Full Political Rights Research Articles

The Status of Women in the Soviet Union

For centuries, many women have been at the forefront of the struggle for emancipation and political changes. Efforts at integrating the idea of emancipation into society was an important part of the Bolshevik ideology; thus, the October Revolution of 1917 brought women new hope and new expectations. The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to successfully open the door to new economic and educational opportunities for women. In 1917, the Bolshevik legislative initiatives provided them with full political and civil rights while new legislation made women legally equal to men. The constitution adopted in July 1918 secured the political and civil equality of women and men. However, the gender policy developed and implemented by Lenin significantly changed after his death. Until the second half of the 1930s, the Soviet Union remained the world leader in terms of providing women with equal rights. However, after the new leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin, came to power, the government policy on women and equality substantially transformed. During Stalin’s rule, the concept of “a new type of woman” was created. The early Bolshevik policy, which started with a radical liberal vision of individual freedom and women’s rights, devolved into an abyss of cynicism that burdened women with a disproportionate responsibility for unpaid work in the household. The purpose of this work is to study the role of women during the early Soviet period and to examine legal and political changes in women’s status. The study aims at explaining what the main goal of the Soviet gender policy was in fact, whether it actually changed the status of women and what crucial changes it ultimately brought to them. Using the method of content analysis, the content of official documents, press and scientific literature was analyzed. At the same time, attempts were made to identify and analyze the positive and negative results of the Soviet policy by applying the method of critical research.

Peace on Our Terms: The Global Battle for Women's Rights after the First World War

Peace on Our Terms: The Global Battle for Women's Rights after the First World War

Jews and the Farm-Business Complex in the Southern British Mainland Colonies and Beyond

Jews and the Farm-Business Complex in the Southern British Mainland Colonies and Beyond Mark K. Bauman (bio) In 1733, Abigail Minis sailed across the Atlantic with her husband, Abraham, as part of the first contingent of Jews from England to Savannah, Georgia. She juggled raising a family while helping Abraham conduct business. He gave Abigail legal control of his enterprises when he died, and they flourished under her leadership as never before. Because Abigail never remarried, she maintained her agency. She expanded the land holdings she inherited from her husband exponentially. She also ran a popular tavern that served as an important meeting place for businesspeople and political figures. The tavern used products from her plantations, and the plantations also provided building materials for her urban real estate investments. A patriot during the American Revolution, she fled to Charleston while the British occupied Georgia. Yet her political and business contacts shielded her property in Georgia from confiscation. Informed by the important role of women in the family economy over generations, her blending of agriculture and business is an important illustration of key themes in this essay: in a region dominated by a cash-crop farming economy, the Jews who pursued agriculture did so almost always in line with their regular commercial activities. MODELS AND VARIATIONS When historians of transatlantic Jewry discuss Jewish plantation ownership in South America and the Caribbean, they define "plantation Jews" like the Minis family as a social type.1 Before about 1800, Jews in the Caribbean hailed largely from Portugal or descended from Portuguese [End Page 143] Jews. Many brought their experience with sugarcane from their earlier sojourn in Dutch Recife, Brazil and pioneered and served as leaders of sugarcane production in their new home. The Inquisition had previously forced them to convert (New Christians) or outwardly practice Catholicism while secretly remaining Jews (crypto-Jews). The latter frequently renewed their identities as Jews when freed from fear of the Inquisition. They could nonetheless face substantial religious and even racial discrimination as they did in Jamaica, unlike in the American South, where antisemitism was limited. This Portuguese Nación maintained religious, family, and business ties across the globe. Links with Bayonne and Holland proved especially strong, although connections with London increased from the mid-eighteenth century. Although most of these individuals conducted local and international trade, a few not only owned sugarcane plantations but also conducted international trade in products derived from the cane and other merchandise. Some did both and others did one or the other. Still, as Stanley Mirvis observes of Jamaica, "this study of Jews is an urban history of a colony with a largely rural population." Jewish merchants abounded in Port Royal and other Caribbean cities. Mirvis describes a "more nuanced reality that 'merchants' and 'planters' were often one and the same…." As in the American South, only a small number of Jews owned plantations, although far more did so in the islands than in the South. Variations thus exist in the model of plantation Jewry.2 Jews in the American South both conformed to and diverged from this model and its variations. They often immigrated after first undergoing [End Page 144] an adjustment period in England, had more diverse backgrounds, and did not have associations with Bayonne or prior experience in Brazil. None owned sugarcane plantations during the colonial era, and few did so thereafter. Thus Jews in the American South were far from quintessential plantation Jews. So few Jews worked as farmers, for example, that historians of Charleston Jewry assumed that the earliest Jewish settlers purchased plantation land only to qualify for full political rights because they made their livelihood as merchants.3 Yet, in both the Caribbean and America, Jews gravitated to cities; participated in international trade using ethnic, religious, and familiar connections; participated and benefited from slave-based plantation economies; and mixed agricultural with business endeavors. In contrast to Jews in the Caribbean, only a small number of Jews in the American South farmed, and virtually all of these integrated their agriculture and business ventures. Whereas Jews in the Caribbean and South America owned plantations and ran businesses, these enterprises do not appear to have been conjoined in...

Evolution of the constitutional legal status of the federal territory of the District of Columbia, USA: constitutional legal risks

The subject. The article analyzes seven stages of the evolution of the constitutional legal status of the first federal territory in history the District of Columbia, USA. In the course of this analysis, the author formulates the constitutional legal risks of the existence of federal territories in the state. From the standpoint of identifying constitutional legal risks, an amendment to Article 67 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation on the possibility of the formation of federal territories on the territory of Russia is also analyzed.The purpose of the paper is to identify constitutional legal risks in terms of the existence of federal territories using the example of the centuries-old struggle of the District of Columbia for autonomy.The methodology of the study includes general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, description) and legal methods. In addition to this, historical method was also applicable.The main results and scope of their application. The author realized, that a certain constitutional risk exists when the federal territory is established as a special public-law entity, because the evolutionary process of the constitutional-legal status of the first federal territory, that was established in constitutional law – the District of Columbia in the United States of America, demonstrated such risk. The author describes seven different stages of the evolutionary process of the DC's constitutional legal status in its pass to autonomy and full political rights: (1) 1800–1870; (2) 1871 – June of 1874; (3) 20 of June 1874 – 1967; (4) 1967–1973; (5) 1973–1983; (6) September of 1983 – 2016; (7) since 2016 until now.According to these periods, since 1801, DC residents, bound by all obligations of American citizenship, want to be equal to the rest of America's citizens. The United States is the only democratic country in the world today that denies the right to vote for a representative of the capital in the Congress. The Statehood of Washington, DC will correct a long-standing historical injustice that is unique in its nature among all capitals in the world. The author also proposes to consider as a constitutional risk the possibility of negative consequences (legal damage) for the subjects of constitutional law due to the contention of constitutional values.In addition to this, the author concluded, that there is a risk that the Council of the Federal Territory “Sirius” will lose its representative character due to the absence of the established dependence of the number of elected Council members on the number of voters, as happened in the District of Columbia, where a fixed number of Council members (13) is also established, which cannot be changed by the district and which does not depend on the population living in its territory. It is also necessary to take into account the constitutional risk of the federal territory striving for autonomy within the federation, especially in the case of the formation of a local community on its territory.

Youth Right to Political Participation under International Human Rights Law

The call for an increase in youth participation in politics and governance globally is a recurring decimal in both national and global issues. Some states like Kenya have yielded to the call by constitutionally guaranteeing full political rights to all youths. Countries like Nigeria have limited full political rights to some youth while other youth’ political rights are grossly limited to only the right to vote. Thus, this article interrogates the contours and the contents of the right to political participation of youths under international human rights law. It, however, focuses on the African human rights system and current development in Nigeria. It contends that youth right to political participation should not be different from that of other adults in any state. It argues that the practice of most states in Africa where they give different conditions for the exercise of political rights between youth and other adults in the society is against their obligations under international human rights law. It also amounts a flagrant violation of the right to political participation of youths. It further contends that all political rights should be treated as inseparable twins, in that, all adults citizen who are entitled to either of the rights should equally be entitled to all the other political rights. All persons within the age of majority in any country must be allowed to exercise and enjoy their full political rights without discrimination on the basis of age, disability or other status.

Combined Effects of Cultural-Linguistic Proximity and Naturalization on Political Integration of First-Generation Immigrants

Although the under-participation of ethnic minorities in the electoral field is frequently observed, the nuances of their political engagement remain relatively unexplored by scholars. Particularly, little empirical analysis has attempted to identify the barriers faced by first-generation immigrants to adopt a party preference in their host country. Drawing on a unique survey data with a large sample of first-generation immigrants (N= 2,648) in a new migration country (Spain), this article explores the relevance of different set of factors (cultural proximity vs immigration status) in explaining the acquisition of a party preference among this minority population. We find that cultural proximity (as defined by the country of origin: Latin-American vs the rest) is a strong predictor for the acquisition of a party preference. Additionally, our results suggest that the predictive strength of this factor is reinforced through a naturalization regime that facilitates full political rights to culturally closer immigrants, thus reinforcing their a priori better conditions for political integration. Finally, the results also suggest that permissive (rather than restrictive) naturalization policies might work better to secure the political integration of migrant minorities.

A Duty to Protect and Respect: Seneca Opposition to Incorporation during the Removal Period

When pressured to remove after the 1830 Indian Removal Act, some from among the Seneca appealed to the federal government to prevent displacement. In these letters and petitions, their authors periodically invoked the notion of protection, an instrument of cross-cultural diplomatic encounters of the previous century. Seneca authors sought to defend their tribe against settler takeover by invoking two different kinds of protection, external and internal. They further drew upon a civil right, petitioning, although originally it had been a method of exclusion from full political rights, and rejected the legal incorporation forced upon American Indians through the “domestic dependent nations” ruling.

Muddy waters: citizenship and the right to vote in the Commonwealth Caribbean migratory context

ABSTRACTTwo global voting trends are noted in the electoral studies literature: the exclusion of resident noncitizens and the inclusion of non-resident citizens in national elections. These two research streams are rarely studied together. By analysing both of these trends in the Commonwealth Caribbean, the article reveals how the assumed relationship between citizenship and the right to vote does not always hold. Citizenship is neither necessary nor sufficient to exercise full political rights. The Commonwealth Caribbean thus diverges from global voting trends and illustrates the complexities and changing shape of the relationship between citizenship and the right to vote.

“The Political Platform of the Latvian People’s Council” of 17 November 1918 as the Founder of the Gender Equality Tradition in Latvia Within the Discourse of European Ideas on Gender Equality

The paper focuses on gender equality tradition in Latvia within the discourse of European ideas on gender equality, researching the avenues whereby the political forces decided to give women a political rights at the time of establishing the Republic of Latvia. The analysis leads to a conclusion that the Republic of Latvia joined the group of countries – trailblazers, which at the end of World War I, in establishing, transforming or restoring their statehood, founded a state with a democratic structure and legally enshrined civil society, recognising women as its members with full political rights. The author also challenges a thesis that the society, even after women have been granted full political rights by law, is not in a hurry to change gender statuses and the model of the family.

1865 Alabama: From Civil War to Uncivil Peace by Christopher Lyle McIlwain Sr.

Reviewed by: 1865 Alabama: From Civil War to Uncivil Peace by Christopher Lyle McIlwain Sr. Mike Bunn 1865 Alabama: From Civil War to Uncivil Peace. By Christopher Lyle McIlwain Sr. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2017. 364 pp. $49.95. ISBN 978-0-8173-1953-3. 1865 Alabama: From Civil War to Uncivil Peace explores in unprecedented depth the devastating final year of the war, as well as the tumultuous beginnings of the Reconstruction Era in the state. In the pages of the book, author Christopher Lyle McIlwain, Sr., argues for a reconsideration of our collective understanding of both, contending our hazy shared memories of the denouement to Alabama's wartime [End Page 267] trials and its postwar reality are heavily colored by a debilitating accretion of myth, legend, and partisan scholarship. McIlwain believes the year 1865 in Alabama history is rather simply defined by a cascading litany of bad decisions on the part of irrational leaders which manifested themselves in an unnecessarily prolonged and particularly devastating period of economic struggle, political turmoil, and isolation from the mainstream of American society that handicapped the state's progress for generations afterward. McIlwain opens his study by chronicling perhaps the paramount blunder among a series of poor choices by Alabama leaders, a decision which, in his opinion, flew in the face of common sense—the attempt to continue to wage a war he contends had long been lost by 1865. Continuing the theme from his recent book Civil War Alabama (Tuscaloosa, 2016), he portrays Confederate nationalism as something akin to either an elaborate hoax foisted on a gullible populace or a tragic disconnect with reality. The state's elite come in for the harshest of his criticisms, as he examines their self-serving efforts to prolong the war, offering either editorial or financial support—but rarely battlefield service—with a thinly veiled contempt. While he tracks in cursory fashion some of the major military campaigns which ravaged the state from the Tennessee Valley to Mobile Bay in the spring of 1865, this is no military history. McIlwain's focus is on the progressive disaffection with the Confederate military effort within Alabama and the wasted opportunities to end the struggle prior to the dismantling of its industrial complex, the complete destruction of its economy, and a wasteful loss of life. The conviction that the state's leaders should have been willing and able to move on and make the best deal they could with their conquerors in the wake of Appomattox undergirds McIlwain's assessment of events during the latter half of 1865. He notes that despite conventional wisdom, a good deal indeed could have been obtained when viewed from their perspective. President Abraham Lincoln, he argues, offered even more generous and lenient terms than commonly understood, pointing to evidence that indicates the president [End Page 268] did not intend to insist on full political rights for black citizens as a condition of the readmission process. Thus with Lincoln's assassination, Alabama's path towards rejoining the Union with any degree of its traditional political autonomy grew considerably more difficult. But the early days of President Andrew Johnson's administration offered opportunities for a relatively smooth readmission process, as well, asserts McIlwain. When Alabama's leadership stubbornly refused to comply, it not only marked the beginning of a hegemonic shift in the state's political power structure, but spelled doom for the state's prospects of economic recovery. It is actually in Alabama's marked recalcitrance during the first months of Johnson's tenure, McIlwain argues—not the later vindictive reprisals of radical Northern Republicans—that the state's postwar fate was sealed. Alabama leaders followed a course of arrogant retrenchment in the latter half of 1865, highlighted by the passage of an exceedingly conservative constitution which raised the eyebrows of observers in Washington. Overall, the first few months of Alabama's postwar era revealed state leaders to be committed to subverting efforts toward the full extension of civil rights to black citizens; the election of outspoken former rebels to the highest of offices; and even the entertaining of an outrageous attempt to repudiate the state's war debt. All this only encouraged...

At 50 We Dare Not Give Up

At 50 We Dare Not Give Up

Should children have a right to vote? Political initiation and the status of childhood

Should children have the right to vote? This question is answered in the negative, in this essay. However, it is made clear that the debate on full political rights for children brings up some unsolved problems of liberal democratic thought. First, it might seem that denying a fundamental right (such as the right the vote) to children is an assault on their status as moral and political equals. More specifically, it can be pointed out that some groups of children or adolescents are denied the right to vote although they are not less politically competent than some adults. Second, there is a problem with regard to democratic legitimacy. Children are not entitled to participate in the political process, but are subject to legal regulations that result from that process. Third, excluding persons from democratic decision-making makes it difficult to adequately represent their interests in the political process.

Gender and Politics in Kuwait: Women and Political Participation in the Gulf

Gender and Politics in Kuwait: Women and Political Participation in the Gulf

Transnational status and cosmopolitanism: are dual citizens and foreign residents cosmopolitan vanguards?

AbstractEmpirically growing transnationalism and normatively demanded cosmopolitanism may be closely connected when considered as different elements of new forms of citizenship beyond the single nation‐state. Do individuals with either full (dual citizenship) or partial (foreign resident) transnational status exhibit more cosmopolitanism than mono citizens? This article decodes the multidimensional character of cosmopolitanism using major democratic theories – liberalism, republicanism, and communitarianism. Multivariate regression analyses of data from a survey among mono citizens, dual citizens and foreign residents in Switzerland reveal that a transnational status is associated with cosmopolitanism in a differentiated way. Dual citizens and especially foreign residents are more likely than mono citizens to exhibit liberal cosmopolitanism; but only dual citizens having full political rights and opportunities in two countries are more likely to exhibit republican cosmopolitanism and only foreign residents excluded from the political community of residence are more likely to exhibit communitarian cosmopolitanism. Each of them can thus be considered as vanguards in specific ways. Our study furthermore demonstrates the added value of disaggregating both cosmopolitanism and transnationalism.

The idea of a ‘Just State’ (Rechtsstaat) (with reference to a unique feature of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa)

In South Africa the acquisition of full political and civil rights for all rectified the former political situation of apartheid South Africa. Against the background of key developments in the political legacy of the West, including the opposing theoretical orientations of individualistic and universalistic approaches, the historical roots of those conditions which eventually were recognised as essential for the idea of a just state are highlighted. Adding a mere multiplicity of individuals (atomistic social contract theories) or postulating one or another encompassing whole (such as Rousseau's volonté générale) precludes an insight into the own inner laws of distinct societal spheres. The concept of sovereignty appears not to be sufficient to delimit state-law properly. An alternative view is introduced by Althusius (1603) with his objection to the application of the whole-parts relation to society and the state. He acknowledges ‘leges propriae’ (proper laws for each societal collectivity and thus opened up an avenue for introducing the principle of sphere-sovereignty, which leaves room for the internal spheres of law of non-political societal entities as well as for personal freedom. If the spheres of public law, civil private law and non-civil private law are intact, political freedom, personal freedom and societal freedoms are secured—the structural conditions for the just state. The Constitution of South Africa incorporates these requirements for a Rechtsstaat and in addition contains a unique equity content. The future of the South African democracy is therefore crucially dependent upon the internalisation of a truly Rechtsstaat political culture.

HOW RACIAL ATTITUDES AND IDEOLOGY AFFECT POLITICAL RIGHTS FOR FELONS

AbstractThis research examines the extent to which negative attitudes toward African Americans influence public reactions to restoring political rights to felons. We argue that race-neutral policies, such as felon disenfranchisement laws, are non-separable from racial considerations, as images of criminals and felons are typically associated with Blacks. Such attitudes produce collateral consequences for felons, hampering the restoration of their full political rights and, ultimately, their citizenship. Predispositions, such as racial attitudes and political ideology, provide both racial and nonracial justifications for supporting these laws, yet, there are no empirical accounts of their relational effects on opinion toward felons’ rights. Using nationally representative survey data, we find that racialized resentment and ideology exert the most influence on the reactions to policies seeking political rights for felons as well as beliefs about the value of doing so. Consistent with much of the literature on attitudes toward ameliorative racial policies, higher levels of racial resentment strongly predict lower support for felons’ political rights among both conservatives and liberals, yet, racial resentment is most influential among liberals. Conservatives exhibit the highest levels of racial resentment, but its impact is depressed more by agreement on both racial attitudes and opposition to political rights of felons.

Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution by Scott Sowerby (review)

Reviewed by: Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution by Scott Sowerby J. William Frost Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution. By Scott Sowerby,. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013. vii + 416 pp. Maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $45. Most of us learned in college that James II was a fervent Roman Catholic seeking to create an absolute monarchy in England similar to what Louis XIV enjoyed in France. Sowerby’s careful examination of James’ unsuccessful attempt to gain a parliamentary majority for toleration is revisionism at its best. He argues [End Page 42] that James was working within and not attempting to subvert the British constitution. The so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 becomes not an advance for freedom but a “counter revolution” against a movement for enlightenment reform that could have unified the realm, ended religious persecution, fostered economic growth, and changed drastically the relations between Catholic Ireland and Anglican England. James made political mistakes but his campaign lost because of a pervasive anti-Catholicism by a population that did not trust his promises and, after the birth of a prince, feared the rule of a Catholic dynasty. So William Penn’s close association with James should not be seen as a betrayal of liberty, but as his attempt to aid the King in establishing a new Magna Carta enshrining religious toleration for Catholics and other dissenters, even Quakers. Except for Penn, Quakers played a minor role in the King’s attempt to create a parliament willing to repeal the test and penal acts; that is, to allow freedom of worship and full political rights. Sowerby credits Penn with persuading James that religious liberty should not be a gift bestowed by a monarch relying upon a dispensing power but was a natural right that must be made perpetual through law. In accompanying James on a royal tour in 1687, Penn spoke to large crowds in several towns and wrote four of the eighty pamphlets supporting the King’s efforts. Still, the Quaker community, like other dissenting groups, remained divided on how fully to endorse the political movement for repeal. William Mead turned down a chance to be an alderman in London and Stephen Crisp refused to be a magistrate, although supporting Penn in yearly meeting when George Fox opposed Quaker involvement in politics. Still, several Friends became aldermen in purged boroughs and in many towns Quakers offered strong support for repeal, showing that they were not political quietists. The Anglican hierarchy did not want toleration, but because the bishops feared Catholics, a few advocated the need to conciliate Protestant dissenters, although probably not Quakers. Some Tories, merchants involved in the wool trade, moderate Presbyterians, and most Baptists supported the King. James sought to ascertain the prevailing sentiment by sending three queries to be answered by those who could vote for or were members of Parliament. When the answers came back against toleration, James used London Baptist ministers to “regulate” or purge opponents from borough councils to obtain an electoral majority. After William and Mary became monarchs, the 1689 Act of Toleration suspended the penalties for worship by Protestants but not Catholics and continued the test acts to preserve Anglican political power. Toleration came because William had promised and the Anglicans needed the support of the dissenters. Sowerby’s book stops here, but for Quakers toleration came in the 1690s when, after lobbying by the Meeting for Sufferings and King William II’s support, parliament passed an affirmation act and allowed distraints rather than prison for non-payment of tithes. Sowerby lists 29 pages of manuscript collections from 139 depositories and [End Page 43] there are nearly 60 pages of footnotes of primary and secondary sources. So he has more than sufficient evidence to support his conclusions. Now, the questions should be posed: was James an autocrat except in religion or not an autocrat at all? J. William Frost Emeritus, Swarthmore College Copyright © 2014 Friends Historical Association

Empowerment of Muslim Women in Islam

Empowerment of Muslim Women in Islam

African American's Struggle for Equality and African American Literature

After the period of Reconstruction (1865-1877), the social position of Southern Negroes became worse. Negro leader Booker T. Washington, advocated gradual economic advancement of Negroes which was possible only if they relinquished their demand for political and civil rights. He believed that only self-reliant Negroes could more efficiently engage in the struggle for social equality. Other Negro leaders strongly opposed these tactics of gradual development.William E. B. Du Bois, historian and intellectual, was more radical in his ideas. He believed that Negroes must be united in their constant protest against discrimination in the white society and should insist on getting full political and civil rights immediately as well as the right to be educated according to economic circumstances and intellectual abilities. He highligted the advantage of higher education as only educated Negroes could set realistic goals for the Negro population and lead them in their struggle for social equality. Although Washington and his opponents had the same goal, their methods to achieve it differed. Washington strove to reach that goal indirectly, without creating white opposition. African-American literature depicts the reality discussed by politicians on the ideological level and transfers it into the spheres of intimate human drama giving it a moving quality and emotional recognizability. The principle of authenticity, one of the principles of poetic realism, requires an artistic and detailed analysis of reality which leads to the principle of criticism. The Negro author essentially becomes a critic of the reality he has used in his work. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n9p123

Economic Citizenship in India: A Socio-Legal Comparison of Two Cases

The author discusses the evolving concept of Economic Citizenship and relates a socio-legal dimension to transnational migration to and from India. The paper explores economic citizenship by developing the definition first identified by T.H. Marshall and then uses two case studies to show contrasted applications of Marshall’s definition. Marshall states that there are three types of rights needed for an individual’s development so that s/he can exist in, participate in and contribute to society. 1.Civil rights protect personal freedom. One is entitled to exercise freedom of speech, thought and faith, own property, conclude valid contracts, and have recourse to justice. 2.Political rights allow participation and franchise rights in political environments. 3.Social rights are the right to defend and assert all of one’s rights on the same terms as other members of society and by due process of law. They relate to the “whole range from the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilised being according to the standards prevailing in the society.” The paper observes that presence alone of economic opportunity in a society does not mean that the state has discharged its responsibilities to its citizens. Economic opportunity should also be legally accessible to the individual. The legal tie between economic and social aims supports the ensuing right for members of society to earn their livelihoods through the right to work. A denial of these rights should let the individual have political recourse to judicial and legislative redress. Case Study One analsyes economic citizenship in the resettlement dispute in Arunachal Pradesh of Chakma and Hajong tribes from the Chittagong Hill Tracts. These residents are indigenous people of India and are entitled to Indian citizenship by the Citizenship Act 1995, but they lack legal recognition as citizens. The State and Central Governments formally and systematically refuse rights to these individuals - in breach of the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution of India. Case Study Two analyses the economic citizenship rights for another group of individuals. It considers the role of economic citizenship as it is exercised by Non Resident Indians (NRIs), Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) and Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) while they live and work outside India. Some persons are granted Indian citizenship by birth, while others are not. The paper concludes on two perspectives. Today's reality is that India grants economic citizenship without full political and social rights to some categories of Indians abroad and formally and informally denies economic citizenship to political citizens living on Indian territory.