Theories Of Citizenship Research Articles

The Content of European Citizenship

Many European Union law scholars, commentators and politicians consider the creation of European citizenship by the Treaty of Maastricht an important landmark in the process towards “ever closer union.” By marking a special relationship with the Union itself, citizenship epitomizes the growing maturity of the Union as a political community and not merely an economic project of a single market. Citizenship introduces the first elements of a political, social, and emotional bond between the peoples of Europe and their new Union. Nonetheless, the content of European citizenship remains a puzzle. The rights it grants are very different to those promised by states. When looked at in detail, it fails to match many of the most central elements of citizenship.One of the problems in this area is that there is no single common core of citizenship rights. State citizenship in general marks a special relationship with a political community marked by a bundle of rights and duties, yet that relationship takes many forms.1 Some sociological accounts present a model of citizenship with many componentsdisaggregatedand broken down as overlapping identifications.2 Nevertheless, even these theories presuppose that the primary case of citizenship is some type of special belonging or attachment to a political community. Multiple national or other identities do not challenge the idea of a special attachment to a single set of institutions. In fact, they presuppose it. A theory of citizenship must explain the content of this special bond between the citizens and his or her political community and must explain whether or to what extent such a special bond has moral value sufficient to create moral obligations on those sharing it.3

Morality, mobility and citizenship: Legitimising mobile subjectivities in a contested outdoors

In this article, we examine articulations of mobile citizenship produced through the discursive practices of state agencies, drawing in particular on a study of the contested reconfiguration of outdoor citizenship in Norway. Whilst increased participation and diversity in outdoor activities is highly valued and encouraged because of its social benefits, moral landscapes of the outdoors may be part of settling and reinforcing social differences and existing power relations. The article identifies three discursive normativities through which state officials negotiate mobility and outdoor citizenship; knowledge, skills and socialisation; engaging (with) nature; deserving (in) the outdoors. These normativities serve as a basis for a critical discussion of different aspects of outdoor movement, and how social identities interact with the citizen responsibilities assigned to different forms of mobility, such as mountain biking, skiing and walking. The article demonstrates how and why certain outdoor practices, spaces and boundaries of citizenship are both fluid and critically negotiated by the state officials. By bringing together theories of moral landscapes, mobility and citizenship, the article contributes to understandings of the politics of mobility, and particularly the theorisation of how morality works in relation to different dimensions of mobility. It also highlights how the contestation of mobile citizenship is an issue in rural as well as urban realms.

Citizenship in China: a Comparison of Rights with the East and West

After the economic rise of China with the improvement in their standard of living, there have been many changes in the rights of citizens in China. This paper provides a broad survey of rights to see how China compares with the West and some countries in the Far East. This comparison assesses citizenship theory as it might apply to China, and then assesses a number of measures of rights. First, in order to make comparisons, the very different conceptions and theories of citizenship in China must be considered. Chinese citizenship is based on more of a communitarian model than a liberal or social democratic approach mainly due to Confucianism. Despite considerable improvement in citizenship rights, China’s reliance on a more communitarian citizenship theory (rather than liberal or social democratic theories) tends to emphasize obligations over rights. Second, in assessing the level of rights in China in the 21st century, T. H. Marshall provides the classification of legal, political and social rights. Using Freedom House, Fraser Institute and other data, I make cross-national comparisons between China and Western countries (e.g., the US, Canada and select European countries) and East Asian countries or regions (e.g., Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan). I also include Russia since it has made a similar transition from communist rule. The paper argues that citizenship rights for Chinese citizens have improved for many legal and social rights but not so much for political rights. However, all of these rights in China are much lower than in the West and much of East Asia, though in a few instances the levels are quite similar to Russia. I conclude with an estimate of the possible pathways toward greater political rights in China over the next few decades.

Using citizenship theory to challenge nationalist assumptions in the construction of international social work education

I argue that international social work education is constructed using nationalist assumptions that define and limit practices of social care to nation-state boundaries. This is particularly true of the profession as it is practiced in (neo)liberal welfare states of the global north. Using citizenship theory I interrogate interpretations of liberal citizenship to illuminate and analyze its relationship to nationalist definitions of social work practice. I posit an alternative notion of citizenship that defines citizenship more broadly in terms of participation and belonging irrespective of nation-state boundaries and acknowledges the transnational realities of people, social issues and socio-economic hierarchies.

Intercultural citizenship education in an EFL online project in Argentina

In this article, I describe an online intercultural citizenship experience in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom in Argentina. An action research project on the Malvinas/Falklands war fought between Argentina and the UK in 1982 was carried out in 2012. Through a comparative methodology involving Argentine and English foreign language classes, students develop a critical perspective on texts while they also create an international identification, different from their national/regional identifications. While the existing body of work on intercultural citizenship and criticality in the foreign language classroom is abundant in Europe, North America and Asia, empirical studies hardly exist in this region and one of the questions to be answered deals with the transferability of curriculum research across continents. After a description of the theoretical framework and the project itself, I present student samples and analysis that provide evidence that this intercultural citizenship project was fruitfully implemented for the first time in Argentinean Higher Education in the foreign language classroom. I then outline the significance of the project from the point of view of online intercultural communication and the theory of intercultural citizenship.

Rhetorics of Health Citizenship: Exploring Vernacular Critiques of Government’s Role in Supporting Healthy Living

This article explores how older adults negotiate and partially counter normative expectations of "health citizenship" that stress individual responsibility for maintaining health and preventing health problems. Based on interviews with 55 participants in Canada and the U.K. about what healthy living means to them in their everyday lives, we examine how the dominant discourse of personal responsibility in participants' responses is counterpointed by a more muted, yet significant, alternative critical perspective on the relative roles and responsibilities of government and citizens in making healthy living possible. Drawing on Hauser's (1999) concept of vernacular rhetoric along with recent theories of environmental citizenship, we analyze how participants exercise their civic-political judgment by using a logic of dissociation to argue that what government says about the importance of healthy living is incompatible with what government does to support citizens' abilities to eat healthily and live actively. By deploying this technique of argumentation to address structural-political-economic dimensions of healthy living, participants enact, in modest ways, an alternative, critical-collective mode of health citizenship that complicates and, at least partially, disrupts neoliberal constructions of the individually responsible, "good" health citizen.

Fostering Autonomy: A Theory of Citizenship, the State, and Social Service Delivery. By Elizabeth Ben-Ishai. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2012. 208p. $69.95 cloth, $29.95 paper.

Fostering Autonomy: A Theory of Citizenship, the State, and Social Service Delivery. By Elizabeth Ben-Ishai. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2012. 208p. $69.95 cloth, $29.95 paper.

Social Impact Assessment of the Neighborhood House (Case Study: Sixth Municipal District of Tehran)

The study investigates citizen-centric capacities in Neighborhood Houses established in the neighborhoods of the sixth municipal district of Tehran. The study mainly aims to examine the effects of the Neighborhood House on citizens’ awareness of citizenship rights and responsibilities. The subsidiary aims of the study include an assessment of the effect of Neighborhood House activities on distributive justice, increased social capital, social participation, improved quality of life, development of neighborhood identity and improved leisure patterns. According to Jürgen Habermas’ discursive citizenship theory, free and equal citizens engage in dialogues in order to organize their lives not only legally but also legitimately. Social activists follow a dialogue of ideas, intentions and demands in a free, equal and fair manner. The rights and responsibilities of communicating social activists consensually emerge through dialogue rather than external factors so that citizens are committed to both their responsibilities and other citizens’ rights. The methodology of the study is based on social impact assessment approach. The data was collected using both qualitative instruments such as interview and quantitative instruments such as questionnaire. Social impact assessment is the theoretical and methodological outcome of the awareness of latent, intangible functions of development plans. Attempts made to assess and estimate social outcomes, which may result from development initiatives, is called social impact assessment. The present study constitutes three stages of identification, analysis and solution. Analysis of the data obtained via interviews and questionnaires showed that the Neighborhood House initiative could assume an important role in raising citizens’ awareness of their rights and responsibilities. The results showed that the important outcomes of the establishment of Neighborhood House, as a development initiative, included increased distributive justice, social participation, social capital, improved quality of life, development of neighborhood identity and improved leisure patterns, which may together help realize citizen-centric goals. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n3p580

Citizenship from the Margins: Vernacular Theories of Rights and the State from the Interwar Caribbean

AbstractThis essay explores debates over political membership and rights within empire from the interwar British Caribbean. Although no formal status of imperial, British, or colonial citizenship existed in this era, British Caribbeans routinely hailed each other as meritorious local “citizens,” demanded political rights due them as “British citizens,” and decried rulers' failure to treat colored colonials equally with other “citizens” of the empire. In the same years, the hundreds of thousands of British West Indians who labored in circum-Caribbean republics like the United States, Panama, Cuba, Venezuela, and Costa Rica experienced firsthand the international consolidation of formal citizenship as a state-issued credential ensuring mobility and abode. This convergence pushed British Caribbeans at home and abroad to question the costs of political disfranchisement and the place of race within empire. The vernacular political philosophy they developed in response importantly complements the influential theories of citizenship and rights developed by European thinkers of the same generation, such as T. H. Marshall and Hannah Arendt.

Decelerating the diminishing returns of citizenship on task performance: The role of social context and interpersonal skill.

Recent scholarship on citizenship behavior demonstrates that engaging too often in these behaviors comes at the expense of task performance. In order to examine the boundary conditions of this relationship, we used resource allocation and social exchange theories to build predictions regarding moderators of the curvilinear association between citizenship and task performance. We conducted a field study of 366 employees, in which we examined the relationship between the frequency of interpersonal helping behavior and task performance and tested for the moderating influences of 3 social context features (social density, interdependence, and social support) and of employees' levels of interpersonal skill. Results provided corroborating evidence of the diminishing returns between citizenship and task performance. Further, these diminishing returns were decelerated when contexts were characterized by high interdependence and social density and when employees possessed strong interpersonal skills. Implications for extending future citizenship theory and research to incorporate curvilinearity are presented.

Fostering Autonomy: A Theory of Citizenship, the State, and Social Service Delivery

Fostering Autonomy: A Theory of Citizenship, the State, and Social Service Delivery

The Corporation as Citoyen? Towards a New Understanding of Corporate Citizenship

Based on the extended conceptualization of corporate citizenship, as provided by Matten and Crane (Acad Manag Rev 30(1):166–179, 2005), this paper examines the new role of corporations in society. Taking the ideas of Matten and Crane one step further, we argue that the status of corporations as citizens is not solely defined by their factual engagement in the provision of citizenship rights to others. By analysing political and sociological citizenship theories, we show that such engagement is more adequately explained by a change in the self-conception of corporate citizens from corporate bourgeois to corporate citoyens. While the corporate bourgeois acts primarily for private business purposes, the corporate citoyen engages in society, performing civil and political rights and duties. As an intermediate actor in society, shaped by the principle of subsidiary task-sharing, the corporate citoyen undertakes co-responsibility for social and civic affairs and actively collaborates with fellow citizens below, beside and beyond governmental regulation.

Undocumented childhood immigrants, the Dream Act and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in the USA

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to critically examine two possible solutions to the lack of citizenship rights of children who lack documentation. Many industrialized countries must deal with undocumented children who have resided in the country most of their lives. In the USA, immigrants brought as children by their parents illegally are not eligible to receive financial help in most states for higher education, receive federal health care, or obtain driver's licenses. Even if they are qualified, they cannot legally work. Design/methodology/approach – The article provides an in-depth analysis of the Dream Act and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The benefit of this study is to critically examine two possible solutions to the problem of undocumented children who have lived most of their lives in the USA. Findings – The two solutions are analyzed in terms of broader conceptions of citizenship and human rights. Citizen rights are contested rights in the USA for undocumented immigrants and their children. It is found that theories of immigration and citizenship do not adequately explain the situation of undocumented childhood arrivals. After compulsory public education, undocumented students’ lives are at the mercy of state and federal administration policies. Citizenship theory is analyzed as it applies to undocumented immigrants brought as children to the USA. Research limitations/implications – This paper is limited to undocumented children in the USA. Practical implications – The results point to the need for universal policies that will ensure young adults will have the critical resources and associated rights. Social implications – As Latinos become a large proportion of the US population, barriers to their continued education will impose significant economic and personal costs for individuals who have “identity without citizenship”. Originality/value – This is among the first academic paper to link undocumented childhood arrivals in the USA, citizenship theory and public policy.

Networked ecological citizenship, the new middle classes and the provisioning of sustainable waste management in Bangalore, India

Globalization and economic liberalization are enabling individuals in emerging economies like India to access lifestyles similar to the resource-intense West. This spread of consumerism poses substantial ecological challenges, and calls for studies that investigate the environmental values, ethics, and politics of India's new consumers. In this paper, I explore emerging pro-environmental behaviors in the city of Bangalore, India, among the new middle classes- its most significant consumer class. Using the case of home waste management, I show how household behavior change is made possible by neighborhood-based coordination, involving multiple actors such as environmentally-conscious residents, domestic help, and hired waste workers. Drawing on ecological citizenship theory, I discuss how waste management through recycling and composting is being implemented in Bangalore through networks of socio-economically privileged new middle class individuals. Their privileged social, political, and economic positions enable them to collectively enact changes in their cultural and structural contexts to facilitate pro-environmental initiatives. At the same time, the role of other actors like domestic servants and waste workers is also critical to the process. I show how ecological citizenship theory can be used to analyze and highlight voluntary involvement by socio-economically privileged individuals but fails to recognize the contributions of actors, who through their livelihood practices, play a pivotal role in producing the systems that enable pro-environmental behaviors among the elite. I conclude by suggesting that a critical analysis of the processes and political arrangements that produce pro-environmental behaviors is vital to sustainable consumption and production research in emerging economies like India.

Intersectional global citizenship: gendered and racialized renderings

This article intervenes in the emerging field of global citizenship studies by following in the footsteps of critical studies of national citizenship, which have shown that the seemingly neutral features of citizenship are gendered and racialized. The notion of “global citizenship” has gained currency in recent years and while there is not yet a canonized account of global citizenship, it is possible to identify the main shared features of different global citizenship accounts. While the “global” of global citizenship could denote the universality of the concept in contrast to national citizenship, this promise of inclusivity is not fulfilled. This article provides an intersectional reading of global citizenship theories and examples. Dominant global citizenship accounts, I argue, contain exclusionary and marginalizing tendencies and are biased toward a certain type of global subject whose responsibility is based on benevolence. A more inclusive and radical account of global citizenship can be built by drawing on Iris Marion Young's social connection model to rethink responsibility and by more firmly grounding it in an understanding of globalization as linked to historical and present structural inequalities.

At the Border between Public and Private: U.S. Immigration Policy for Victims of Domestic Violence

Abstract This article examines the treatment of women in flight from domestic violence at the U.S. – Mexico border. It compares the robust state protections available to domestic violence victims in the interior of the country with the hostile landscape women encounter at the border. The article draws on three sources for information about the treatment at the border of domestic violence victims: an in-depth case study of one woman’s experience of domestic violence and flight, a small data set of domestic violence victims detained in the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona during 2010 and 2011, and a detailed analysis of the policies and practices at play when a woman in flight from domestic violence comes to the U.S. border. From these sources, a grim picture emerges that may surprise many. Women fleeing violence whose lives entangle with the border confront a bureaucracy and justice system that harkens back to the time, 50 years ago, when domestic violence was seen as a private matter about which there was little the government could or should do to respond. Building on this descriptive account, the article draws on political theories of citizenship and membership to highlight the moral and legal inconsistencies between the immigration policies of the United States and its national values and commitments regarding violence against women. It suggests that language about the “private” nature of the violence at issue for women in flight from domestic violence should not be used to cloak underlying concerns about immigration admissions policies. Transparent discussion of the considerations at issue lays bare the irrationality of applying fundamentally different conceptions of domestic violence depending on which side of the geographic border it occurs.

Ecological validity and the study of publics: The case for organic public engagement methods

This essay argues for a method of public engagement grounded in the criteria of ecological validity. Motivated by what Hammersly called the responsibility that comes with intellectual authority: "to seek, as far as possible, to ensure the validity of their conclusions and to participate in rational debate about those conclusions" (1993: 29), organic public engagement follows the empirical turn in citizenship theory and in rhetorical studies of actually existing publics. Rather than shaping citizens into either the compliant subjects of the cynical view or the deliberatively disciplined subjects of the idealist view, organic public engagement instead takes Asen's advice that "we should ask: how do people enact citizenship?" (2004: 191). In short, organic engagement methods engage publics in the places where they already exist and through those discourses and social practices by which they enact their status as publics. Such engagements can generate practical middle-range theories that facilitate future actions and decisions that are attentive to the local ecologies of diverse publics.

The ambivalence of creative activism as a reorganization of critique

This article identifies an emerging type of critique and defines it as creative activism. It is argued why this is distinguishable from earlier similar forms of protests and shown why traditional theories of political art, social movements and citizenship are in themselves insufficient to accurately describe and understand the normative ambivalence of what is also known as culture jamming. Irony and utopia are proposed as analytical concepts supplementing these existing theoretical frameworks. It is also demonstrated how these alternative perspectives can be fruitfully applied to understand the reorganization of critique regardless of whether one views creative activism suspiciously as a societal symptom or more optimistically as a democratic potential.

Australian Lawyers as Public Citizens

While debate continues over the role of the lawyer in society, this article notes that the recently amended professional conduct rules of both barristers and solicitors prioritise the duty to the court and the administration of justice. In addition, legal education initiatives support this position. By referring to Australia’s proposed regulatory framework and associated national professional conduct rules, and drawing upon the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct and a body of US literature that refers to lawyers as public citizens, this article will argue that Australian lawyers owe a duty to the public in their everyday dealings with clients. In doing so, this article will refer to some theories of citizenship; and what it means for lawyers, in a practical sense, to act as public citizens.

A Theory of African-American Citizenship: Richard Westbrooks, The Great Migration, and the Chicago Defender's "Legal Helps" Column

This article explores citizenship from the ground up, to focus on migration, settlement, local law, and struggles for racial equality in Progressive Era Chicago. In his weekly “Legal Helps” column, which appeared in the Chicago Defender, attorney Richard Westbrooks answered questions about commercial practices, domestic life, civil rights and residential conditions. Westbrooks' answers advocated a theory of African American citizenship that was rooted in the implied equality of local law, rather than in the decreed equality of constitutional law. In expanding his theory from the individual to the collective—to assert that all Black Chicagoans were equal as citizens—Westbrooks would encounter stiff opposition from law clerks, judges, and jailers, as well as pervasive social discrimination that allowed African Americans to be classified and treated differently in their social and legal relationships. In response, Westbrooks broadened his theory of citizenship, articulating individual and collective equality and partial and comprehensive statuses, to reveal a bottom-up legal consciousness that grew out of everyday encounters and social practices.