The Decline of Citizenship in an Era of Globalization

Abstract

This article seeks to identify the linkages between traditional conceptions of citizenship based on affiliation with a territorial state and the rise of global market forces. The basic argument set forth is that the erosion of state autonomy and the emergence of arenas of decision and power beyond the control of the state have been weakening traditional bonds of identity between individuals and the state. This pattern is particularly pronounced in the liberal democratic states of the West, which were the main settings within which citizenship in its modern forms emerged. The latter parts of the article consider the prospects for new forms of political identity that are reshaping the meaning of citizenship, creating multiple loyalties and superseding the monolithic conception of citizenship associated with a Westphalian system of world public order. It is, as yet, too soon to depict the contours of post-Westphalian citizenship, but its essence will be shaped by an allegiance to shared values and to the experience of community, a dynamic that will increasingly diminish the reductive association of the citizen exclusively with a particular sovereign state.