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The Importance of Being an Active and Responsible Citizen

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Published: Mar 6, 2024

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Defining good citizenship, importance of good citizenship, role of college students in shaping communities.

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What Does it Mean to Be a Good Citizen?

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9. The responsibilities of citizenship

When it comes to what it takes to be a good citizen, the public has a long list of traits and behaviors that it says are important. And there’s a fair amount of agreement across groups about what it takes to be a good citizen.

Still, there are differences when it comes to which aspects are considered very important (as opposed to somewhat important), and points of emphasis differ by party identification as well as by age.

Overall, 91% say it is either very (74%) or somewhat (17%) important to vote in elections in order to be a good citizen; just 8% say this is not too or not at all important.

Large shares also say it is important to pay all the taxes you owe (92%) and to always follow the law (96%), including about seven-in-ten who say each is very important (71% and 69%, respectively).

For several other traits and behaviors, about nine-in-ten say they are at least somewhat important to good citizenship. However, the share saying each is very important varies significantly. For example, 89% say it’s important to serve jury duty if called, including 61% who say this is very important. While a comparable 90% say it’s important to follow what’s happening in government and politics as part of good citizenship, a smaller share (49%) says this very important.

Protesting government actions you think are wrong and knowing the Pledge of Allegiance are considered important parts of what it means to be a good citizen, though they rank somewhat lower on the public’s list. Displaying the American flag ranks last among the 11 items tested in the survey. Still, a majority says this is either a very (36%) or somewhat (26%) important part of what it means to be a good citizen.

Republicans and Democrats largely agree on the importance of most responsibilities of citizenship.

About three-quarters of Republicans and Republican leaners (76%) and Democrats and Democratic leaners (75%) say it’s very important to vote in elections.

Similarly, comparable majorities of Republicans and Democrats say it’s very important to pay all the taxes you owe, serve jury duty if called, respect the opinions of those you disagree with and participate in the census. There also are no partisan divides over the importance of volunteering to help others and following what’s going on in government and politics.

However, Republicans (79%) are more likely than Democrats (61%) to say it’s very important to always follow the law to be a good citizen.

Knowing the Pledge of Allegiance ranks higher on Republicans’ list (71% say it’s very important) than Democrats’ (just 34% say it’s very important). In addition to placing greater importance on the Pledge of Allegiance, Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to say it is very important to display the American flag (50% vs. 25%).

By contrast, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to think it is very important to protest if government actions are believed to be wrong: About half of Democrats (52%) this is very important to what it means to be a good citizen, compared with just about a third (35%) of Republicans.

Partisans and ‘leaners’ differ over importance of aspects of citizenship

On many items, the views of independents that lean toward one of the two major parties diverge from those of self-identifying Republicans and Democrats. In general, partisan leaners tend to be less likely than straight Republicans and Democrats to view a range of responsibilities as important to what it means to be a good citizen.

Overall, 83% of Republicans say voting in elections is a very important aspect of being a good citizen, compared with a smaller majority of Republican leaners (67%). There is an even wider 28-point gap between the share of Democrats (86%) and Democratic leaners (58%) who say this is very important.

Similarly, roughly two-thirds of both Republicans (64%) and Democrats (68%) say participating in the U.S. census every 10 years is very important to being a good citizen; slightly fewer Republican leaners (55%) and Democratic leaners (53%) say the same.

This pattern is seen across other items as well: Those who identify with a party are more likely than independents who lean to a party to say it is very important to serve jury duty if called, pay all owed taxes and to follow what is happening in government.

While large shares of Republicans (96%) and Republican leaners (87%) say it is important to know the Pledge of Allegiance, Republican identifiers are somewhat more likely than leaners to say this is very important to good citizenship.

By comparison, smaller majorities of Democrats (67%) and Democratic leaners (60%) say it’s important to know the pledge. Self-identifying Democrats (42%) are significantly more likely to say knowing the pledge is a very important part of good citizenship than Democratic leaners (24%).

There is a 22-point gap between the share of Republicans (90%) and Republican leaners (68%) who say displaying the American flag is at least somewhat important to being a good citizen. And 63% of Republicans call this very important, compared with 35% of Republican leaners. About half of Democrats (52%) think this is a very or somewhat important aspect of good citizenship; 43% of Democratic leaners say the same.

In contrast to the patterns seen on many items, Republican leaners (81%) are more likely than Republicans (66%) to say protesting government actions you think are wrong is an important part of being a good citizen. The views of Republican leaners place them closer to those of Democrats and Democratic leaners in terms of the overall importance they place on this aspect of citizenship.

Age differences in views of the responsibilities of citizenship

Young adults place less importance on many aspects of citizenship than older adults, especially when it comes to the share that describes a trait or behavior as very important for being a good citizen.

Majorities of adults across all ages say it is very important to vote in elections in order to be a good citizen. Still, a smaller majority of those under 30 say this (56%), compared with larger shares of those ages 30 to 49 (72%), 50 to 64 (76%) and 65 and older (92%).

And while fully 81% of those 65 and older say that to be a good citizen it is very important to serve jury duty if called, just about half (47%) of those under 30 say the same.

On other items, the pattern is similar. Young adults are less likely to call paying the taxes you owe, following the law, participating in the census, and following government and politics very important. Still, large majorities of young adults say each of these is at least somewhat important to being a good citizen.

There is no meaningful age gap in views of the importance of protesting government actions you think are wrong. Overall, 85% of those ages 18 to 29 say this is either very (45%) or somewhat (40%) important to being a good citizen. Views among those ages 65 and older are similar (50% very important, 36% somewhat important).

Displaying the American flag and knowing the Pledge of Allegiance do not rank particularly highly for young adults on their list of important characteristics for good citizenship. Among those ages 18 to 29, 63% say it is important to know the Pledge of Allegiance (38% very important) and 53% say it is important to display the American flag (19% very important). These items do not top the list of older adults either, though those 65 and older are more likely than the youngest adults to say both are important parts of being a good citizen.

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Citizenship

A citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the duties of membership. This broad definition is discernible, with minor variations, in the works of contemporary authors as well as in the entry “ citoyen ” in Diderot’s and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie [1753]. [ 1 ] Notwithstanding this common starting-point and certain shared references, the differences between 18 th century discussions and contemporary debates are significant. The encyclopédiste ’s main preoccupation, understandable for one living in a monarchy, was the relationship between the concepts ‘citizen’ and ‘subject’. Were they the same (as Hobbes asserted) or contradictory (as a reading of Aristotle suggested)? [ 2 ] This issue is less central today as it is often assumed that a liberal democratic regime is an appropriate starting-point for thinking about citizenship. This does not mean, however, that the concept has become uncontroversial. After a long period of relative calm, there has been a dramatic upsurge in philosophical interest in citizenship since the early 1990s (Kymlicka and Norman 1994).

Two broad challenges have led theorists to re-examine the concept: first, the need to acknowledge the internal diversity of contemporary liberal democracies; second, the pressures wrought by globalisation on the territorial, sovereign state. We will focus on each of these two challenges, examining how they prompted new discussions and disagreements.

The entry has four sections. The first examines the main dimensions of citizenship (legal, political, identity) and sees how they are instantiated in very different ways within the two dominant models: the republican and the liberal. The feminist critique of the private/public distinction, central to both models, serves as a bridge to the entry’s second section. It focuses upon two important debates about the implications of social and cultural pluralism to conceptions of citizenship: first, should they recognize, rather than transcend, difference and, if so, does this recognition affect citizenship’s purported role in strengthening social cohesion? Second, how is one to understand the relation between citizenship and nationality under conditions of pluralism? The third section discusses the challenges which globalisation poses to theories of citizenship. These theories have long taken for granted the idea that citizenship’s necessary context is the sovereign, territorial state. This premise is being contested by those who question the state’s right to determine who is accepted as a member and/or claim that citizenship can be meaningful beyond the boundaries of the nation-state. The entry’s fourth and final section looks at how recent discussions in the fields of disability rights and animal rights challenge a basic premise of the literature on citizenship since Aristotle: the idea that discursive rationality constitutes a threshold condition to citizenship.

1.1 Definitions

1.2 two models of citizenship: republican and liberal, 1.3 the feminist critique, 2.1 universalist vs differentialist conceptions of citizenship, 2.2 liberal nationalists vs postnationalists, 3.1 citizenship and borders, 3.2 citizens, non-citizens, and rights, 3.3 debating transnational citizenship: statists vs. globalists, 4. citizenship’s new frontier, 5. conclusion, other internet resources, related entries, 1. dimensions of citizenship.

The concept of citizenship is composed of three main elements or dimensions (Kymlicka and Norman 2000; Carens 2000). The first is citizenship as legal status, defined by civil, political and social rights. Here, the citizen is the legal person free to act according to the law and having the right to claim the law’s protection. It need not mean that the citizen takes part in the law’s formulation, nor does it require that rights be uniform between citizens. The second considers citizens specifically as political agents, actively participating in a society’s political institutions. The third refers to citizenship as membership in a political community that provides a distinct source of identity.

In many ways, the identity dimension is the least straightforward of the three. Authors tend to include under this heading many different things related to identity, both individual and collective, and social integration. Arguably, this is inescapable since citizens’ subjective sense of belonging, sometimes called the “psychological” dimension of citizenship (Carens 2000, 166), necessarily affects the strength of the political community’s collective identity. If enough citizens display a robust sense of belonging to the same political community, social cohesion is obviously strengthened. However, since many other factors can impede or encourage it, social integration should be seen as an important goal (or problem) that citizenship aims to achieve (or resolve), rather than as one of its elements. As we will see, one crucial test for any conception of citizenship is whether it can be said to contribute to social integration.

Relations between the three dimensions are complex: the rights a citizen enjoys will partly define the range of available political activities while explaining how citizenship can be a source of identity by strengthening her sense of self-respect (Rawls 1972, 544). A strong civic identity can itself motivate citizens to participate actively in their society’s political life. That distinct groups within a state do not share the same sense of identity towards ‘their’ political community (or communities) can be a reason to argue in favour of a differentiated allocation of rights (Carens 2000, 168–173).

Differences between conceptions of citizenship centre around four disagreements: over the precise definition of each element (legal, political and identity); over their relative importance; over the causal and/or conceptual relations between them; over appropriate normative standards.

Discussions about citizenship usually have, as their point of reference, one of two models: the republican or the liberal. The republican model’s sources can be found in the writings of authors like Aristotle, Tacitus, Cicero, Machiavelli, Harrington and Rousseau, and in distinct historical experiences: from Athenian democracy and Republican Rome to the Italian city-states and workers’ councils.

The key principle of the republican model is civic self-rule, embodied in classical institutions and practices like the rotation of offices, underpinning Aristotle’s characterization of the citizen as one capable of ruling and being ruled in turn. Citizens are, first and foremost, “those who share in the holding of office” (Aristotle Politics , 1275a8). Civic self-rule is also at the heart of Rousseau’s project in the Contrat Social : it is their co-authoring of the laws via the general will that makes citizens free and laws legitimate. [ 3 ] Active participation in processes of deliberation and decision-making ensures that individuals are citizens, not subjects. [ 4 ] In essence, the republican model emphasizes the second dimension of citizenship, that of political agency.

The liberal model’s origins are traceable to the Roman Empire and early-modern reflections on Roman law (Walzer 1989, 211). The Empire’s expansion resulted in citizenship rights being extended to conquered peoples, profoundly transforming the concept’s meaning. Citizenship meant being protected by the law rather than participating in its formulation or execution. It became an “important but occasional identity, a legal status rather than a fact of everyday life” (Walzer 1989, 215). The focus here is on the first dimension: citizenship is primarily understood as a legal status rather than as a political office. It now “denotes membership in a community of shared or common law, which may or may not be identical with a territorial community” (Pocock 1995, 37). The Roman experience shows that the legal dimension of citizenship is potentially inclusive and indefinitely extensible.

The liberal tradition, which developed from the 17 th century onwards, understands citizenship primarily as a legal status: political liberty is important to protect individual freedoms from interference by other individuals or the authorities themselves. Citizens exercise these freedoms primarily in the world of private associations and attachments, rather than in the political domain.

At first glance, the two models offer a clear set of alternatives: citizenship as a political office or a legal status; central to an individual’s sense of self or as an “occasional identity”. The citizen appears either as the primary political agent or as an individual whose private activities leave little time or inclination to engage actively in politics, entrusting the business of law-making to representatives. If the liberal model of citizenship dominates contemporary constitutional democracies, the republican critique of the private citizen’s passivity and insignificance is still alive and well.

Republicans have problems of their own. First and foremost is a concern, often repeated since Benjamin Constant, that their ideal has become largely obsolete in the changed circumstances of the “ grands États modernes ” (Constant 1819). Aiming to realize the original republican ideal in the present context would be a disaster, as was the Jacobins’ attempt during the French revolution (Walzer 1989, 211). Today’s citizens will not be Romans: first, the scale and complexity of modern states seem to preclude the kind of civic engagement required by the republican model. If an individual’s chances of having an impact as an active citizen are close to nil, then it makes more sense for him to commit himself to non-political activities, be they economic, social or familial. His identity as citizen is not central to his sense of self and politics is only one of his many interests (Constant 1819, 316). Second, the heterogeneity of modern states does not allow the kind of “moral unity” and mutual trust that has been projected onto the ancient polis , qualities deemed necessary to the functioning of republican institutions (Walzer 1989, 214). However, if ancient virtue is irrecoverable, the republican model may still act today as “a benchmark that we appeal to when assessing how well our institutions and practices are functioning” (Miller 2000, 84). In essence, this involves a reformulation of the model, questioning some of its original premises while holding onto the ideal of the citizen as an active political agent.

Instead of opposing the two models, we could reasonably see them as complementary. Political liberty, as Constant pointed out, is the necessary guarantee of individual liberty. Echoing Constant, Michael Walzer considers that the two conceptions “go hand in hand” since “the security provided by the authorities cannot just be enjoyed; it must itself be secured, and sometimes against the authorities themselves. The passive enjoyment of citizenship requires, at least intermittently, the activist politics of citizens” (Walzer 1989, 217). There are times when individuals need only be “ private citizens” and others when they must become “private citizens ” (Ackermann 1988). Can we expect passive spectators of political life to become active citizens should the need arise? This is no easy question and may explain why Constant ended his famous essay by insisting that the regular exercise of political liberty is the surest means of moral improvement, opening citizens’ minds and spirits to the public interest, and to the importance of defending their freedoms. Such habituation underpins their capacity and willingness to protect their liberties and the institutions that support them (Constant 1819, 327–328). [ 5 ]

Since the 1970s, feminist theorists have sharply criticized the republican and liberal models’ shared assumption of a rigid separation between the private and the public spheres. Their critique has provided the impetus to the development of alternative conceptions of politics and citizenship.

In its classical formulation, the republican conception sees the public/political sphere as the realm of liberty and equality: it is there that free, male citizens engage with their peers and deliberate over the common good, deciding what is just or unjust, advantageous or harmful (Aristotle Politics , 1253a11). The political space must be protected from the private sphere, defined as the domain of necessity and inequality, where the material reproduction of the polis is secured. Women, associated with the ‘natural world’ of reproduction, are denied citizenship and relegated to the household.

Feminists have criticized this rigid division as mythical since both the separation itself and the radically unequal conception of the household that it presupposed “were clearly the outcome of political decisions made in the public sphere” (Okin 1992, 60). If the division ostensibly made it possible for citizens to engage with each other as equals, feminists doubt whether it ever was the ideal way of achieving this goal. Hence Susan Okin’s question to republicans: “Which is likely to produce better citizens, capable of acting as each other’s equals? Having to deal with things part of the time — even the ‘mundane’ things of daily life? Or treating most people as things? ” (Okin 1992, 64–65). An egalitarian family is a much more fertile ground for equal citizens than one organized like a school for despotism (J.S. Mill); if this means that the political space cannot remain insulated from the world of things, there’s no great loss.

The liberal model, for its part, gives primacy to the private sphere. Political liberty is seen in instrumental terms: the formal rights of individuals secure the private sphere from outside interference, allowing the free pursuit of their particular interests (Dietz 1998, 380–81). However, the neutral language of Lockean egalitarian individualism hides the reality of women’s subjection: “woman’s sphere” can be read as “male property” since wives are described as naturally subordinated to their husbands. Here as well, the division between private and public has prevented women from gaining access to the public (Pateman 1989, 120; Dietz 1998, 380–81; Okin 1991, 118).

Since the public and private “are, and always have been, inextricably connected” (Okin 1992, 69), the upshot of the feminist critique is not simply to make models of citizenship inclusive by recognizing that women are individuals or to acknowledge that they too can be citizens. Rather, we must see how laws and policies structure personal circumstances (e.g. laws about rape and abortion, child-care policies, allocation of welfare benefits, etc.) and how some ‘personal problems’ have wider significance and can only be solved collectively through political action (Pateman 1989, 131). This does not make the distinction irrelevant and the categories collapsible. However, it does mean that the boundaries between public and private should be seen as a social construction subject to change and contestation and that their hierarchical characterization should be resisted.

Once the abstractions that characterize both the classical and the liberal conceptions are discarded, the citizen sheds his “political lion skin” (Pateman 1989, 92 quoting Marx 1843) and appears as “situated” in a social world characterized by differences of gender, class, language, race, ethnicity, culture, etc. To accept that politics cannot and should not be insulated from private/social/economic life is not to dissolve the political, but, rather, to revive it since anything is as political as citizens choose to make it. This contextualized conception of the political has informed much of the criticism aimed at the universalist model of citizenship and has inspired the formulation of a differentialist alternative.

2. The challenge of internal diversity

The universalist or unitary model defines citizenship primarily as a legal status through which an identical set of civil, political and social rights are accorded to all members of the polity. T.H. Marshall’s seminal essay “Citizenship and Social Class” is the main reference for this model, which became progressively dominant in post-World War II liberal democracies. Marshall’s central thesis was that the 20 th century’s expansion of social rights was crucial to the working class’s progressive integration in British society (Marshall 1950). [ 6 ] Similar stories were told in other Western democracies: the development of welfare policies aimed at softening the impact of unemployment, sickness and distress was fundamental to political and social stability. The apparent success of the post-war welfare state in securing social cohesion was a strong argument in favour of a conception of citizenship focused on the securing of equal civil, political and social rights.

The universalist model was aggressively targeted at the end of the 1980s as the moral and cultural pluralism of contemporary liberal societies elicited increasing theoretical attention. Scepticism towards the universalist model was spurred by concerns that the extension of citizenship rights to groups previously excluded had not translated into equality and full integration, notably in the case of Afro-Americans and women (Young 1989; Williams 1998). A questioning of the causal relation assumed between citizenship as a uniform legal status and civic integration followed.

Critics argued that the model proves exclusionary if one interprets universal citizenship as requiring (a) the transcendence of particular, situated perspectives to achieve a common, general point of view and (b) the formulation of laws and policies that are difference-blind (Young 1989). The first requirement seems particularly odious once generality is exposed as a myth covering the majority’s culture and conventions. The call to transcend particularity too often translates into the imposition of the majority perspective on minorities. The second requirement may produce more inequality rather than less since the purported neutrality of difference-blind institutions often belies an implicit bias towards the needs, interests and identities of the majority group. This bias often creates specific burdens for members of minorities, i.e. more inequality.

Critics of this (failed) universalism have proposed an alternative conception of citizenship based on the acknowledgment of the political relevance of difference (cultural, gender, class, race, etc.). This means, first, the recognition of the pluralist character of the democratic public, composed of many perspectives, none of which should be considered a priori more legitimate. Second, it entails that, in certain cases at least, equal respect may justify differential treatment and the recognition of special minority rights.

Once these two points are conceded, the question becomes when, and for what reason, the recognition of particular rights is either justified or illegitimate. This discussion is necessarily context specific, focusing on concrete demands made by groups in particular circumstances, and shies away from easy generalizations. It has led to an array of publications covering issues ranging from the fate of ‘minorities within minorities’ to how tolerant liberal societies should be of illiberal groups, etc. [ 7 ]

The model of differentiated citizenship has generated its own share of criticisms and queries, particularly with regards to the overall effects of its implementation. Critics focus on its impact on the possibility of a common political practice. Consider Iris Young’s vision of a heterogeneous public where participants start from their “situated positions” and attempt to construct a dialogue across differences. This dialogue requires participants to be ‘public-spirited’ — open to the claims of others and not single-mindedly self-interested. Unlike interest group pluralism, which does not require justifying one’s interest as right or as compatible with social justice, participants are supposed to use deliberation to come to a decision that they determine to be best or more just (Young 1989, 267). While welcoming Young’s conception of the democratic public, one may doubt that the policies and institutions associated with a differentiated model of citizenship would either motivate or enable citizens to engage in such dialogue.

This analysis is tied to a wider literature on the virtues required of citizens in pluralist liberal democracies and on ways to favour their development. Stephen Macedo (1990), William Galston (1991), and Eamonn Callan (1997), among others, have all emphasized the importance of public reasonableness. This virtue is defined as the ability to listen to others and formulate one’s own position in a way that is sensitive to, and respectful of, the different experiences and identities of fellow citizens, acknowledging that these differences may affect political views. This raises many questions: how and where does one develop this and related virtue(s)? If a differentiated model of citizenship simply allows individuals and groups to retreat into their particular enclaves, how are they to develop either the motivation or the capacity to participate in a common forum?

This explains the abiding interest of political philosophers in education. If citizens of diverse societies are to develop the ‘right’ attitudes and dispositions, does this mean encouraging a common education, the development of a school curriculum that teaches respect for difference, while providing the necessary skills for democratic discussion across these differences? In this case, should demands for separate schools or dispensations for minorities be resisted? How flexible should public schools be towards minorities if the goal is to make them feel welcome and ensure that they do not retreat into parochial institutions (Callan 1997; Gutmann 1999; Brighouse 2000, 2006)? [ 8 ]

Critics of differentiated citizenship have also argued that policies that break with difference-blind universalism weaken the integrative function of citizenship. If embracing multicultural and minority rights means that citizens lose their sense of collective belonging, it may also affect their willingness to compromise and make sacrifices for each other. Citizens may then develop a purely strategic attitude towards those of different backgrounds. As Joseph Carens puts it: “From this perspective, the danger of […] differentiated citizenship is that the emphasis [it] place[s] on the recognition and institutionalization of difference could undermine the conditions that make a sense of common identification and thus mutuality possible” (Carens 2000, 193).

In addressing these and similar queries, Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman have broadly distinguished between three types of demands: special representation rights (for disadvantaged groups), multicultural rights (for immigrant and religious groups) and self-government rights (for national minorities) (Kymlicka and Norman 1994; Kymlicka, 1995, 176–187). The first two are really demands for inclusion into mainstream society: special representation rights are best understood as (temporary) measures to alleviate the obstacles that minorities and/or historically disadvantaged groups face in having their voices heard in majoritarian democratic institutions. Reforming the electoral system to ensure the better representation of minorities may raise all sorts of difficult issues, but the aim is clearly integration into the larger political society, not isolation.

Similarly, the demands for multicultural rights made by immigrant groups are usually aimed either at exemption from laws and policies that disadvantage them because of their religious practices or at ensuring public support for particular education and/or cultural initiatives to maintain and transmit elements of their cultural and religious heritage. These should be seen as measures designed to facilitate their inclusion in the larger society rather than as a way to avoid integration. It is only claims to self-government rights, grounded in a principle of self-determination, that potentially endanger civic integration since their aim is not to achieve a greater presence in the institutions of the central government, but to gain a greater share of power and legislative jurisdiction for institutions controlled by national minorities.

Addressing this kind of demand through a simple reaffirmation of the ideal of common citizenship is not a serious option. It may only aggravate the alienation felt by members of these groups and feed into more radical political projects, including secession. Further, to say that recognition of self-government rights may weaken the bonds of the larger community is to suppose that these bonds exist in the first place and that a significant proportion of national minorities identify with the larger society. This may be overly optimistic. If these bonds do not exist, or remain quite weak, what is needed is the construction of a genuine dialogue between the majority society and minorities over what constitutes just relations, through which difference can be recognized. The hope is that dialogue would strengthen, rather than weaken, their relationship by putting it on firmer moral and political grounds (Carens 2000, 197).

This broadly positive assessment of the effects of differentiated citizenship on civic integration is contested. On the one hand, left-leaning authors have complained that multicultural politics make egalitarian policies more difficult to achieve by diverting “political effort away from universalistic goals” and by undermining efforts to build a broadly based coalition supporting ambitious policies of redistribution (Barry 2001, 325). On the other hand, events like September 11, the Mohammed cartoons affair (2005, see Klausen 2009), riots in the banlieux of Paris (2005), London (2011) and Stockholm (2017), as well as a series of terrorist attacks in Europe have led to a backlash against multicultural policies. The belief that demands for multicultural rights are really demands for inclusion in the larger society has been thrown into doubt, notably in the case of Muslim immigrants.

To allay fears about the supposed trade-off between cultural recognition and redistribution, supporters of multiculturalism cite the lack of empirical studies establishing a negative correlation between the adoption of multicultural policies and a robust welfare state (Banting and Kymlicka 2006, Banting 2005). Further, claims that the push for multicultural policies diverts energies, time and resources from the struggle for redistributive policies assume that the pursuit of justice is zero-sum, seemingly a false generalization. On the contrary, it can be argued that: “the pursuit of justice in one dimension helps build a broader political culture that supports struggles for justice in other dimensions” (Kymlicka 2009). In the same vein, to claim that paying attention to issues of cultural recognition tends to warp our sensitivity to economic injustice is to assume that we can only be sensitive to one dimension of injustice at a time. However, it is equally plausible that sensitivity to a particular type of injustice may favour, rather than hinder, sensitivity to other injustices.

In response to concerns about social and civic unity, liberal democracies have introduced a series of policies aimed at better securing the integration of immigrants: requiring minimal linguistic proficiency in the majority language as a condition of citizenship or banning religious symbols from public schools. These policies have sometimes been heralded as signaling the development of a ‘muscular liberalism’ (Former British PM David Cameron, quoted by Joppke 2014) as an alternative to multiculturalism. They have been hotly debated from the perspective of factual efficacy as well as from a normative perspective. The introduction of ‘citizenship tests’ for resident immigrants has led to a vigorous debate among normative theorists: under what conditions and in what form can they be justified? Some, like Carens (2010a), have argued that they are basically unjust, no matter what form they take. If one understands membership in a society to flow from long-term residence, as Carens does, then any test that “prevents a full member of a society from becoming a citizen unjustly deprives her of an entitlement to citizenship” (Mason 2014, 143). Other theorists have taken a more positive view of the tests: seeing them as an incentive for immigrants to acquire basic knowledge of liberal-democratic principles, as well as the political institutions and history of the host country. As such, they also serve as an “implicit statement of the nation’s political values” (Miller 2016, 138). On this view, as long as certain conditions are met, so that the tests are neither too difficult nor too expensive and give applicants the possibility to take them again if they fail, etc., then there is nothing deeply objectionable to them (though the empirical question of their efficacy remains open). In contrast, tests that purport to ‘weed out’ immigrants who do not share ‘our’ liberal values are generally held to be incompatible with liberal principles. This has led some theorists to question how ‘muscular’ can liberalism really be (Joppke 2014).

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, some liberal democracies have introduced legislation giving the state the power to revoke the citizenship of those convicted or suspected of terrorist activities. [ 9 ] Given the principle recognized in international law that no one should be left stateless, these legislations usually apply only to citizens holding dual or multiple citizenships. ‘Denationalisation’ is sometimes described in this context as “a technique for extending the functionality of immigration law in counter-terrorism” (Macklin 2015, see also Barry and Ferracioli 2016). Though states cannot deport their own citizens, denationalisation allows them to first withdraw citizenship and then deport. These legislations raise several normative issues. Firstly, they seem to contradict the basic idea that citizenship is a fundamental right, not a privilege (Lenard 2018; Gibney 2013; Macklin 2015). Secondly, since they weaken the security normally attached to the status of citizen, they can be described as demoting citizenship “to another category of permanent residence” (Macklin 2015). Thirdly, it is argued that by targeting only dual (or multiple) citizens, the new legislations treat them as second-class citizens (Gibney 2013, 653). In contrast, other theorists insist that that the nature of terrorist crimes (akin to acts of war against the state) warrants this kind of response (Schuck 2015; Joppke 2015). Concerning the worry that the legislations discriminate against dual citizens, the response is that the difference in treatment between mono-citizens and dual citizens is justified since the consequences of denationalisation are also very different in each case. Individuals holding a single citizenship are the only ones facing statelessness as a consequence of denationalisation (Barry and Ferracioli 2016). Where participants in the debate find some common ground is in their shared criticism of the specific form that some legislations have taken, most notably the 2006 British Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act. In the wake of the 7 July 2005 Tube bombing in London, the Act replaced the standard for deprivation present in the 2002 legislation (the “vital interests of the state” test) with a much weaker and vague standard providing for revocation in cases where an individual’s holding citizenship is “not conducive to the public good” (quoted by Gibney 2013, 650). Also deeply concerning is the progressive expansion of legislative measures to allow for “ proactive and administrative denationalisation” (Brown Prener 2023, 3–4). While the efficiency of denationalisation as a measure aimed at reducing the incidence of terrorist activity remains doubtful, its value appears to be primarily symbolic, expressing what some authors see as a ‘fitting’ response of liberal democracies to those intent on attacking their very foundations (Barry and Ferracioli 2016; see Lenard 2018 for a counterargument). This symbolic understanding of denationalisation highlights the persistent significance of the language of allegiance in contemporary liberal democratic thought, though some argue that this very language is incompatible with liberal democratic principles (Irving 2022).

Worries about the integration of Muslim immigrants in Western liberal democracies have fostered a persisting interest in the complex relations between the liberal political cultures dominant in the West, the different versions of secularism that they affirm, religion, and citizens of faith. Research has focused on religion’s place in the public sphere (Parekh 2006, Laborde 2008, Brahm Levey and Modood 2009, Modood 2019) as well as on the relation between religion, gender, and citizenship. [ 10 ]

The debate between supporters and critics of differentiated citizenship centres on the model’s supposed effect on civic integration. It is assumed that democratic citizenship, properly construed, can indeed function as a significant lever for integration. The idea is that citizenship as a set of civil, political and social rights and as a political practice can help generate desirable feelings of identity and belonging. This statement hides significant disagreement over how to characterize the relation between citizenship and nationality. Some consider that citizenship’s capacity to fulfil its integrative function depends on, and feeds upon, the prior existence of a common nationality while others counter that, under conditions of pluralism, nationality cannot function as a suitable focus of allegiance and identity. The collective identity of modern democratic states should rather be based upon more abstract and universalistic political and legal principles that transcend cultural difference. This debate brings to the fore differing assessments of the role that citizenship can play in contemporary societies characterized by a high degree of complexity and internal diversity.

Liberal nationalists like David Miller have argued that only specific forms of political practice can produce high levels of trust and loyalty between citizens (Miller 2000, 87). The political activities of the citizens of Athens or of Rousseau’s ideal Republic presumed face-to-face relations of cooperation that favour the growth of such sentiments. The scale and complexity of modern states have made the kind of political practice envisaged by Rousseau and described by Aristotle at best marginal. Citizens do not meet under an oak tree to formulate the laws; they are basically strangers and citizens’ involvement in the politics of representative democracies is episodic and diluted. Politics in this context cannot be expected to play a central role in most individuals’ lives; something else must generate the trust and loyalty necessary to the functioning of a political community. Historically, it is the nation that has allowed large numbers of individuals to feel a sense of commonality, setting them apart from others and making solidarity among strangers possible.

Postnationalists do not dispute the key role played by the nation in making republican politics possible in large modern states. They agree that reference to a common nationality allowed the political mobilization of their inhabitants, calling on their shared descent, history, or language. However, democracy’s association with the nation-state is contingent rather than necessary. Democratic politics can, in principle, free itself from its historical moorings. Postnationalists claim that this dissociation is not only possible, but necessary for moral and pragmatic reasons (Habermas 1998, 132).

On the one hand, the historical balance sheet of the nation-state reveals a legacy of oppression of minority cultures within and cultural, political, and economic imperialism outside its borders. On the other hand, the acknowledgment of the nation-state’s (growing) internal diversity and sensitivity to the injustice of forced assimilation undermine its ability to continue playing the role it fulfilled in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. Imposing the majority culture upon minorities may simply make it more difficult for them to identify with the nation-state and weaken its legitimacy.

In conditions of pluralism, therefore, the majority culture cannot serve as the grounding of a shared identity. It must be replaced by universalistic principles of human rights and the rule of law, which do not, it is argued, imply the imposition of a particular majority culture on minorities. Each political community develops distinctive interpretations of the meaning of these principles over time, which become embodied in its political and legal institutions and practices. These in turn form a political culture that crystallizes around the country’s constitution and makes those principles into a ‘concrete universal’. This embedding of democratic and liberal principles in a distinctive political culture can, in turn, give rise to what Jürgen Habermas has called a “constitutional patriotism”, which should replace nationalism as the focus of a common identity. In countries that have achieved a strong national consciousness, the political culture has long been entangled with the majority culture. This “fusion”, argues Habermas, “must be dissolved if it is to be possible for different cultural, ethnic, and religious forms of life to coexist and interact on equal terms within the same political community” (Habermas 1998, 118).

The thrust of the argument is that democratic political practice can provide a sufficient stimulus to integration in complex democratic societies and is indeed the only one properly available to them. There is no need for a background consensus based on cultural homogeneity to act as a ‘catalyzing condition’ for democracy to the extent that the democratic political process, involving public deliberation and decision-making, makes “a reasonable political understanding possible, even among strangers.” Democracy, as a set of procedures, can secure legitimacy in the absence of more substantive commonalities between citizens and achieve social integration. Since it is not wedded to particular cultural premises, it can be responsive to changes in the cultural composition of the citizenry and generate a common political culture (Habermas 2001a, 73–74). Habermas’s position, then, gives pride of place to the democratic process and to the political participation of citizens, which play a key role in securing social integration: “In complex societies, it is the deliberative opinion- and will-formation of citizens, grounded in the principles of popular sovereignty, that forms the ultimate medium for a form of abstract, legally constructed solidarity that reproduces itself through political participation” (Habermas 2001a, 76).

However, the democratic process can fulfil its role only if it achieves a certain level of output legitimacy: appropriate levels of solidarity are sustainable only if basic standards of social justice are satisfied (Habermas 2001a, 76). If it is to remain a source of solidarity, citizenship must be seen as a valuable status, associated not only with civil and political rights, but also with the fulfilment of fundamental social and cultural rights (Habermas 1998, 118–119).

For most liberal nationalists, this seems like putting the cart before the horse since a successful welfare state, they argue, is possible only if citizens already enjoy high levels of mutual trust and loyalty. Welfare policies suppose that we make sacrifices for anonymous others who differ from us in terms of their ethnic origin, religion, and way of life. But in democracies, redistributive policies can be sustained only if they enjoy strong levels of public support. This support is dependent on a sense of common identity that transcends difference and motivates citizens to share their revenues with people whom they do not know, but to whom they feel related by common bonds. This sentiment implies reciprocity: the expectation that, in times of need, one could also benefit from the solidarity of fellow citizens (Miller, 1995; Canovan, 1996).

Liberal nationalists and other critics of the postnationalist position go on to argue that freeing the liberal democratic state from its historical moorings is neither possible, nor necessary. They recognize that the link between liberal democracy and the nation is historically contingent rather than necessary or conceptual while adding that this does not mean that they can or should be dissociated (Miller 1995, 29–30; Kymlicka 2003). Calling for the separation of a country’s political culture from the majority group’s culture is easier said than done. While it may be comparably easy to discard the most egregious forms of fusion, if there is the political will to do so (for instance, by de-establishing the Anglican church in the case of England), any political culture will be ethically patterned in ways that are difficult for members of the majority to appreciate. Expressions such as “cutting the umbilical cord” or “dissolving” the fusion overstate the extent to which a political culture may be disengaged from the background culture. This is not necessarily cause for alarm, it is argued, since the nation need not be construed in ways that exclude minorities. Nationhood can be understood in sufficiently ‘thin’ terms to accommodate minorities while being ‘thick’ enough to generate appropriate sentiments of solidarity, loyalty, and trust.

There are different versions of this thin understanding of nationhood. What they share is the downplaying of substantive commonalities of descent, culture and religion in favour of political and legal principles and institutions as well as a description of national identity as flexible and open to change . [ 11 ] Once immigrants are citizens, they can participate in the collective conversation in which citizens debate and constantly reinterpret the nation’s identity. What immigrants are required to display is a “willingness to accept current political structures and to engage with the host community so that a new common identity can be forged” (Miller 1995, 129). They are expected “to speak a common national language”, “feel loyalty to national institutions” and “share a commitment to maintaining the nation as a single, self-governing community into the indefinite future” (Kymlicka 2003, 273).

Given the thin version of national identity they propose, one might conclude that liberal nationalists are not that far from the constitutional patriotism of Habermas. After all, both positions seem to give the central role to a common political culture. The distance separating them becomes clear when we look at the political implications of their respective views, like when evaluating the prospects of the European Union. Liberal nationalists are often sceptical towards the European experiment while postnationalists are firm supporters. [ 12 ] This difference flows from their respective conceptions of what makes and sustains a political culture as a source of integration. For liberal nationalists, continuity is essential: a political culture derives much of its strength from an anchoring in the history and narrative of a distinct political community extending backwards and forwards in time. They are sceptical of political voluntarism and of what can be achieved through formal political institutions. Democratic procedures alone, divorced from a richer background, can neither generate nor sustain a robust political culture or a sense of common identity.

In contrast, postnationalists like Habermas consider that the democratic process is crucial. The postnationalist conception gives greater weight to political practice and to the legal and political institutions that sustain it rather than to their cultural and historical moorings. This explains Habermas’s militant support of the European project and his belief that adopting a constitution could have a “catalytic effect” on the process of constructing a ‘more perfect Union’ (Habermas 2001b, 16).

3. The challenge of globalisation

For the better part of the last century, conceptions of citizenship, despite many differences, have had one thing in common: the idea that the necessary framework for citizenship is the sovereign, territorial state. The legal status of citizen is essentially the formal expression of membership in a polity that has definite territorial boundaries within which citizens enjoy equal rights and exercise their political agency. In other words, citizenship, both as a legal status and as an activity, is thought to presuppose the existence of a territorially bounded political community, which extends over time and is the focus of a common identity. In the last thirty years, this premise has come under scrutiny. A host of phenomena, loosely associated under the heading ‘globalisation’, have encouraged this critical awakening: exploding transnational economic exchange, competition and communication as well as high levels of migration, of cultural and social interactions have shown how porous those borders have become and led people to contest the relevance and legitimacy of state sovereignty.

Three questions are particularly salient. First, the intensification of migratory movements from poorer to richer countries in the context of growing inequalities between North and South has led some authors to contest the state’s moral right to choose its members by selectively closing its borders. Second, what R. Bauböck calls the “mismatch between citizenship and the territorial scope of legitimate authority” (Bauböck 2008, 31) has prompted a growing questioning of the acceptability of the different rights accorded to citizens and non-citizens living within the same state. Does contesting the tight association between the territorial state, citizenship, and rights risks weakening the very institutional framework that makes citizenship a meaningful practice? This question raises a third set of issues as it assumes that the democratic nation-state is the only institutional context in which citizenship can thrive. This is contested by those who claim that citizenship can be exercised in a multiplicity of ‘sites’ both below and above the nation-state.

Does the state have the moral right to decide who can become a citizen or is there a fundamental right to free movement? The philosophical debate has largely focused on two issues: first, on the nature of obligations that wealthy states have towards people from impoverished countries who seek better lives for themselves and their families; secondly, on the moral status of political communities and their supposed right to protect their integrity by excluding non-members.

One way of characterizing one’s obligations towards strangers is to insist that, absent any relations of cooperation, common humanity is our only bond. Only a weak, imperfect or conditional duty of assistance, it is argued, can be inferred from this premise. This duty limits the basic right of a political community to distribute membership as it wishes without, in any way, displacing it. Individuals have a duty to assist strangers in urgent need if they can help without exposing themselves to significant risk or cost. At a collective level, the implications are more considerable as political communities have greater resources and can consider a broader range of benevolent actions at comparably negligible cost. The principle of mutual aid may justify redistribution of membership, territory, wealth and resources to the extent that certain states have more than they can reasonably be said to need (Walzer 1983, 47). However, in this framework redistributive policies remain entirely dependent on wealthier countries’ understanding of their needs and of the urgency of a stranger’s situation. There is no obligation to give equal weight to the interests of non-members.

Institutionally, this position supports what the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees (United Nations 1951) calls the principle of “ non refoulement ”: signatory states are not to deport refugees and asylum seekers to their countries of origin if this threatens their lives and freedom. It can also support claims in favour of increasing the number of immigrants admitted into richer countries, depending on how the latter evaluate the potential effects on their own interests.

Critics contend that obligations towards migrants and asylum-seekers go well beyond this and call for a policy of open borders and/or deny the state’s right to decide alone who exactly, and how many people, may enter its territory. Three basic strategies are employed: the first consists of arguing that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right. For example, some have argued that any theory recognizing the equal moral value of individuals and giving them moral primacy over communities cannot justify rejecting aliens’ claims to admission and citizenship. As Carens demonstrated in an early article, this argument applies to the three main strands of contemporary liberal theory: libertarianism ( à la Nozick), Rawlsianism and utilitarianism (Carens 1987). If the principle of moral equality is given its full extension, the distinction between citizen and alien appears as morally arbitrary, justified neither by nature nor achievement. When evaluating border and immigration policies, the equal consideration of the interests of all affected (be they aliens or citizens) is required. Political communities cannot decide whether they can afford to accept refugee claimants or prospective immigrants simply according to their understanding of their own situation, needs and interests. Consideration of consequences (e.g. in terms of public order, the sustainability of welfare policies, the potential effects of a brain drain in developing countries, etc.) is not prohibited; what changes radically is how we are to evaluate them. Institutionally, this would doubtless lead to substantial changes in the immigration and refugee policies of most Western democracies.

A second strategy advocated by Arash Abizadeh (2008) relies on the principle of democratic legitimacy, holding that the exercise of coercive power is legitimate “only insofar as it is actually justified by and to the very people over whom it is exercised” (41). Since a regime of border control subjects both citizens and non-citizens to the state’s coercive use of power, “the justification for a particular regime of border control is owed not just to those whom the boundary marks as members, but to nonmembers as well” (45) [ 13 ] . The argument’s upshot is that no democratic state has the right to unilaterally control its own borders, but must either allow freedom of movement or, at the very least, give voice to prospective immigrants when formulating border policy. The latter condition would itself lead to significant changes in immigration policies in the Western world, since jointly controlled borders would presumably be more porous as well.

The third strategy is less direct. To the extent that states do not satisfy their moral obligations to guarantee the universal human right to security and subsistence through international redistributive policies, they have a moral obligation to admit those wishing to enter. Here the idea of open borders is an instrumental, rather than intrinsic, moral principle: it is a means towards achieving global distributive justice (Bader 1997). The advantage of this line of argument is that it closely reflects a central motivation for open borders: the outrage provoked by the huge inequalities between North and South and rich countries’ role in perpetuating this situation. This strategy, if successful, would establish specific rights for people from poorer countries towards the North, rather than a broadly framed right to free movement, to be ‘equally’ enjoyed by individuals of rich and poor countries alike.

To be convincing the argument must show: first, that severe global poverty requires immediate action; second, that it is a matter of justice, not charity. To that effect, it is crucial to show that the extreme poverty of some countries is not simply the result of endogenous factors (e.g. bad governance; corrupt political culture, etc.), but is linked to a global political and economic order that systematically produces an unjust distribution of resources and political power, which rich northern countries, as its main beneficiaries, are in no hurry to reform. [ 14 ] The third step in this argument purportedly shows that justifications of restrictive immigration policies premised on ethico-political claims lose much of their force in the context of profound international inequalities and injustice. Proponents claim that regulating immigration to preserve the integrity of the political community is a legitimate goal only if duties of international distributive justice are satisfied (Tan 2004, 126, referring to Tamir 1992, 161). The argument’s upshot is that “[r]ich Northern states have a double moral obligation to seriously fight global poverty and to let more people in” (Bader 1997, 31).

Most supporters and critics of (more) open borders agree that liberal democratic states have a moral status and are worth preserving. [ 15 ] They disagree over what exactly is worthy of protection and how much weight should be given to securing their integrity (however it is defined) relative to duties of international justice.

The division of the world into states is arguably justifiable on functional grounds, to the extent that states appear as “first approximations of optimal units for allocating and producing the world’s resources” (Coleman and Harding 1995, 38). If we think that states matter simply as local units of efficient production and distribution, then this would be the main consideration when evaluating immigration policies. Public order arguments would still matter, likewise claims pertaining to a society’s basic capacity to secure its material reproduction, but not arguments relating to its cultural integrity or way of life. Unless, of course, the capacity of states to act as efficient units of production and distribution is linked to their being distinctive political communities with a particular culture of shared meanings worth preserving.

Some forty years ago, Michael Walzer defended this view, based on the idea that “distributive justice presupposes a bounded world within which distribution takes place” (Walzer 1983, 31). Since the goods to be divided, exchanged and shared among individuals have social meanings that are specific to particular communities, it is only within their boundaries that conflict can be resolved and distributive schemes judged either just or unjust. The crucial assumption here is that the “political community is probably the closest we can come to a world of common meanings. Language, history, and culture come together […] to produce a collective consciousness” (Walzer 1983, 28). Politics itself, moreover, as a set of practices and institutions that shape the form and outcome that distributive conflicts take, “establishes its own bonds of commonality” (Walzer 1983, 29). To reject political communities’ right to distribute the good of membership is to undermine their capacity to preserve their integrity as “communities of character”. It is to condemn them to become nothing more than neighbourhoods, random associations lacking any legally enforceable admissions policies. The probable result of the free movement of individuals would be “casual aggregates” devoid of any internal cohesion and incapable of being a source of patriotic sentiments and solidarity. In a world of neighbourhoods, membership would become meaningless. The upshot is that the political community’s right to regulate admission should be recognized to secure its cultural, economic and political integrity.

Walzer’s position, notably his choice of analogies, has been extensively discussed. [ 16 ] His assumption that sovereign states constitute communities of shared meanings appears particularly shaky. Most often, existing states incorporate various political communities that are themselves internally pluralistic: linguistically, culturally and ideologically. One would be hard pressed to identify the community whose integrity is at stake. Indeed, few states correspond to the picture Walzer envisages as the appropriate context for distributive justice.

Because it is premised on a thinner conception of the political community, liberal nationalists may be able to offer a similar account of the state’s right to control its borders that may be less vulnerable to this kind of criticism. David Miller, for instance, argues that liberal democratic states “require a common public culture that in part constitutes the political identity of their members, and that serves valuable functions in supporting democracy and other social goals” (Miller 2014, 369). A society’s public culture provides its citizens, their diverse identities and ways of life notwithstanding (i.e. what Miller calls their private culture), with shared reference points (e.g. an overlapping set of beliefs about the kind of political system they want to live in, social norms about how to behave in the public space, etc.) that enable them to confront their society’s challenges. The public culture also acts as a bridge between the society’s past, its present, and its future. It plays a key role in securing the kind of trust between citizens and towards political institutions that is essential for the provision of public goods and for supporting policies involving economic redistribution. “Where trust is lacking”, writes Miller, “deliberation is likely to be replaced by self-interested bargaining on the part of each group, where the outcome reflects the balance of power between them” (Miller 2016, 64). Citizens of liberal democratic states have a legitimate interest in preserving their public culture. This includes the capacity to decide the scale and type of immigration allowed in the country in order to regulate the changes that the common public culture may experience because of new arrivals. According to Miller, the concern here is not about diversity, but “about areas in which private culture and public culture intersect – in which it becomes harder to reach agreement on public matters because people approach them on the basis of conflicting and privately held beliefs and values” (Miller 2016, 68).

Miller’s argument has been widely discussed over the years (Carens 2013; Stilz 2022; Wellman 2008, 2022). His account of the common public culture has been described as unstable and unrealistic. Anna Stilz claims, for instance, that the internal diversity of liberal states is such “that it may be impossible to pick out any single ‘common public culture’, a[ny] set of understandings about how their collective life should be led” (Stilz 2022, 13).

Some theorists try to defend the state’s right to self-determination – including the right to restrict immigration – without making any reference to the (common public) culture of the political community. Chritopher Heath Wellman has argued that this can be done by focusing on freedom of association as an integral part of self-determination (Wellman 2008, 2012; see also Ferracioli 2022). Since “freedom of association includes a right to reject a potential association and (often) a right to dissociate” (Wellman 2008, 110), liberal democratic states – or legitimate states – have a presumptive right to exclude immigrants: “it does not matter how culturally diverse or homogeneous a country’s citizens are; if they are collectively able and willing to perform the requisite political function of adequately protecting and preserving human rights, then they are entitled to political self-determination” (Wellman 2012, 52). The presumptive right to exclude does not cancel duties of international distributive justice. It means that “whatever duties of distributive justice wealthy states have to those abroad, they need not be paid in the currency of open borders” (Wellman 2012, 66). [ 17 ]

None of the authors involved in this debate consider that the current levels of global inequality are morally acceptable or that prosperous liberal democratic states are doing enough to discharge their duties of international justice. Those who defend the state’s right to exclude, like Wellman, recognize that “affluent societies must dramatically relax their severe limits on immigration if they are unwilling to provide sufficient assistance in other ways ” (Wellman 2012, 77; see also Miller 2014, 368). As Kok-Chor Tan has remarked, “the national projects of well-off nations lose their legitimacy if these nations are not also doing their fair share as determined by their duties of justice” (Tan 2004, 129; see also Brock 2020). [ 18 ] Whether liberals should concentrate on reforming the international system or fight for both greater international distributive justice and more open borders remains open for debate. The two prescriptions are by no means incompatible: insisting on the illegitimacy of restrictive immigration policies under current conditions is also a way of putting rich countries on the spot and of prodding them to accept their moral responsibilities towards the world’s poor (Goodin 1992, 8).

Should one infer from the preceding discussion that citizenship is “hard on the outside and soft on the inside” (Bosniak 2006, 4) with the border representing a firm line between those who are part of the community of equal citizens and those who remain outside? The short answer is no. International migration produces what Bauböck calls a “mismatch between citizenship and the territorial scope of legitimate authority” with “citizens living outside the country whose government is supposed to be accountable to them and inside a country whose government is not accountable to them” (Bauböck 2008, 31). To resident aliens who live within a specific community of citizens, the border is not something they have left behind, it effectively follows them inside the state, denying them many of the rights enjoyed by full citizens or making their enjoyment less secure (Bosniak 2006).

One way to address this mismatch is to reconsider how entitlement to citizenship is determined. In a world characterized by significant levels of migration across states, birthright citizenship — acquired either through descent ( jus sanguinis ) or birth in the territory ( jus soli ) — may lead to counterintuitive results: while a regime of pure jus sanguinis systematically excludes immigrants and their children, though the latter may be born and bred in their parents’ new home, it includes descendants of expatriates who may never have set foot in their forebears’ homeland. On the other hand, a regime of jus soli may attribute citizenship to children whose birth in the territory is accidental while denying it to those children who have arrived in the country at a very young age.

The stakeholder principle (or jus nexi ) is proposed as an alternative (or a supplement) to birthright citizenship: individuals who have a “real and effective link” (Shachar 2009, 165) to the political community, or a “permanent interest in membership” (Bauböck 2008, 35) should be entitled to claim citizenship. This new criterion aims at securing citizenship for those who are truly members of the political community, in the sense that their life prospects depend on the country’s laws and policy choices.

If the stakeholder principle alleviates the mismatch, it does not question the tight association between rights, citizenship, territory, and authority. For some, it is precisely this association that should be questioned since it contradicts the increasing fluidity of the relations between individuals and polities in a globalized world. This context is thought to necessitate more than a friendly amendment to current principles of citizenship allocation: it requires the disaggregation of rights, commonly associated with citizenship, from the legal status of citizen. [ 19 ] This process is thought to have already begun in contemporary democracies since, as noted above, many of the civil and social rights associated with citizenship are now extended to all individuals residing in the state, notwithstanding their legal status. Political rights to participation should likewise be extended to resident noncitizens, and perhaps even to those “noncitizen nonresidents” who have fundamental interests that are affected by a particular state (Song 2009).

The emergence of human rights instruments at the international level has lent some credibility to the perspective of a deterritorialization of rights regimes and the possibility of securing a person’s basic rights irrespective of her formal membership status in a given polity. In this context, it is not in virtue of our (particular) citizenship that we are recognized rights, but in virtue of our (universal) personhood.

Over and above diverging assessments of the empirical plausibility of unbundling, some authors highlight the risks involved and contest its desirability. Stable citizenship regimes “promote internal redistribution and support co-governance”. “[B]y encouraging the dissolution of the bundle of benefits and protections that currently attach to citizenship, proponents of the unbundling vision will also begin to fuel an alternative discourse as well – one that urges the privatization and fragmentation of citizenship, and that implies less collective responsibility for the well being of members” (Shachar 2009, 67).

The debate over voting rights, in particular, is complex and covers both external (extending voting rights to nonresident citizens) and internal voting (expanding the franchise to resident non-citizens). Theorists with sympathies to the social membership thesis (arguing that residence over time in a specific territory is the key to membership in a society) or to the stakeholder conception of citizenship usually consider that long-term residence in a country should be the basis for the allocation of democratic rights. The argument may cover not only migrants who qualify for permanent resident status, but also those who have entered illegally in the country (Carens 2010b, 2013) as well as temporary migrants, in particular ‘guest workers’ who are often denied any access to citizenship (Lenard 2015). On this view, safety from deportation and the entitlement to the state’s protection when abroad is what distinguishes citizens from resident noncitizens. Citizenship rights are understood as extra-territorial (“they follow the citizen rather than the territory”) while voting rights are best understood as territorial (Lenard 2015, 131). [ 20 ]

Though some states do extend voting rights to resident noncitizens at the local level, it is the growing extension of voting rights to nonresident citizens over the last decades that is particularly striking (Pogonyi 2014). It shows the persistence of a conception of membership premised on understanding the nation-state as a historical community of citizens with common values and shared ethno-cultural traits. On this view, voting rights are not understood territorially, but follow the citizen when she settles outside of her home country. Though one can understand some of the pragmatic reasons that often motivate states to recognize voting rights to expatriates (e.g. acknowledging and encouraging their continued contribution to the home country through payment of remittances), normative theorists have been mostly critical of this phenomenon (see especially Lopez-Guerra 2005). The policy followed by certain states of the former socialist federations (USSR and Yugoslavia) of recognizing voting rights to co-ethnics residing in territories integrated in neighbouring independent states, as well as the more recent decisions by states like Hungary and Romania to extend voting rights to trans-border ethnic kin populations, should alert us to the dangers to regional stability that the “re-ethnicization of citizenship” involve (Joppke 2005, cited by Pogonyi 2014; see also Pogonyi 2023). Moreover, where the electoral system is not designed to limit the potential political impact of the nonresident electoral body, external voting may effect the “resident constituency’s right to democratic self-determination” (Pogonyi 2014, 135-136).

The rise of “cash-for-passports” programs over the last ten years in many liberal states is yet another sign of an increasing “privatization and fragmentation of citizenship”. These programs – like the one introduced by the government of Malta in October 2013 – have provoked a heated debate over normative issues (Shachar and Hirschl 2014; Shachar 2017; Hidalgo 2016; Joppke 2019; Erez 2021; Irving 2022). [ 21 ] There are two main objections. First, these programs raise issues of fairness towards other potential immigrants lacking the resources to qualify as well as towards those who remain in the country of origin. Second, they represent a government-induced commodification of citizenship that may distort the citizens’ understanding of the kind of commitment to the political community and to co-citizens that citizenship entails. In contrast, those who refuse to condemn investor citizenship programs point to the normative inconsistencies that often permeate their critics’ accounts. Is it consistent to defend a state’s right to restrict immigration while claiming that it is not permissible for states to sell foreigners access to the country (Hidalgo 2016)? Can one reject as unethical investment-based criteria for immigration while condoning skilled-based criteria (Erez 2022)? Can one criticize citizen-investors for not residing in their new country while not condemning those who acquire dual citizenship (based on ancestry or descent) without having any serious intention of residing in the state (Irving 2022)? [ 22 ] Other theorists emphasize that worries over the corrupting effect of cash-for-passports schemes are premised on a conception of citizenship that gives an overblown importance to its political dimension in an age of decreasing participation in democratic institutions (e.g. voting, membership in political parties, etc.). One should face squarely the fact that citizenship is essentially about the opportunities and protection that passports issued by certain states provide to individuals (Kochenov 2018). For those who share Shachar’s robust view of citizenship, the depressing reality may well be that investor citizenship programs are more a symptom than a cause of the larger malaise provoked by the “material forces of globalization” (Spiro 2018, 19; see also Joppke 2019, 866–867).

As we have seen in the preceding sections, the nation-state’s sovereignty is often described as an impediment to global justice. Its capacity to deal with economic, social and environmental problems that increasingly cut across borders is also questioned. Under these circumstances, should the sovereign, territorial state still be seen as the necessary institutional context for justice and democracy? What are the alternatives?

This kind of question has sparked at least two responses from theorists of citizenship. ‘Globalists’ insist on the need to rethink democracy and citizenship beyond the nation-state, proposing schemes to extend democratic politics to regional and global levels. [ 23 ] ‘Statists’, in contrast, argue that democratic citizenship requires a bounded territorial space, the state, within which citizens can see themselves as part of a common demos . Central to this debate is a disagreement over the meaning of democratic political agency and its basic conditions.

The disagreement over conditions is crucial since conditions can be defined in ways that limit the potential extension of the political community. Democratic agency’s meaning can also be contested. To what extent should it be understood as a collective agency? Should political action be characterized as a common practice, in which citizens are in relations of interaction and mutual awareness, or can it be defined as primarily individual?

Supporters of global democracy reject the conventional identification between demos , territory, and citizenship. In their view, citizenship is not a set of practices and of rights that need to be anchored in a particular demos defined by specific territorial boundaries. On the contrary, citizenship is ideally exercised in a multiplicity of ‘sites’, situated at different levels of governance: local, national, regional, and global (Maas 2017). Global democrats sketch a multilayered, global democratic order in which no single layer or site is dominant (Pogge 1992, 58, Young 2000, 266). This scheme implies a ‘vertical’ dispersal of power above and below existing sovereign states, which lose their centrality. This would lower incentives for conflicts over power and wealth within and between states, “‘thereby reducing the incidence of war, poverty, and oppression’ and environmental degradation” (Kuper 2004, 30, quoting Pogge 1992, 102–105).

Globalists would balance this dilution of state power by strengthening certain global regulatory regimes in areas like peace and security, human rights, the environment, trade and finances, etc. These regimes would set down general rules “regarding that small but vital set of issues around which peace and justice call for global co-operation” (Young 2000, 267; see also Held 2005). A set of global institutions would be needed to ensure the application of these rules; though globalists are quick to point out the importance of democratic principles — consent, self-determination and autonomy — and their institutional implications (Pogge 1992, 64).

The formal political institutions and procedures envisaged are often familiar: representative assemblies based on elections and referenda. These institutions would exist at each level of the multilayered scheme: local, national, regional, and global. Following the European Union model, continent-wide parliaments are envisaged, as well as a reformed general assembly of the United Nations. At the informal level, globalists insist on the need for globally active organizations of civil society, welcome the emergence of a transnational public opinion and call on global agencies such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund to commit themselves to basic principles of publicity.

Global democrats assume that the extension of democracy beyond the limits of the nation-state is neither conceptually nor practically impossible. Their response to claims that scale constitutes a major obstacle is twofold: first, they put the principle of subsidiarity at the centre of their institutional scheme (Held 2005, 14; Pogge 1992, 65–66); second, they insist that robust democratic politics is truly possible only at the local level. In existing nation-states, representative institutions are already far removed from ordinary citizens, who feel largely disempowered and disaffected (Young 2000, 270–271). Since the proposed multilayered scheme involves significant decentralization from the national to the sub-national level, the argument runs that global democracy would, in fact, translate into more, rather than less, ‘real’ democracy. It would serve to increase the ability of citizens to participate effectively in shaping the policies that concern them directly (Pogge 1992, 64; Young 2000, 269). However, no matter how forcefully the principle of subsidiarity is applied, the global democratic project would still entail the implementation of global principles and standards (e.g. (re)distributive principles, human rights standards) that would rely on coercive enforcement agencies (Benhabib 2004, 113). This means that the democratic legitimacy of political institutions above the level of the state is an issue that cannot be avoided.

Statists have tried to identify some basic background conditions to democratic institutions and procedures that cannot be satisfied beyond a certain threshold. Their argument is empirical, rather than conceptual. A common language is one plausible candidate put forward by Kymlicka. He insists that linguistic/territorial political associations are the primary forum for democratic participation, rather than higher-level political associations that cut across linguistic lines, because democratic politics is essentially “politics in the vernacular” (Kymlicka 1999, 121). Even in cases where average citizens are conversant in one or more foreign language, they rarely have the level of fluency necessary to participate in political debate in a language other than their own: only a select few have the ability and opportunity to acquire and sustain the necessary language skills. Political debate in multilingual settings is essentially an elitist pursuit.

In fact, political discussions require a higher degree of fluency than what is needed for business transactions or tourism: “political communication has a large ritualistic component, and these ritualized forms of communication are typically language-specific. Even if one understands a foreign language in the technical sense, without knowledge of these ritualistic elements one may be unable to understand political debates” (Kymlicka 1999, 121). In that case, the hope that English’s emergence as a new global lingua franca could overcome the linguistic obstacles that impede the development of transnational democratic politics appear overstated. English’s growing use may be enough to increase mutual understanding between individuals, but it is unlikely to become a transnational vernacular allowing democratic politics to transcend national boundaries. [ 24 ] However, that argument may not prove to be the insuperable obstacle that statists suppose. If the development of a global public sphere, extending across state boundaries, is indeed necessary for democratic politics at the global level, this can be interpreted in terms of making national public spheres responsive to each other. This does not require that citizens themselves become multilingual, but that the media inform citizens about how issues of common interest are debated in other (national) public spheres (see Habermas 2009, 87).

The development of transnational advocacy networks may also indicate that the statists’ worries are overstated. Their existence shows that it is possible for individuals to exercise political agency in forums other than those provided by democratic states and that the absence of a common vernacular does not impede participation. Global democracy becomes thinkable once we focus on the development of transnational civil society rather than on the transposing of representative institutions at the global level. In response, it should be noted that such networks usually coalesce around a common ideology or a conception of the good (e.g. the environment; rights of indigenous peoples, critique of neo-liberal forms of globalisation, etc.), serving as a functional equivalent to a common vernacular. More importantly, these networks are composed of voluntary associations organized around shared interests and cannot stand as a surrogate for the political community per se , which acts as the addressee of claims made by the organisations and groups of civil society.

Which political community or communities can act as the addressee of claims made by organisations of transnational civil society? Though something like a global political society can be seen as emerging in global events like the United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COP), national political communities and their formal institutions still appear as the main adressees of claims. In that case, Kymlicka is right to claim that: “the weak transnationalism of advocacy networks is predicated on, even parasitic on, the ongoing existence of bounded political communities” (Kymlicka 2003, 291). In this respect, though the organisations and associations of an emerging transnational civil society can offer possibilities of political agency for certain committed individuals and groups, they do not offer a solution to the problem posed by the extension of democratic citizenship to the global level. [ 25 ]

However, this conclusion may be faulted for putting too much weight on the formal institutional context within which democratic citizenship is set. Important strands in the citizenship literature display attempts to break free from this way of conceptualizing citizenship, focusing instead on practices of citizenship defined independently of its formal legal status. These strands point to perhaps more fruitful avenues to conceptualize transnational democratic citizenship. James Tully’s contribution is particularly important here because of the broader, practice-based definition of citizenship he offers. Tully uses “the term ‘citizen’ to refer to a person who is subject to a relationship of governance (that is to say, governed) and , simultaneously and primarily, is an active agent in the field of a governance relationship” (Tully 2008a, 3). Governance relationships take place at all levels of political and social life: below, beyond and across the boundaries of the state. Citizenship, considered primarily as an activity, cannot be reduced to “a status given by institutions of the modern constitutional state and international law”. It refers instead to the “negotiated practices in which one becomes citizen through participation” (Tully 2008b, 248). [ 26 ]

The “acts of citizenship” literature, formed around the writings of Engen Isin, is also relevant here (Isin 2008; 2009; 2017). Isin developed his theory to make sense of what he calls an “unnamed figure”, “which belies the modern figure of the citizen with singular loyalty, identity and belongings”. He related its appearance to the emergence of new ‘sites’ and ‘scales’ while insisting that it could not be adequaltely grasped by conventional categories like ‘foreigner’, ‘migrant’, ‘refugee’, ‘nomad’, etc. He suggested escaping from conventional accounts by focusing on the “’acts’ through which ‘actors’ claim to transform themselves (and others) from subjects into citizens as claimants of rights” (Isin 2009, 368). This suggestion has led to a fluid and dynamic conception of citizenship that attempts to make sense of phenomena that extend below, beyond and across state boundaries without denying the stubborn reality of states (see e.g. Tonkiss 2022; Müller 2022; Roy and Neveu 2023).

There is still another version of the global democratic project that involves an individualist conception of democratic political agency. Here citizens can engage in significant political activities that do not require high levels of interaction and cooperation between them (Kuper 2004). This position requires, first, that one abandon the conception of democratic legitimacy implicit in deliberative, participatory and republican conceptions of democracy, which all attempt to maintain a broadly Rousseauian understanding of legitimacy: laws are legitimate only if citizens can see themselves, somehow, as their coauthors. Kuper suggests that this vision of democratic legitimacy be discarded in favour of one focusing on the responsiveness of the political system as a whole. The central issue becomes whether this system is made to act “in the best interests of the public, in a manner responsive to them” (Kuper 2004, 75 quoting Pitkin 1967). On this view, the vertical, rather than horizontal, dimension of communication is of overarching importance: individual citizens must have access to relevant information about what various authorities are doing, there must exist institutional channels through which they can pressure authorities and let them know their views on proposed policies. Doing so does not require that they “act together with high levels of mutual awareness” (Kuper 2004, 127); they can exercise these capacities individually, via specific agencies. Responsiveness is also a dimension of democratic legitimacy favoured by some empirical political scientists, referring to the responsiveness of representatives to the opinions, preferences and concerns of citizens communicated via various agencies. It is measured through statistical correlation in which public opinion is the dependent variable and policy output is the independent variable (for an overview see Page (1994)).

In contrast to the vertical and sometimes causal picture of citizenship depicted in responsiveness, one may insist, as does Bernard Manin, that meaningful political agency requires that citizens be capable of learning what their co-citizens think about important policy issues or events independently of the authorities. Horizontal communication between citizens appears as a necessary condition to their being capable of political action (Manin 1997, 170–171). [ 27 ] The thing that makes citizens political agents is their capacity to act independently of authorities and this ability, in turn, depends on whether they regularly act and communicate together, even if this interaction is often mediated through institutions like the electronic media.

Despite their many differences, the conceptions of citizenship discussed in the preceding sections share the idea that citizenship supposes a certain kind of agency, one that involves the individual’s capacity to reflect on his/her subjective good as well as on the good of the whole. And this has long been associated, in the Western tradition, to a complex discursive capacity that only human beings are thought to possess. Following Aristotle:

[W]hereas mere voice is but an indicator of pleasure or pain and is therefore found in other animals (…), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and the inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust. And it is characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state (Aristotle, 1996, 1253a10–1253a18).

The capacity for rational agency has long functioned as a threshold condition for citizenship. In Aristotle’s Politics , for example, the exclusion of women and slaves from citizenship is based on an account of their souls as lacking the appropriate kind of rationality. The long history of the extension of citizenship to groups previously excluded did not change this basic understanding. It involved the recognition that the newly included (e.g. women, workers, descendants of former slaves) did, in fact, satisfy the threshold condition.

Contemporary democratic and republican theories often rely on an ideal picture of the citizen as actively involved in the political life of the community. This encompasses a vast array of activities and practices, including voting in elections, canvassing, participating in public deliberation, demonstrating against government decisions or policies, etc. These activities all presuppose the capacity for a certain kind of agency, one that relies heavily on rational, discursive abilities. This common view sits uncomfortably with the fact that many individuals — in some cases because of deep cognitive disability — do not have these capacities. Though they may be members of the society, can they — truly — be citizens? From Locke to Rawls, the answer has been overwhelmingly negative, confining these individuals to the category of wards (Arneil 2009 and 2016, Pinheiro 2016, Clifford Simplican 2016). Though society may have the responsibility to ensure their welfare, they can have no say in its definition, and are fated to remain society’s passive beneficiaries.

Over the last forty years, disability advocates and scholars have contested this view of the disabled, insisting that they should be seen and treated as citizens, not as wards. Some philosophers and political theorists have rallied to this view and questioned the conception of agency presupposed in the conventional view of democratic citizenship as unduly exclusionary (Nussbaum 2006, Arneil 2009, Arneil and Hirschmann 2016). Building on the work of disability theorists, Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka (2011, 2016) have argued further that if one accepts — as one should — that a capacity for complex discursive agency is not necessary for citizenship, then one should also recognize domestic animals as co-citizens since they qualify as members of society. [ 28 ]

Donaldson and Kymlicka define agency as “self-willed or initiated action that carries an expectation of efficacy” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2016, 180, fn 16). On this view, agency does not require discursive rationality and individuals with deep cognitive disability as well as domestic animals can be described as agents. The scope of agency is conceptualized into two parts: micro (the capacity to have a say over everyday choices) and macro (the capacity of individuals to shape the “fundamental dimensions of their lives” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2016, 180)). In Zoopolis (2011), this macro dimension of agency is described more explicitly in political terms, referring to a capacity for political participation. To the extent that individuals act in ways that can be construed as expressing approval, acquiescence or dissent with the laws and regulations that affect them, they can be described as acting politically and as displaying a form of democratic agency.

The absence of linguistic agency creates specific challenges since both individuals with deep cognitive disability and domestic animals are “dependent on others to support and interpret their participation” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2016, 176). They can be agents only with the help of others, who have discursive rationality, and with whom they share relations of trust. The latter can help structure or “scaffold” meaningful choices for the former and interpret their expressions.

Accepting that instances of “dependent agency” can count as political participation supposes that we abandon the binary between independent and dependent forms of agency as well as the belief that only the former counts as the right kind of agency when it comes to citizenship. This should not be too difficult to do if we are willing to recognize that “[w]e are all interdependent, relying on others to enable and sustain our (variable and contextual) capacities for agency” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 107). This is not to claim that we are all the same, but to argue in favour of replacing the binary between “an autonomous, rational agent” and “his or her opposite, the ‘disabled’” “with a gradient scale in which we are all in various ways and in different degrees both dependent on others and independent” (Arneil 2009, 234).

Donaldson and Kymlicka’s argument becomes less convincing when they attempt to illustrate with concrete examples what they mean by the political participation of domestic animals. In some of the examples they use, the humans involved appear as the real agents of the actions described while animals come across as the objects of their masters’ agency (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 112–116; Hinchcliffe 2015). In response to this criticism, Donaldson and Kymlicka have conceded the weakness of some of their examples while maintaining the possibility of finding better ones. More interestingly for our purposes, they insist that: “capacities for agency are embedded in ongoing social relations amongst responsive, reflexive, and interdependent selves, not located in a threshold individual capacity for rational reflection and public deliberation” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2015, 331). If we accept that people with deep cognitive disability and domestic animals are members of society, then the right question to ask is not whether they meet the threshold condition of discursive rationality and can be recognized as citizens. We should rather enquire about the kind of spaces in which their political agency could be expressed as well as look for the mechanisms through which their citizenship could be enacted. In short, instead of defining who can be a citizen according to whether or not an individual or group can function in the existing spaces of citizenship (i.e. whether they can participate in elections or militate for political parties), we should create distinct spaces that are commensurate to the capacities of all those who possess rights of citizenship. [ 29 ]

Donaldson and Kymlicka’s main objective is to secure the rights of animals against the terrible and unjust consequences of human beings’ lordship over them. From the perspective of democratic theory, the upshot of their argument is mixed. On the one hand, it may offer a promising response to the persisting complaints about the alleged incompetence of ‘ordinary’ citizens in contemporary mass democracies (Brennan 2016) by stimulating our institutional imagination to create better spaces of citizenship for everyone. On the other hand, extending the definitions of political participation and democratic agency to cover the actions of domestic animals may also weaken the very significance of democratic citizenship. Perhaps more importantly, they highlight an abiding tension in democratic theory between two models of citizenship: the membership model, where citizenship is defined in terms of social membership, and what they call the “capacity contract”, in which citizenship is defined in terms of “capacities for particular kinds of agency” (Kymlicka and Donaldson 2018, 161).

Our survey of contemporary discussions has highlighted important differences over each of the three dimensions of citizenship. As a legal status, citizenship remains the keystone of contemporary conceptions: its normative core is the principle that citizens shall enjoy equal rights, although most would now agree that, in certain circumstances, equal consideration of individuals’ interests may justifiably result in differential treatment by the state. This broad agreement on principle leaves ample room for disagreement over the particulars, as witnessed by the recurring debates over affirmative action and minority rights. These discussions have become a hallmark of contemporary liberal societies, and our legal and political discourses are well equipped to handle them. The deeper worry, which new forms of political violence have made more acute, centres upon achieving a proper balance between the recognition of difference and the affirmation of common principles to which all citizens adhere.

How robust an identity can citizenship provide in complex and internally diverse societies? There is a tension here that is difficult to resolve: our awareness of the pluralist nature of contemporary societies leads us to underscore the importance of general legal and political principles (democracy, human rights, rule of law) rather than the traditional emblems of nationality: common history and culture. Postnationalists, in particular, emphasize the role of democratic political practice in securing social integration. Yet, the complexity and scale of contemporary liberal societies tend to make this practice less significant in the lives of most citizens, a fact reflected in declining levels of participation in formal political institutions. Are we not expecting too much from democratic political practice under current circumstances?

This question brings us face to face with the difficult issue of citizens’ political agency, which has long been central to debates between liberals and republicans. Whether we understand democracy in terms of civic self-government (republican version) or as the ability to exercise control over government (liberal version), it is not easy to determine how, and through what institutional mechanisms, citizens can exercise meaningful political agency in complex societies. This difficulty is epitomized in the debate over transnational citizenship. Although global citizenship is conceivable first and foremost as a legal status securing a number of fundamental human rights, most authors agree that it should not be strictly legal in nature and must have a significant political dimension. One senses, however, a distinct malaise when it comes to identifying appropriate normative standards and to locating the institutions through which these could be approximated.

In the end, our dismissal of the encyclopédiste ’s interest in distinguishing subject and citizen may have been too hasty. If being a citizen in a liberal-democratic political community is to mean something more than the status of legal subject , we must be ready to state what this “more” entails. This stubborn blind-spot of theories of citizenship leads us to some of the most difficult issues pertaining to the very possibility of democracy in the contemporary world.

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Importance of citizenship education

Why is citizenship education important.

Citizenship education gives people the knowledge and skills to understand , challenge and engage with democratic society including politics, the media, civil society, the economy and the law.

Democracies need active, informed and responsible citizens – citizens who are willing and able to take responsibility for themselves and their communities and contribute to the political process.

How does it benefit young people?

It helps them to develop self-confidence and a sense of agency, and successfully deal with life changes and challenges such as bullying and discrimination.

It gives them a voice : in the life of their schools, their communities and society at large.

It enables them to make a positive contribution by developing the knowledge and experience needed to claim their rights and understand their responsibilities. It prepares them for the challenges and opportunities of adult and working life.

Who else does it benefit?

Citizenship also brings benefits for schools, other educational organisations and for society at large.

For schools and other educational organisations, it helps to produce motivated and responsible learners, who relate positively to each other, to staff and to the surrounding community. For society it helps to create an active and responsible citizenry, willing to participate in the life of the nation and the wider world and play its part in the democratic process.

One of the first steps on the civic journey is the education system. Education should help young people become active citizens once they understand their role within society and how they can go about improving it. The Ties that Bind – House of Lords Report on Citizenship, 2018

Society belongs to all of us. What we put into it creates what we get out of it.

At Young Citizens, we believe society is best when we all join in. That is, when we all bring our energy and judgment to it. This helps make it fairer and more inclusive. It supports a democracy in which people participate and belong. We have countless examples of how even the youngest can make a difference .

But it means we all need enough knowledge , skills and confidence to take part effectively.

We want everyone to feel they belong. And we want everyone to feel they can drive change.

The European Commission supports the following definition of active citizenship:

Participation in civil society, community and/or political life, characterised by mutual respect and non-violence and in accordance with human rights and democracy Hoskins, 2006

So let’s make this a reality. Let’s help people become effective citizens. The cost is much greater if we don’t.

Suggested Next Steps:

Read about what citizenship education entails.
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Importance of Being a Global Citizen Essay

Introduction.

The relevance of being a global citizen is that through international encounters, people develop a considerable awareness of the problems faced by various parts of the world. In this case, being such a person encourages young individuals to focus more deeply on the effects of their activities and decisions on other areas of the world. Although becoming such a citizen is critical in contemporary society, there is a need to differentiate between globalism and globalization.

The Distinction between Globalism and Globalization

Globalization refers to the spread of jobs, information, products, and technology across nations in the world. On the other hand, globalism refers to an ideology regarding the belief that goods, knowledge, and people should cross international borders without restrictions (Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013). Globalization means civilization, where people migrate to any part of the world despite the risks involved. Globalism is an ideology committed to favoring globalization and placing the interests of the world above the interests of individual countries.

Being a Global Citizen in the World of Advanced Technologies

Global citizenship is a crucial step that people should take because it has its advantages. In the world of advanced technology, being a global citizen is helpful because it assists in succeeding in meeting individual, professional, and academic goals and objectives. Modern technology helps people to keep in touch or communicate with business partners, family, and friends through text messages and emails (Ahmad, 2013). Through globalization, people can share information from any part of the world. In contemporary society, advanced technology has become the key to communication, enabling people to meet their professional, academic, and individual goals.

Disagreement between Theorists about the Definition of Global Citizenship

Various theorists disagree about the definition of global citizenship because they have divergent meanings. For this reason, some define the concept in their own words, while others believe that it is a concept that has to be taught to people (Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013). In addition, other individuals believe that global citizenship needs people to be isolated from their customs and cultures. Some theorists feel that when a person becomes a global citizen, they will not be considered fully part of one country. Therefore, such people will have challenges living within the social spheres of such an area. After reading the article by Katzarska-Miller and Reysen, I defined global citizenship as becoming exposed and interconnected to international cultures that give people opportunities to develop their identities.

Choosing and Explaining Two of the Six Outcomes of Global Citizenship

The two of the six outcomes that I choose include social justice and valuing diversity, and they are the most relevant in becoming a global citizen concerning others. When a person embraces such citizenship, one understands that silencing people is not the solution in the community and that they have to be allowed to serve (Arditi, 2004). Therefore, social justice ensures that oppressing others is not the solution and that giving individuals a chance is the best thing. Social justice ensures that human beings do not miss out on growth and development opportunities because of a lack of diversity. Valuing diversity helps one to become such an individual as it assists a person in recognizing the fact that the world has different people. Therefore, global citizenship can relate to individuals from other parts of the globe. Such an interaction could be on academic or business grounds as the world becomes increasingly interconnected.

Describing at Least Two Personal Examples

In my life, I have had to relate with individuals from all corners of the world. Therefore, I view myself as a global citizen because I value and embrace diversity in all my undertakings. For example, my school embraces diversity and inclusion, where students are admitted from different parts of the world. In this case, my school environment has become one of the most significant contributors to my value for diversity over the years (De Soto, 2015). In school, I interact with other students from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Canada, and other parts of America other than the United States. I have understood the challenges of interacting with foreigners, such as differentiated business cultures and language barriers. In school and my immediate environment, I have come to appreciate treating other people as the law requires. Therefore, I have come to respect everyone and do not like seeing people being oppressed.

Identifying and Explaining Two Specific General Education Courses

The two general education courses that contributed the most to being a global citizen include Introduction to Literature and Introduction to social responsibility and Ethics. The concept of global citizenship has shaped my identity, and being such a citizen has made me a better person in the community (Arditi, 2004). The literature course has strengthened my ability to learn other people’s cultures, customs, and traditions, which has enabled me to appreciate diversity more. Social responsibility and ethics as a course have helped me to strengthen my ability to determine what is right before taking any action.

In conclusion, global citizenship is a concept that has relevance in contemporary society. In addition, being a citizen enables one to comprehend other relevant concepts, such as globalization and globalism. Being a student allows one to appreciate diversity and inclusivity, pertinent elements of globalization or being a global citizen. For example, studying some courses such as ethics and literature helps one understand and appreciate others.

Ahmad, A. (2013). A global ethics for a globalized world (Links to an external site.). Policy Perspectives, 10(1), 63-77. Web.

Arditi, B. (2004). From globalism to globalization: The Politics of Resistance . New Political Science , 26 (1), 5–22. Web.

De Soto, H. (2015) . Globalization at the Crossroads. [Video]. You Tube. Web.

Reysen, S., & Katzarska-Miller, I. (2013). A model of global citizenship: Antecedents and outcomes. International Journal of Psychology , 48 (5), 858–870.

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IvyPanda. (2023, August 19). Importance of Being a Global Citizen. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-being-a-global-citizen/

"Importance of Being a Global Citizen." IvyPanda , 19 Aug. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-being-a-global-citizen/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Importance of Being a Global Citizen'. 19 August.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Importance of Being a Global Citizen." August 19, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-being-a-global-citizen/.

1. IvyPanda . "Importance of Being a Global Citizen." August 19, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-being-a-global-citizen/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Importance of Being a Global Citizen." August 19, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-being-a-global-citizen/.

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Citizenship: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

28 Mar 2011

This policy primer discusses the objectives and implications of citizenship policy and examines the concept of citizenship in the UK in the light of both its historical context and recent policy changes.

The issue: What is British citizenship and why does it matter?

Breaking the link between settlement and citizenship, what is the relation between citizenship, belonging and britishness, what is the aim of citizenship policy, what is the relationship between citizenship, immigration and equality, implications for debates.

In its strictest sense, citizenship is a legal status that means a person has a right to live in a state and that state cannot refuse them entry or deport them. This legal status may be conferred at birth, or, in some states, obtained through ‘naturalisation’. In wealthy liberal democratic states citizenship also brings with it rights to vote, rights to welfare, education or health care etc. In this formal sense, citizenship acquisition for oneself or one’s children is seen as principally related to migrants. However, it is important to recognise that citizenship isn’t only about migrants, but is more generally about individuals’ relations to the state and to each other. Liberal ‘republican’ positions in particular have emphasised the relation between citizenship and political participation such as voting, engagement in civil society and other forms of political mobilisation. Moreover, as well as a legal status, citizenship can also indicate a subjective feeling of identity and social relations of reciprocity and responsibility. Sometimes these are described in words like ‘loyalty’, ‘values’, ‘belonging’ or ‘shared cultural heritage’. This also points to the complex and often assumed relation between citizenship and belonging to ‘the nation’.

The British debate on immigration and citizenship occurs within a context of more than a decade of policies and reviews on citizenship more generally. When the Labour government came to power in 1997 it strongly emphasised ‘active citizenship’, an attempt to transform citizens from what was perceived as ‘passive recipients of public services’ to actively engaged participants in public life (Mayo and Rooke 2006). In 1998 a policy review of citizenship education in England was conducted by Sir Bernard Crick. In September 2002, following its recommendation, citizenship education was introduced as a statutory subject in English secondary schools. Also in 2002 The Advisory Board on Naturalisation and Integration (ABNII) was established, again chaired by Sir Bernard Crick, to develop proposals for language and citizenship courses and tests for applicants to British citizenship. It took place against the background of a number of disturbances in towns in Northern England, including Bradford, in 2001, which given rise to concerns about ‘community cohesion’ and a lack of ‘shared values’ (Home Office 2001a; Ryan 2010).The ‘Life in the UK Advisory Group’ situated its work within a much broader policy remit however, including ‘a wider citizenship agenda’.

In 2007 then Prime Minister Gordon Brown requested a review of British citizenship to clarify the legal rights and responsibilities of different categories of citizenship and nationality, and the incentives for residents to become citizens. The ‘Lord Goldsmith Citizenship Review’ was also requested to ‘explore the role of citizens and residents in civic society, including voting, jury service and other forms of civil participation’. The review, while focussing on the legal aspects of citizenship, was again therefore set within a broader policy context.

The new coalition government has continued to emphasise the importance of citizenship, but situating it within the context of the Big Society. This emphasises the responsibility of individual citizens and communities to solve problems build communities. In November 2010 the government announced who had been selected to run the pilot projects for the National Citizen Service. These will run programmes for 16 year olds to develop the skills to be “active and responsible citizens” In sum, the debate on the legal status of citizenship is taking place within a broader debate about Britishness and ‘national identity’. The legal status (but often not the broader debate) also has to manage both the legacies of the British Empire and Britain’s membership of the European Union. The Labour Government of 1997-2010 increasingly moved to incorporate aspects of subjective identity and social relations into the process of attaining the legal status of citizenship and introduced significant changes to the processes of citizenship and settlement. The naturalisation policy of the coalition government is not yet clear but there is likely to be a policy announcement in the coming months.

Citizenship policy is related to, but not identical with, policy on settlement (see the briefing on ‘ Settlement in the UK ‘). The legal concept of settlement came into existence through the 1971 Immigration Act. People with certain types of immigration status can acquire the right to remain indefinitely in the UK i.e. become ‘settled’. This means they have the right to live and work in the UK without restrictions. Under certain circumstances settled migrants may still be deported, settled status may be revoked, and their children do not necessarily have British citizenship. In order to be ‘non-deportable’, a person has to have British citizenship. It is possible to apply for British citizenship after a period of settlement. Under UK legislation it is possible to be a dual national, though holders of dual nationality may be stripped of their British citizenship under certain circumstances (Gibney 2008).

UK naturalisation policy takes as its starting point the 1981 British Nationality Act. This Act marked the downgrading of relations with former colonies (former ‘British subjects’), and the abandonment of ‘ius soli’, the right, dating back to 1608, of all those born on British territory to be British subjects. Nevertheless a set period of legal residence continued to be the principal basis for granting citizenship. There was a linguistic competence requirement but this was very rarely enforced. While not overtly stated this assumes that the longer one stays in a country, the closer the links one develops with it: one becomes accustomed to its ways, settles in to a community, and begins to build a life there. In effect, the indicator of ‘integration’ is length of (legal) stay.

Changes began in 2001. The Cantle Report, commissioned to identify views and practices to promote social cohesion following the Bradford disturbances, emphasised the importance of promoting ‘a meaningful concept of citizenship’ (Home Office 2001a) and suggested the promotion of English language acquisition and an oath of national allegiance from migrants. There was broad ministerial acceptance of the approach of the Cantle Report in the publication of Building Cohesive Communities also known as The Denham Report (Home Office 2001b). While stating that ‘there is no single dominant and unchanging culture into which all must assimilate’, this also identified the importance of ‘shared values’ (Home Office 2001b). This led to new emphasis on the link between social cohesion and citizenship. The recommendations of the Life in the UK Advisory Group, that applicants either pass a ‘citizenship test’ or complete an English language with citizenship course, were implemented in 2005. These requirements have been gradually extended, and since 2007 language requirements have been made of certain groups who are applying to enter the UK or who are applying for settlement, as well as those who are applying for citizenship.

Legislation passed in 2009 introduced fundamental changes to obtaining citizenship. In particular it broke the link between length of residence and right to settlement and naturalisation. For those who are eligible, after an initial temporary period (which can run to 5 years), a new status of ‘probationary citizen’ was introduced which could last for a further 1-5 years. This is not a secure residence status, and does not confer eligibility for most benefits, family reunion or home student fees. While using the terminology of ‘citizenship’ it brings with it no citizenship rights. Those with this status can then apply for ‘permanent residence’ (PR i.e. settlement) or British citizenship. The possibility for new and tougher language and knowledge tests to enter both probationary citizenship and citizenship/PR status were also introduced. Processes for acquiring these statuses also offered inducements to apply for British citizenship rather than ‘permanent residence’.

Most of these changes are due to be implemented in the summer of 2011. The coalition government has not said what it will do, but has made a commitment that it will make settlement (and by implication citizenship acquisition) more difficult. It has also stated that it will do away with the proposal to encourage migrant volunteering or ‘active citizenship’ which it deemed ‘too complicated, bureaucratic, and in the end ineffective’ (Home Office 2010).

Sawyer (2010) argues that historically ‘Britishness’ is ambiguous but inclusive. This is not to say that aliens were treated as if they were British, but that there was in practice considerable ambiguity about who belongs. “It has not been necessary to formally be part of the fabric of society for practical day-to-day purposes, since that depended mostly on actual, rather than even explicitly lawful residence” (Sawyer 2010: 7). She points to the importance of settlement rather than citizenship as an indication of this. The attempt to convert permanent residence into a status primarily for those who are not permitted dual nationality, taken up by very few people marks an important shift. This, together with the breaking of the link between length of stay and right of settlement, means both that the space for ‘good enough’ belonging without formal citizenship is increasingly narrowed and that the difference in rights between citizens and non-citizens is widened.

There may be unintended consequences of this, not least that far from giving value to citizenship, it risks making the motivation for acquisition of citizenship far more instrumental. It is already noteworthy that EEA nationals are less likely than others to apply for citizenship. Interestingly there has been a decline in applications for British citizenship from the 2004 EU Accession states since EU Enlargement, even though there has been an increase in the numbers of migrants from those states. Rutter et al. conclude that this is ‘because this group has the fewest restrictions in the UK on their rights of movement and abode and on their social rights, thus the least ‘need’ to apply for citizenship’ (Rutter et al. 2008). The instrumentalisation of citizenship runs counter to the original policy intention to raise the status of citizenship and makes its acquisition more than a tick box bureaucratic exercise.

The shift to incorporate ideas of identity and belonging into the legal processes of naturalisation emphasises the symbolic dimension of citizenship. Demonstrating ‘belonging’ is no longer largely a matter of the length of time a person has (legally) been in the UK with the question of settlement or citizenship being a technical one. This means one must answer questions like: What is Britishness? What are British values? What is belonging? The answers to these questions are very difficult to pin down, and one cannot assume that British nationals will not answer these in very different ways. Unlike the straightforward question, ‘How long have you legally resided in the UK?’ these sorts of value laden questions do not have settled answers and this allows for new spaces of contestation to open up. The current Conservative Party Chairman Baroness Warsi recently said that she would fail former Conservative Party Chairman Norman Tebbit’s cricket test of belonging to Britain because she would cheer on the Pakistani cricket team.

Is citizenship an end point, a reward for being ‘integrated’, in effect a personal benefit that enables an individual to claim a variety of rights? Or is it part of a process, a social good that facilitates cohesion? Is citizenship an end in itself, or is it a means to a cohesive society? The obvious answer is that it is both an individual reward and a social good, but they have very different policy implications. If citizenship is primarily a reward that gives access to resources its restriction is part of what gives it value, while if it is primarily a social good, that suggests that there is a benefit in facilitating the broadest possible access to it. While the current citizenship debate had its basis in concerns about cohesion, the tests and other restrictions have in practice become obstacles to achieving the legal status, rather than enablers of integration.

Most of the public debate on immigration has been conducted about entry rather than about settlement. However the new focus on net migration is concerned with ‘numbers in’ balancing ‘numbers out’. There is no explicit interest in the citizenship of the numbers in and numbers out, and in 2009/10 for instance the net migration figure increased even though the numbers in declined because fewer British nationals left the UK. The only group whose movement can be directly controlled in and out are non-EEA nationals. The focus on net migration means that there is an interest in discouraging the settlement of non-EU migrants in particular as the one group whose movement out can be overtly facilitated. Current Home Secretary Teresa May has stated that it is ‘too easy at the moment to move from temporary residence to permanent settlement’ (Home Office 2010). As discussed above, because of the increasingly close relation between settlement and formal citizenship, this has direct implications for citizenship.

Making settlement and citizenship more difficult can help to limit net migration by encouraging churn and in effect may be used to enable long stay to be limited to those with high human capital. However, there are also risks to such policies. Increasing the proportion of migrants who have temporary stay will result in a growing number of people residing in the UK with very limited rights. For migrants who wish to stay longer than the initial period granted by their visa there are three options, overstaying, renewing their visa (i.e. extending their temporary stay), or changing to a different visa status. Depending on how the legislation is implemented and on the particular conditions attached to their entry, this would have different consequences. One consequence of increased numbers of people on temporary visas that are valid for a period of several years is that some will become parents while they are resident in the UK. These children will not be British citizens. In this way there is a risk that citizenship and settlement policies make integration and cohesion more difficult rather than easier.

The UK has long been identified as a country of ‘civic’ rather than ‘ethnic’ nationalism, where membership of the nation is defined as political rather than ethnic. The reasons for this have been traced back to the development of the state, and also the British Empire which ruled territories and people as British subjects (Shulman 2002). However, not all subjects of the British Empire were equal to one another. MacDonald has cogently argued that ‘the Aliens Act 1905 was not merely born out of an enormous anti-Jewish agitation. It also came in the wake of half a century of agitation for the strictest control of non-white immigration throughout the self-governing part of the Commonwealth’ (MacDonald 2010).

There continues to be a complex relation between immigration, citizenship and ‘race’ that is an important component of public debate. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, warned for example ‘Migration threatens the very ethos or DNA of our nation’ (Times, January 7 2010). However, one of the fundamental principles of liberal citizenship is that all citizens are formally equal to each other. This is the case whether citizenship is acquired by naturalisation or by registration (‘by birth’). Notably ‘migrant’ in the UK is generally officially defined as being ‘foreign born’ and so British citizens by naturalisation continue to count as ‘migrants’; their impact on labour market and costs to welfare state etc are presented accordingly (Anderson and Blinder, 2011). Of course there are many axes of inequality between citizens (by ethnicity, gender, physical and mental disability, income and so on); if there were not there would be no call for anti-discrimination legislation and practices. This is complicated for non-EEA foreign-born migrants (who may also be subject to other forms of discrimination of course) by the fact that, until they obtain settlement, employers are obliged to treat them differently (which some might equate to ‘discrimination’) on the grounds of their nationality.

The relation between citizenship and ideals of cohesion, integration and equality, remains unclear. More particularly the aims of citizenship policy are not well defined, in stark contrast to immigration policy. Nevertheless there have been considerable changes to the processes of acquiring formal citizenship, including the introduction of a number of tests. These ostensibly promote citizenship and sense of belonging, but there is also some evidence that they are making citizenship acquisition more difficult, particularly for certain groups (Ryan 2010). It seems that a number of, often competing, ideas about what citizenship is and why it should be valued are being brought to bear on acquisition processes. These formal processes are not necessarily able to accommodate all these ideas.

The breaking of the link between settlement and citizenship represents a fundamental break with past practice by attempting to draw a ‘bright line’ between those who have citizenship and those who do not. The sharpening differentiation between citizens and non-citizens is occurring at a time of ‘super-diversity’ (Vertovec 2007), when migrants from many different countries are moving to the UK for very different reasons and lengths of stay. Arguably this makes a more flexible approach more desirable, and there is a risk of creating an ever increasing number of people with extremely limited rights. The question of the relation between formal citizenship and Britishness, between belonging to the state and belonging to ‘the community’ will continue to exercise public debate for years to come.

Anderson, B. and S. Blinder. “Who Counts as a Migrant: Definitions and their Consequences.” Migration Observatory Briefing, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford, 2011.
Cabinet Office. “Building the Big Society.” Cabinet Office, London, 2010. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/building-big-society_0.pdf.
Gibney, M. “Asylum and the Expansion of Deportation in the United Kingdom.’” Government and Opposition 43 (2008): 139-143.
Home Office. “Government Announcement on Settlement Reforms.” Press Release, Home Office, London, 5 November 2010. http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/2010/nov/15-settlement-reforms.
Home Office Community Cohesion Review Team. “Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team Chaired by Ted Cantle.” Home Office, London, 2001a.
Home Office Ministerial Group on Public Order and Community Cohesion. “Building Cohesive Communities: Report of the Ministerial Group on Public Order and Community Cohesion.” Home Office, London, 2001b.
MacDonald, I. “Rights of Settlement in the UK: A Historical Perspective” Paper presented at the Migration and Law Network Conference, Middlesex University, 9 September 2010.
Mayo, M. and A. Rooke. “Active Learning for Active Citizenship: An Evaluation Report.” Home Office, London, 2006.
Rutter, J., M. Latorre, and D. Sriskandarajah, “Beyond Naturalisation: Citizenship Policy in an Age of Super Mobility.” Institute for Public Policy Research, London, 2008.
Ryan, B. “Integration Rules in Immigration and Nationality Law: The Case of the United Kingdom.” Report for the EIF project ‘Integration and Naturalisation Tests: The New Way to European Citizenship’, Centre for Migration Law, Nijmegenr, 2010.
Sawyer, C. “EUDO Citizenship Observatory Country Report: United Kingdom.” Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, 2010.
Shulman, S. “Challenging the Civic/Ethnic and West/East Dichotomies in the Study of Nationalism.” Comparative Political Studies 35 (2002): 554-585.
Vertovec, S. “Super-Diversity and its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30, no. 6 (2007): 1024-1054.
Bridget Anderson

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The Importance of Citizenship: Rights, Responsibilities, Benefits, and Functions

Citizenship is a key component of being a member of a country and is crucial in determining a person’s identity and rights in a given community. We shall discuss the importance of citizenship in this article, as well as its rewards, rights, and duties. Understanding the fundamental characteristics of citizenship can help us better comprehend the benefits, responsibilities, and essential purposes it fulfils. This article will serve as your thorough reference whether you want to learn about citizenship requirements or are inquisitive about the benefits it offers.

Table of Contents

Rights of Citizenship

Citizenship comes with a variety of rights and protections that are essential for people to live in a country. While these rights may vary from country to country, several components are universal in many different legal systems. The freedom to vote is one of the most important liberties a citizen enjoys. The democratic process gives citizens the ability to take part and have an impact on choices that affect both their local community and the country as a whole.

Additionally, citizenship frequently gives people the ability to apply for a passport, allowing them to travel freely and contacting the consulates or embassies of their home country for diplomatic support. Access to public services like healthcare, education, and social welfare is made possible by citizenship, which also protects the right to reside and work in the nation.

Responsibilities of Citizenship

Along with privileges, citizenship entails obligations that advance the general welfare and growth of the country. Obeying the law in the country is one of the main duties. To maintain peace, order, and stability in society, citizens are expected to respect and abide by the law.

Tax payment is another essential civic obligation. Taxes support the nation’s development, public services, and infrastructure. Citizens actively contribute to the development and prosperity of their nation by carrying out this duty.

Participation in civic affairs is yet another essential duty of citizenship. This covers political debates, volunteering, and involvement in neighbourhood projects. Citizens assist build a cohesive and inclusive society by actively contributing to the community.

Citizenship entails the obligation to protect the country if required. Citizens may be asked to join the military or help in other ways during times of crisis or conflict to ensure the safety and security of their fellow citizens.

Benefits of Citizenship

Numerous advantages of citizenship improve both a person’s personal and professional lives. The defence of legal rights is a noteworthy benefit. Citizens have access to a fair trial and equitable treatment under the law, as well as legal protection against discrimination.

Additionally, citizenship opens up more job prospects for people. When it comes to work, many nations provide their residents with preferential treatment, which may include access to government jobs, scholarships, and training opportunities. Citizenship frequently provides doors to social and economic advantages, enabling people to actively participate in the economic development of the nation.

Another benefit of citizenship is access to healthcare. The majority of citizens have access to comprehensive healthcare, ensuring their health and the health of their families. A future that is healthier and more secure is made possible by this access to healthcare services.

The ability to sponsor family members for immigration or citizenship is another benefit of citizenship. Families are able to live together and establish a solid support system in their adopted nation thanks to this reunion benefit.

Functions of Citizenship

1. fostering a sense of national identity and belonging:.

A shared sense of national identity, pride, patriotism, and attachment to one’s country are all fostered by citizenship. It fosters social cohesiveness and togetherness by giving people a sense of belonging to a wider group. People establish a link to their nation’s culture, customs, and ideals through identifying as citizens.

2. Promoting social integration:

By making it easier for people to integrate into society, citizenship encourages social integration. People learn about their country’s history, beliefs, institutions, and democratic principles through citizenship education and civic engagement. This information encourages people to take an active role in the democratic process and feel a feeling of civic responsibility, which helps them improve their communities.

3. Acting as a mechanism for political representation:

Citizenship enables people to take part in politics and guarantees that their voices and interests are heard. Citizens have the opportunity to choose representatives who will rule on their behalf through the right to vote and to participate in politics. Due to elected officials’ accountability to the people they represent, this system of political representation promotes democratic governance and results in a more open and responsive government.

4. Enhancing democratic governance and accountability:

Citizenship provides a foundation for accountability and openness, which helps democratic systems function as a whole. Democratic institutions grow more receptive to the demands and ambitions of the populace as citizens actively engage in civic life, hold elected officials responsible, and voice their concerns. This active participation encourages a system of checks and balances and ensures that choices are made in the best interests of the public.

5. Promoting social and economic rights:

Access to social and economic rights within a country is mostly dependent on citizenship. Citizenship fosters social inclusion and lowers inequities by offering people the right to education, healthcare, social welfare, and work possibilities. It offers a base for people to actively participate in the social and economic advancement of their nation, raising living standards and enhancing wellbeing generally.

6. Facilitating international representation and diplomacy:

Citizenship enables people to represent their nation abroad. up behalf of their country, citizens can take up roles as diplomats, ambassadors, or members of international organisations. This portrayal encourages diplomacy, collaboration, and the defence of national interests and rights overseas. Additionally, it makes it possible for people to obtain consular assistance and safety when they are outside of their own country, thus solidifying their ties to it.

Additionally, citizenship serves as a tool for achieving social and economic inclusion . Citizenship contributes to the reduction of inequalities and fosters upward social mobility by providing people with access to social services, educational possibilities, and work prospects.

A dedication to a country and its principles, citizenship is more than just a legal position. Individuals are more equipped to actively participate in reshaping their communities when they are aware of the rights, obligations, advantages, and functions of citizenship. By appreciating the value of citizenship, we may promote a more inclusive and prosperous society for all, where rights are upheld, duties are carried out, and civic responsibilities help to advance the welfare of the country.

Also Read:- https://www.borthakursiasacademy.com/blog/polity-supreme-court-and-judicial-review/

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Essay on Global Citizenship

Students are often asked to write an essay on Global Citizenship in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Global Citizenship

What is global citizenship.

Global citizenship means seeing yourself as a part of the whole world, not just your country. It’s about caring for people and the planet, no matter where they are. Global citizens work together to solve big problems like poverty and climate change.

Responsibilities of Global Citizens

Being a global citizen means you have duties. You should learn about different cultures, respect the environment, and help others. It’s about making good choices that don’t hurt others around the world.

Benefits of Global Citizenship

When we act as global citizens, we make the world better. We get to understand different people and can work on making peace. It also helps us to solve big problems that affect everyone, like keeping the earth clean and safe.

250 Words Essay on Global Citizenship

Global citizenship is the idea that everyone on our planet is part of a big community. It’s like thinking of the whole world as one big neighborhood. People who believe in global citizenship care about issues that affect everyone, no matter where they live.

Caring for the Earth

One part of being a global citizen is looking after our planet. This means doing things to protect the environment, like recycling or turning off lights to save energy. It’s about keeping the Earth clean and safe for all of us and the animals too.

Helping Each Other

Global citizens also think it’s important to help people in need. This could be by giving money to charities that work all over the world or by learning about different cultures and understanding people who are different from us.

Another big idea in global citizenship is fairness. This means making sure that people everywhere have what they need, like food, water, and a chance to go to school. It’s not fair if some people have too much while others have too little.

Working Together

Finally, global citizenship is about countries and people working together to solve big problems. This can be anything from fighting diseases that spread across countries to making sure everyone has a good place to live.

In short, being a global citizen means caring for our world and the people in it. It’s about learning, sharing, and working together to make the world a better place for everyone.

500 Words Essay on Global Citizenship

Imagine a big school that has students from every part of the world. These students learn together, play together, and help each other. This is a bit like what global citizenship is. Global citizenship means thinking of yourself as a part of one big world community. Instead of just looking after the people in your own town or country, you care about everyone on Earth.

Why is Global Citizenship Important?

Our world is connected in many ways. What happens in one country can affect many others. For example, if the air gets polluted in one place, it can travel to other places and make the air dirty there too. By being global citizens, we can work together to solve big problems like pollution, poverty, and sickness that can touch people everywhere.

Respecting Cultures and People

Global citizens respect and learn about different cultures and people. Every culture has its own special stories, food, and ways of living. When you are a global citizen, you are curious about these differences and you understand that every person is important, no matter where they come from.

Taking Care of the Planet

Our Earth is the only home we have. Global citizens take care of it by doing things like recycling, saving water, and planting trees. We all share the same air, water, and land, so it’s everyone’s job to look after them.

Helping Others

Global citizens try to help people who need it. This can be by giving money to charities that work all over the world or by being kind to someone from another country who moves to your town. When we help each other, the whole world becomes a better place.

Learning and Sharing Knowledge

Being a global citizen also means learning about the world and sharing what you know. You can read books, watch films, or talk to people from different places. Then, you can share what you learn with your friends and family.

Being Active in Your Community

Even though global citizenship is about the whole world, it starts in your own community. You can join groups that clean up parks, help people who are sick, or raise money for good causes. By doing small things where you live, you are being a part of something much bigger.

Global citizenship is like being a friend to the entire world. It means learning, sharing, and caring for others and our planet. Even if you are just one person, you can make a big difference. When we all work together as global citizens, we make the world a happier, healthier, and more peaceful place.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Indian Tourism
Essay on Everyday Life
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Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Global Citizen Essay Examples

The role of a good citizen: nurturing a strong and responsible society.

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Importance of Becoming a Global Citizen

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The Portrait of an Active Global Citizen: Jane Goodall

Active global citizen is a term that is used to refer to an individual that portrays unique characteristics and actions, where they care for and influence members of a community and take interest in local and global issues. Having a maintained, organized, and functioning society...

The Power of Global Citizenship

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To Be a Thomasian Global Citizen

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The Importance of Citizenship: Rights, Responsibilities, Benefits, and Functions

Rights of Citizenship

Responsibilities of Citizenship

Benefits of Citizenship

Functions of Citizenship

2. Promoting social integration:

3. Acting as a mechanism for political representation:

4. Enhancing democratic governance and accountability:

5. Promoting social and economic rights:

6. Facilitating international representation and diplomacy:

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Essay on Global Citizenship

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250 Words Essay on Global Citizenship

Caring for the Earth

Helping Each Other

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Why is Global Citizenship Important?

Respecting Cultures and People

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