in the very idea of democracy, they come to
very different conclusions about the precise rights either approach might generate.
The third component, participation, comes in here. Calling citizenship the ‘right to have rights’
indicates how access to numerous rights depends on membership of a political community.
However, many human rights activists have criticized the exclusive character of citizenship for
this very reason, maintaining that rights ought to be available to all on an equal basis regardless
of where you are born or happen to live. As a result, they have sometimes argued against any
limits on access to citizenship. Rights should transcend the boundaries of any political
community and not depend on either membership or participation. Though there is much justice
in these criticisms, they are deficient in three main respects.
1. First, the citizens of well-run democracies enjoy a level and range of entitlements that
extend beyond what most people would characterize as human rights – that is, rights that
we are entitled to simply on humanitarian grounds.
2. For, second, rights also result from the positive activities of citizens themselves and their
contributions to the collective goods of their political community. In this respect,
citizenship forms the ‘right to have rights’ in placing in citizens’ own hands the ability to
decide which rights they will provide for and how. Some countries might choose to have
high taxes and generous public health, education, and social security schemes, say, others
to have lower taxes and less generous public provision of these goods, or more spending
on culture or on police and the armed forces.
3. Finally, none of the above rules out recognizing the ‘right to have rights’ as a human
right that creates an obligation on the part of existing democratic states to aid rather than
hinder democratization processes in non-democratic states, to give succour to asylum

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 seekers and to have equitable and non-discriminatory naturalization procedures for
migrant workers willing to commit to the duties of citizenship in their adopted countries.
Therefore, membership, rights, and participation go together. It is through being a member of a
political community and participating on equal terms in the framing of its collective life that we
enjoy rights to pursue our individual lives on fair terms with others. If we put these three
components together, we come up with the following definition of citizenship:
Citizenship is a condition of civic equality. It consists of membership of a political
community where all citizens can determine the terms of social cooperation on an
equal basis. This status not only secures equal rights to the enjoyment of the
collective goods provided by the political association but also involves equal
duties to promote and sustain them – including the good of democratic citizenship
itself.

The relationship between democracy and peopleness has become a difficult and contested
terrain. Nevertheless, the question of what forms and levels of peopleness democratic citizenship
might require does not gain enough attention. The form of peopleness that is implied in the
above reflections is oriented towards democratic citizenship and the value of equal (and
meaningful) membership in a self-governing political community. It is certainly not pre-political;
it rather sees the political community as constituted in a creative institution- as well as culture-
forming process. Nevertheless it asserts the requirement of subjective identification with a
collective entity, and citizens as supporters of a common enterprise: democratic self-
determination. Peopleness, in this perspective, is an institutionally mediated normative
achievement of a social group.
5.4. The End of Citizenship?

Increasingly there is a tendency to refer to the population of a state or a municipality in terms of

clients, users or customers of the public sector and its services, rather than as political citizens. If
one accepts an economic conception of politics, based on the assumption that political life
consists of individual choices in the same way as the market economy does, this development
will probably not be seen as dramatic. If, on the other hand, one understands politics as having an
irreducible collectivistic core, based on the ability to separate legitimate from illegitimate
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interests through discourse in the public sphere, these new relations might be seen as a
threatening privatization of the citizenry. While a political citizen is obliged to look for the best
solution for society as a whole, a client, user or customer only has to take account of his own
demands. However, the development must be analysed as a reasonable and – within certain
limits – warrantable response to the increasing load and complexity of the public agenda. But
still, the citizen role must be kept as the superior and integrative status in the population's
relationship to the authorities if democracy is to have any meaning.
Citizenship has changed over time, and its significance has also varied in different historical
periods. Many scholars have interpreted increasing privatization and political ambivalence in
modern states as a result of consumer- and utility-oriented morals. In other words, the citizens
seem to show more of a passive orientation towards rights than active participation in society.
The new roles that individuals are given may also contribute to this development, as they
structurally relieves people from the necessity to consider their own needs and demands relative
to others'.
5.5. Global Citizenship and Global Civics

By itself, citizenship has certain legal and democratic overtones. Conceptually, it is wrapped up
in rights and obligations, and in owing allegiance to a sovereign state whose power is retained by
the citizenry but with rights that are shared by all members of that state. We distinguish “citizen”
from “national” or “subject,” the latter two implying protection of a state. Citizenship, as it has
come down to us via the ancient Greeks and Romans, via the Enlightenment, and the American
and French Revolutions, is tied into the emergence of members of a polity with specified
privileges and duties. To speak of a“citizen” is thus to speak of individuals with distinct
relationships to the state, along with the social status and power these relationships imply.

Since modern nation-states are the repositories and main expression of citizenship, discussion of
global citizenship necessarily dictates an existence outside the body politic as we know it. If we
follow Preston’s (1997) model of citizenship (“who belongs to the polity, how the members of
the polity in general are regarded and how they exercise power”), then global citizenship cannot
be expressed in any legal sense. It is, however, expressed in other ways that may have a

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significant and profound impact on the development of civic engagement and citizen-state
relations.

Global citizenship is less defined by legal sanction than by “associational” status that is different
from national citizenship. Since there is no global bureaucracy to give sanction and protect
global citizens, and despite intriguing individuals to live, work and play within trans-national
norms and status that defy national boundaries and sovereignty Rather than a technical definition
of a citizen “on his or her relationship to the state, politicians suggests that the global citizen
represents a more holistic version: you choose where you work, live or play, and therefore are
not tied down to your land of birth. The greater number of choices offered by modern life (from
consumer products to politics) lies at the root of lifestyle politics.
Citizenship Six: Ethiopian Experience(The longer view)
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Before 1930, the issue of citizenship by large was regulated by custom and tradition in Ethiopia.
Even if there was no formal law, individuals strongly identified themselves with the state. The
state for the first time comes to have citizenship law in 1930 that was issued on July 22, and
amended on October 5, 1932. Nevertheless, the status of citizenship was more of subjects than
citizens. Acquiring of citizenship was bestowed to various nations, nationalities and peoples due
to their integration into the Ethiopian state. Moreover, the 1995 Ethiopian constitution (F.D.R.E
constitution) lay down some important principles with regard to citizenship in Ethiopia. It could
be said that both are generally similar to each other. However, few departures or changes are
made in the 1995 constitution. The major similarities and differences between the two rules are
the following.

6.1. Citizenship Law of the 1930

The Ethiopian law of citizenship that is still in effect was issued on July 22, 1930, and amended
on October 5; 1932.This law is based on the general principle of jus sanguinis. Unlike jus soli,
which awards the status of nationality by birthplace irrespective of the nationality of one's
parents, the principle of jus sanguinis gives a child the nationality of his parents, irrespective of
his or her birthplace. On the basis of the principle of jus sanguinis, Ethiopian law provides that
any person born in Ethiopia or abroad, whose father or mother is Ethiopian, is an Ethiopian base
on the following two qualifications.

1. The first qualification provides that every child born in a lawful mixed marriage follows
the nationality of the father.

2. The second qualification stipulates that the child legitimated through subsequent marriage
follows the nationality of his/her foreign father only on condition that the nationality law
of the father confers upon him the foreign nationality with all inherent rights. Otherwise,
the child preserves his/her Ethiopian nationality.

According to this law, Ethiopian citizens Loss of Ethiopian citizenship:

A. An Ethiopian woman contracts a lawful marriage with a foreigner and acquires her
husband's nationality.

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 B. A child born in a lawful marriage between an Ethiopian female and a foreigner follows
the nationality of the father, and

C. An Ethiopian subject changes his nationality and acquires foreign nationality.

The following some condition to acquire citizenship of Ethiopia according to this law.

1. An Ethiopian woman who married a foreigner, if the law of the country of which her
husband is a national does not entitle her to the nationality of her husband may retain
Ethiopian nationality.

2. A child born outside marriage where his parents subsequently marry if the national law
of the child's father does not confer upon him his father's nationality with all its inherent
rights may also retain Ethiopian nationality.

3. Acknowledgement of paternity of a child born from an Ethiopian mother by a father who

is a foreigner deprives the child of his Ethiopia nationality only if the child can acquire
his father's nationality with all its inherent rights.

4. Adoption is the other way of acquiring citizenship. Adoption of an Ethiopian child by a

foreign national made in accordance to the national law of the adopting person does not
cause a change of the adopted child's original nationality.

5. A woman who had lost her Ethiopian nationality by marriage to a foreigner may recover
it after the dissolution of the marriage by reason of divorce, separation or death of her
husband, if she returns to reside in Ethiopia, although for a limited time, she may be
stateless under such circumstances.

6. Any person who had lost his Ethiopian nationality may recover it when he/she returns to
reside in Ethiopia.

Dear student, this law further explains the condition in which foreigner may acquire Ethiopian
nationality. Based on this law, an individual may acquire Ethiopian nationality if and only if he
or she:

A. Has attained the age of majority according to the law of his/her country;

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B. Has lived at least for five years in Ethiopia;

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 C. Can earn his/her living (for himself and his family);

D. Can read and write the Amharic language; and

E. Produces evidence that he/she has not been previously convicted of a crime.

In spite of defiance with the five-year residence requirement, the Ethiopian Government may,
pursuant to the October 5,1932, amendment, accord Ethiopian nationality to a foreign applicant,
if he is deemed to be useful to the country or if there are some special reasons for granting it to
him. Consequently, the Ethiopian law of nationality by prescribing the exclusive determining
factors under which Ethiopian nationality can be acquired and lost has minimized the instances
in which problems of statelessness and dual (multi) nationality may occur.

6.2. Nationality law in the period 1974-1991 (People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia,
PDRE)
The second phase in the development and emergence of nationality law in Ethiopia includes
attempts made by the legal regime during the Dergue military government that overthrew the
monarchy.
The political ideology practised during the Dergue regime (1974-1991) was socialism. In stark
contrast with the Emperor’s assimilationist policy, the Dergue rolled out the principle of self-
determination of nationality whereby the development of a nation’s language and culture were
the prime focus.The concept of self-determination in Ethiopia began during this regime but it did
not have the same content and scope as it is practised nowadays.
Article 2 of the Constitution of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) adopted in
1987 provided that, while the PDRE was a unitary state, it should ensure the “equality of
nationalities, combat chauvinism and narrow nationalism and strengthen the unity of the
working people of all nationalities”, as well as “the realisation of regional autonomy” and “the
equality, development and respectability of the languages of the nationalities.”
Article 59 stipulated that “The Ethiopian people’s Democratic Republic is a Unitary State
comprising administrative and autonomous regions.”
Among other policy guidelines, the PDRE constitution in its part two on citizenship, freedoms,
rights and duties provided rules that define citizenship and citizenship rights. Article 31 (1)
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stated that “Any person with both or one parent of Ethiopian citizenship is an Ethiopian.”

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It also indicated that a foreign national and a person with statelessness can acquire Ethiopian
nationality as stated under Article 31(3). However, it provided that the particulars to this effect
shall be determined by law. Moreover, Article 32 (1) posited that the state shall “protect the
rights and benefits of Ethiopian nationals residing abroad.”
In line with the ideological position of the PDRE government, the constitution also established
specific provisions for granting asylum to members of liberation movements. Article 33 states
“The people’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia shall grant asylum to foreigners persecuted for
their struggle in national liberation and anti-racist movements and for the cause of peace and
democracy.”
The PDRE constitution also accorded protection to foreigners in Ethiopia. Article 34 (1 & 2)
read together read: “Citizens of other countries and stateless persons within the territory of the
People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia shall have freedom, rights and duties determined by
law. The state may not extradite a citizen of another country or a stateless person except as
stipulated by international agreement.”
Even though Article 31 (2 & 3) stated that the details of nationality law would be determined by
subsequent legislation, the Dergue regime was not in a position to manage to issue a law to that
effect.
Therefore, for the 17 years of its rule the gap was filled by the Emperor’s nationality law. The
1930 law was in full application. The researcher posits that, unlike in the time of the Emperor
when many foreigners were naturalised in Ethiopia, owing to the repressive military rule many
Ethiopians were forced to flee the country, live in foreign lands and naturalised as foreign
citizens.

6.3.Citizenship under the 1995 Constitution, The FDRE Constitution proclamation

No,,378/2003

Constitution is the fundamental law of a nation. Article 6 of the Constitution of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia declares that any person of either sex shall be an Ethiopian
national where both or either parent is Ethiopian. Hence, the constitution enshrines the principle
of jus sanguinis. The details of nationality laws of Ethiopia are legislated in the Ethiopian

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Nationality Proclamation No. 378/2003. In this proclamation (article 3) the principle of

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nationality by descent is provided- ‘Any person shall be an Ethiopian national by descent
where both or either of his parent is Ethiopian.

In addition, any infant who is found abandoned in Ethiopia shall be considered to have been born
to an Ethiopian parent and shall acquire Ethiopian nationality. But if is proved the infant has a
foreign nationality like by proving that his pares are foreigners he shall not acquired Ethiopian
nationality automatically. In this proclamation a person may acquire nationality by law that is
naturalization. A person can become a naturalized – citizen- of Ethiopia through many- ways the
application must be made to the National Affairs Committee that shall provide its
recommendation to the Security, immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority which shall have
the power to give decision to accord nationality.

The detailed condition to which foreigners acquires Ethiopian nationality according to the
stated proclamation was paraphrased as follows.

 Acquire Ethiopian Nationality

1. By Application :

 Any foreigner may apply to get Ethiopian nationality where the foreigner applies to
obtain Ethiopian nationality, he shall fulfil the following requirements.
 He must have attained the age of majority and be legally capable under the Ethiopian
law.
 He must have established his domicile (permanent residence) in Ethiopia and have
lived in Ethiopia for a total of at least fouryears preceding the submission of his
application.
 He must be able to communicate in any one of the languages of the Country.

 He must have sufficient and lawful source of income to maintain himself and his
family
 He must be a person of good character.

 He must have no record of criminal conviction.

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  He must be able to show that he has been released from his previous nationality or the
possibility of obtaining such a release up on the acquaint of Ethiopian nationality or
that he is a stateless person (this is to avoid dual nationality) and

 He must be required to take the oath of allegiance.“I , solemnly affirm that I will be a

loyal national of the federal democratic republic of Ethiopia and be faithful to its
constitution”.

2. By Marriage: a foreigner who is married to an Ethiopian national may acquire Ethiopian

nationality by the marriage if it is lawful marriage:

 The marriage has stayed for at least two years

 The applicant for the nationality has lived for at least a year before application to the
Ethiopia nationality

 He must be of age and legally capable

 He is released from his nationality or is to be soon released or is a stateless person

(this is to avoid dual nationality)

3. By Adoption: a child adopted by Ethiopian national may acquire Ethiopian nationality by law
if

 The child has not attained the age of majority.

 The child lives in Ethiopian together with his adopting parent

 Where one of his adopting parents is a foreigner such parent had expressed his

consent in writing and

 Where he is released from his previous nationality, or where he will be released from
his previous nationality when he obtains the Ethiopian nationality, or where he is
stateless. (Reason this is to avoid dual nationality)

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4. Outstanding contribution (Special case):In addition to regular naturalisation procedures,
the law provides for naturalisation in “special cases” with reduced formal requirements. This
seems to be initiated by the government or the state, allowing citizenship as a way of giving
special recognition to foreigners who have made an astounding contribution to the country. This

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 is a very common practice in many jurisdictions. In Ethiopia, “a foreigner who has made an
outstanding contribution in the interest of Ethiopia may be conferred with Ethiopian nationality
by law irrespective of the conditions stated under …” (Article 8).

Foreigner who has made outstanding contribution to the interest of the country may acquire
Ethiopian nationality although he has not lived in Ethiopian or does not speak either of the
Ethiopian languages.

Note that: where a person wants to acquire nationality on the basis of naturalization, he must
take, an oath of allegiance which states, ‘I… solemnly affirm that I will be a loyal national
of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopian and be faithful to its Constitution.’

5. Reintegration/restoration: According to Ethiopia nationality proclamation of 2003, Article

22, a person who was an Ethiopian national and who has acquired foreign nationality by law
shall be readmitted to Ethiopian nationality if he/she;
 Return to domicile in Ethiopia
 Renounce his foreign nationality
 Applies to the security Immigration and Refugee A fairs authority.

 Loss of Ethiopian Nationality

An Ethiopian citizen may loss Ethiopian citizenship for the following reason:

1. Renunciation

Renunciation refers to voluntary repudiation of citizenship. Hence, any Ethiopian who has
acquired or has been guaranteed the acquisition of the nationality of another state has the right to
renounce his Ethiopian nationality by informing the immigrationAuthority in the form
prescribed. However, the renunciation may not be accepted if the person has not yet discharged
his outstanding national obligations or where he has been accused or convicted for a crime and
he has not yet been acquitted or has not yet served.

Article 19 (1) states that “any Ethiopian who has acquired or has been guaranteed the acquisition
of the nationality of another state shall have the right to renounce his Ethiopian nationality.” This
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article tells us that renunciation has to be operational after securing another nationality. The
Ethiopian law provides additional safeguarding conditions on renouncing Ethiopian nationality.

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Article 19 (4) a & b states that: An Ethiopian who has declared his intension to renounce his
nationality may not be released until:

a) he has discharged his outstanding national obligations;

b) if he has been accused of or convicted of a crime, he has been acquitted or served the penalty.

2. Acquisition

In line with the intentions of the UDHR, Ethiopia recognises the right of individuals to change
nationality and specifies that “any national has the right to change his Ethiopian nationality”
(Article 16).

The loss of Ethiopian nationality on the acquisition of another nationality is considered voluntary
renunciation of Ethiopian nationality: “… any Ethiopian who voluntarily acquires another
nationality shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced his Ethiopian nationality” (Article 20
(1)).

Article 20 (4) provides that “A person who retains another nationality in addition to Ethiopian
nationality shall be considered solely an Ethiopian national until the loss of his Ethiopian
nationality pursuant to Sub-Articles (2) or (3) of this Article.” One inbuilt caveat of the law is
that the loss of Ethiopian nationality does not have implications for spouses and/or children: “a
person’s loss of Ethiopian nationality shall have no effect on the nationality of his spouses and
children” (Article 21).

Any Ethiopian who voluntarily acquires another nationality shall be considered to have
voluntarily renounced his Ethiopian nationality. This is to avoid double nationality. Except under
involuntary acquisition of another state’s citizenship, dual citizenship is not allowed under
Ethiopian law.

 Note that: a foreigner who was an Ethiopian national but later acquired foreign nationality
may be readmitted to Ethiopian nationality if he returns to residence in Ethiopia, renounces
his foreign nationality and applies to the immigration Authority for re- admission.

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3.Deprivation: A citizen of state may be deprived of his/her citizenship, if he/she is guilty of
committing certain serious crimes against the state such as;
 To make access the national secrete to the enemy country.

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  Serving in another country’s armed force.
 Trying to overthrow the government by force.
 Promising loyalty to another country.
In such cases, the government on behalf of the state may take away the citizenship statues of a
person. However, this is not applicable in Ethiopia. According to Article 17 of the Proclamation
No.378/2003, no Ethiopian national may be deprived of his/her nationality by the decision of
any government authority.
4,Substitution: When a person looses his/her citizenship status up in the acquisition of other
citizenship. In this case a person substitutes the previous citizenship with the new one. According
to Ethiopia nationality proclamation of 2003 Article 20, Ethiopian nationality can be lost up on
acquisition of other nationality. On the other side, substitution also may take place when a
particular territory is annexed by another state, and then the inhabitants’ citizenships with the
annexed territory will be replaced by the citizenship of the subjugator- because of integration or
disintegration.
5. Lapse (Expatriation): Citizenship may be lost if the person stays outside of his/her country for long
and continuous period of time. E.g. in India, a citizen of India could lose citizenship right if he/ she stay
outside of India for 7 and above consecutive years. Thus, citizenship may be lost due to lapse case, i.e., in
case the person stays outside of his/her home country for a long and continuous period. How about in
Ethiopia? Principle of lapse has no application according to 2003 nationality proclamation of Ethiopia.

 Dual nationality
The Idea of Dual/Mixed Citizenship

Dual-citizenship refers to the condition of acquiring citizenship of two or more countries at the same time.
There are times when a person finds himself/herself with multiple citizenship status. This might be due to
an overlap of countries’ citizenship laws, i.e. a person may have one because of his /her place of birth (Jus
soli) and another because of his/her parent’s citizenship by blood (Jus sanguinis), due to marriage, grant
on application, etc.Ethiopia has never recognised dual nationality. The 1930 Nationality Law, the
1995 Constitution and the 2003 Proclamation on Ethiopian Nationality all provide that when an
Ethiopian acquires another nationality he or she automatically loses his or her Ethiopian
nationality and that a person naturalising must renounce their existing nationality.

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Dual nationality was debated and justification by legal experts was sought by the constitutional
drafting committee. It appears that the lack of justification to support dual nationality is the
possible reason for the drafters not including it. However, despite being unconfirmed there are
alleged cases of people having two passports with some of them alleged to even be government
office holders. There is currently a debate on the pros and cons of allowing dual citizenship in
Ethiopia.


According to the current Ethiopian nationality law, dual-nationality is not recommended. Article 20 of
Proc. No. 378/2003 states that:
1) Without prejudice to the provision of article 19 (4) of this proclamation, any Ethiopian who
voluntary acquires another nationality shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced his
Ethiopian nationality.

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2) An Ethiopian who acquires another nationality by virtue of being born to a parent having a
foreign nationality or by being born abroad shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced his
other nationality unless he has declared to the authority his option to retain it by renouncing his
other nationality within one year after attaining the age of majority or unless there has been an
earlier expressed renunciation of his Ethiopian nationality pursuant to Article 19(3) of this
proclamation.
3) An Ethiopian who acquires, in the absence of his own initiative, another nationality by the
operation of the law in connection with any ground other than those specified under sub-article
(2) of this article shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced his Ethiopian nationality if he
starts exercising the rights conferred to such acquired nationality or fails to declare his option to
the authority to retain his Ethiopian nationality by renouncing his other nationality with in a
period of one year.
4) A person who retains another nationality in addition to Ethiopian nationality shall be
considered an Ethiopian national until the loss of his Ethiopian nationality pursuant to sub-article
(2) or (3) of this Article.

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