5c6e7d4d05e2c03b933f09d8

Citizenship
in a Globalizing World
Editor
Ashok Acharya
Reader, Department of Political Science
University of Delhi
Copyright © 2012 Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd
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Contents
Preface v
1. Historical Development of Citizenship 1

Sanjeev Kumar
2. The Classical Conception of Citizenship 15

Ashok Acharya
3. Citizenship and National Identity 26

Suparna Priyadarshini
4. Liberal Theories of Citizenship 56

Kumar Rahul
5. Multicultural Conception of Citizenship 76

Gyanaranjan Swain
6. Republican Conception of Citizenship 92

Swaha Das and Hari Nair
7. Feminist Conception 109

Bijayalaxmi Nanda and Hena Singh
8. Citizenship and Diversity 126

Chetna Sharma
iv Contents
9. Citizenship in Theory and Practice in 143

a Globalizing World
Ambuja Kumar Tripathy
10. Citizenship and Global Justice 168

Chandrachur Singh
11. Cosmopolitan Citizenship 183

Rajesh Kumar
About the Editor and Contributors 199

Index 201
Preface
A decade or two ago, it would have been inconceivable to introduce a full-length course
on citizenship. Until recently, the study of citizenship has largely been confined as a
constitutive element of democracy or restricted to the study of its genesis within the
narrower focus of the evolution of constitutional law in a national setting. For many,
it was—and still remains—unconventional to attempt anything similar to introducing
a full-length course on citizenship, especially in undergraduate studies. It was equally
uncommon to have someone speak of citizenship as his/her area of research interest in,
say, the 1970s or 1980s. Now we see a growing interest among both scholars and stu-
dents who wish to explore issues related to citizenship more deeply. This interest is in
tune with the already changing landscape of the social sciences. To what do we attribute
the revival of interest in citizenship across the humanities and the social sciences?
In recent times, and roughly since the late 1980s, we have been subject to, and simul-
taneously authors of, large-scale transformations that have left an indelible impact on our
lives. In an age of globalization, which we now construe as a common fate for all of hu-
mankind, we have been swept up by transnational forces of various kinds. The formation
of transnational entities such as the European Union and the growing strength of global
institutions and human rights regimes on the one hand, and the rising rates of migration,
poverty, violence, ethno-cultural conflicts, the flight of capital and technology, etc., on
the other have together driven home to each of us living in different corners of the world
the necessity of expanding and exploring the normative architecture of citizenship. At a
minimum, this questions the efficacy of the nation-state to address citizenship issues all
by itself. There is a felt need to not only share experiences across national borders, but to
also raise larger issues related to the trans-border rights and obligations of citizens sepa-
rated by nationalities. Are we becoming more cosmopolitan now? We do not know, but
evidence suggests that we are more open to addressing this question than before.
vi Preface
Citizenship essentially implies membership in a political community, which bestows

certain rights, immunities and duties. Although we may continue debating what sorts
of rights and privileges are due to us as citizens, the fact remains that our citizenship
cards or passports are the biggest proofs of our status. Since the nineteenth century
till date, citizenship has largely been locked within nationalist discourses. It is only in
democratic nation-states that we witness a willingness and capacity to openly interro-
gate the issues surrounding citizenship. Democracies everywhere have a deep interest
in re-negotiating the ambit of citizenship. And yet, even as these negotiations are ongo-
ing, most democracies find that the ‘we’ that expressed their collective self-description
as a political community is both shrinking and expanding.
With the emergence of a class of professional/political experts, we now have a new
set of rulers in democracies who define and set the democratic agenda, including that
of decision-making. This class has shrunk the base of the ‘we’. On the other hand, we
also notice a parallel and opposing trend whereby more and more people are able to
share their frustrations across national borders about the growing clout of transna-
tional institutions, as well as forge solidarity with each other, including the acceptance
of trans-border obligations to those who need their assistance. This is the expanded ‘we’
that, even as we analyse, keeps getting larger.
Whereas in most political communities citizens are struggling against the attempts
of the smaller ‘we’ to exclude the rest from decision-making, and against other relevant
forces of social and political exclusion, they are joining hands with others to change
the shape and direction of their common political fate in a global moral community.
Citizenship in a globalizing world is engaged in various transactions—moral, political,
economic and social—both within and across political communities. The chapters in
this volume seek to capture a part of these dynamics.
*****
This book grew out of a concern to make available to undergraduate students a com-
panion to the course ‘Citizenship in a Globalizing World’. In many ways, it also tran-
scends that need by addressing a wider range of issues that connect us in our everyday
lives, and how we make sense of our memberships in political communities, both in its
origins and challenges.
For providing the primary impetus to bringing out this volume, I owe a deep sense of
gratitude to Sanjeev Kumar and Gyanaranjan Swain, who were the first to impress upon
me the necessity of taking up this project. Later, Ambuja and Bijayalakshmi provided
the collegial support and encouragement, which was reinforced by Chetna, Chandra-
chur, Rahul and Rajesh. I owe all the contributors a big round of thanks for agreeing to
write these chapters, but mostly for their unflagging patience and steadfast belief in a
Preface vii
project that somewhat suffered my neglect at times. My heartfelt appreciation to all my

students in the Masters programme at the Department of Political Science, especially
in the mandatory course, The Theory and Practice of Democracy, for having taught me
novel ways of addressing some of the perennial problems of citizenship. I also wish to
record a deep sense of gratitude to my colleague and friend, Neera Chandhoke, for hav-
ing provided a great sense of personal space in the Department of Political Science in
the first few years of teaching, and later for entrusting me with the responsibility of de-
signing a course on citizenship for undergraduate studies. I have since developed many
friendships both within and outside the faculty and rediscovered the responsibilities of
an active academic citizenship. To the entire team at Pearson—Praveen Dev (to begin
with), Debjani Dutta, Shreya Chowdhury, Proteeti Banerjee, and others—I owe a deep
sense of gratitude for their patience and humility in spite of my inability to meet dead-
lines. At a personal level, I remain beholden to Madhusmita, my spouse, for years of
love, support and encouragement, as well to Pratyasha and Prateechi, my daughters, for
sharing curiosities related to the virtues and sacrifices of responsible citizenship.
Ashok Acharya
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1
Historical Development
of Citizenship
Sanjeev Kumar
Introduction
The notion of citizenship has acquired renewed salience and popularity over the past
two decades. Today, citizenship as an issue has become increasingly prominent because
the traditional boundaries of the nation-state have been profoundly challenged by global
developments that have affected the organization of modern societies. The social di-
vision and marginalization brought about by the economic restructuring (neo-liberal
policy) of the 1970s and 1980s, and the growth of multiculturalism resulting from glob-
al migration and communication flow, have brought in doubt the capacity of the state
to satisfy a diverse range of needs and demands for participation. At the level of theory,
it is a natural evolution in political discourse because the concept of citizenship seems
to integrate the demands of justice and community membership—the central concept
of political philosophy in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. Citizenship is intimately
linked to ideas of individual entitlement on the one hand, and of attachment to a par-
ticular community on the other.
Today, the growing interest in citizenship has led to questioning the standardized
formulations of rights within the legal constitutional framework. Citizenship is no
longer defined only in narrow legal-formal terms and has acquired significance as a
normative and conceptual tool for understanding social reality. It is increasingly being
seen as a substantive notion capturing a range of issues in which are manifested the
lived experiences of people.
The development of citizenship rights has involved a series of struggles to dismantle
the modes of exclusion which prevented marginal groups from enjoying full-fledged
2 Citizenship in a Globalizing World
membership to the political community. These struggles have aimed to universalize

citizenship rights and create the social and economic conditions that ensure that their
protection remains at the centre of radical politics in modern states.
The modern notion of citizenship acknowledges individuals’ ability to make judge-
ments about their own lives, which are not predetermined by their race, religion, class,
gender, or any other single aspect of their identity. Citizens formally enjoy a legitimate
and equal membership to society. They are conceived of as bearing rights and exer-
cising these rights equally with other citizens. Seen in this manner, citizenship con-
stitutes an overarching identity that conceals all other identities to produce what are
called masked/unmarked (and therefore) ‘equal’ citizens. Thus citizenship, more than
any other identity, is able to satisfy the basic political impulse of humans, which Hegel
has termed the need for ‘recognition’. The status of ‘citizen’ implies a sense of inclu-
sion within the wider community. It recognizes the contribution a particular individ-
ual makes to the community, while at the same time granting him or her individual
autonomy. This autonomy is reflected in a set of rights which, although varying enor-
mously in content over time and space, always implies recognition of political agency
on the part of the bearer of those rights. Thus, the key defining characteristic of citizen-
ship, and what differentiates it most from mere subjecthood, is an ethic of participation.
Citizenship is an active rather than a passive status. In short, citizenship is incompatible
with domination, whether the source of that domination be the state, the family, the
husband, the church, the ethnic group, or any other force that seeks to deny us recogni-
tion as an autonomous individual.
The appeal of citizenship, however, does not lie merely in the benefits it gives to the
individual. Citizenship is always a reciprocal, and therefore a social, idea. It can never
be purely a set of rights that frees the individual from obligation to others. Rights
always require a framework for their recognition and mechanisms through which this
can be fulfilled. Such a social framework, which includes courts, schools, hospitals
and parliaments, requires all citizens to play their part to maintain it. This means that
citizenship implies duties and obligations, as well as rights. Through its package of
rights, duties and obligations, citizenship provides a way of distributing and managing
resources justly by sharing the benefits and burdens of social life. By demanding that
we treat individuals equally, citizenship can negate social tensions that may threaten
the social order. Citizenship, then, is a powerful idea. It recognizes the dignity of the
individual, but at the same time reaffirms the social context in which the individual
acts.
In addition to the conventional thinking on citizenship—primarily in terms of the
rights and duties of individuals—today talk of community rights—cultural/religious
have become integral to the understanding of the notion of citizenship. Contemporary
debates on citizenship and rights have questioned the idea that the (individual) citizen
Historical Development of Citizenship 3
can enjoy rights independent of the contexts/circumstances to which s/he belongs, that
is, class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. Since the 1980s, multiculturalism, plurality, diver-
sity and difference have become significant terms of reference in thinking about citi-
zenship. Detailed discussions on these issues have been provided in Chapters 3 and 4
of this volume.
Having discussed the conceptual aspects of citizenship, I proceed to sketch a histori-
cal overview in the next section that will provide the necessary background for our un-
derstanding of the context in which the controversies surrounding modern citizenship
have emerged.
The Origins of Citizenship

Modern citizenship is commonly described as an interface relating the state and civil
society, the government and the people, the territorial political organization and its
members. At its most general level, citizenship refers to a full and equal member-
ship in the community in which one lives. ‘Full and equal membership in a political
community’ denotes (a) the unit of membership, that is, the political community,
which in the modern context is the nation-state, and (b) the nature of that member-
ship, that is, full and equal. Inclusion as member implies certain rights and reciprocal
obligations towards the community. Citizenship would thus manifest a significant
aspect of the relationship among people who live together in a nation. It comprises,
therefore, a range of issues and elements, including rights, freedom and equality,
political allegiance to the state, civic loyalties within the community, and cultural
and emotional ties and identities that mediate the relationship between citizens and
the state. As citizenship is about human relationships, it defies a simple, static defini-
tion that can be applied to all societies at all times. Instead, the idea of citizenship is
inherently contested and contingent, a1ways reflecting the particular set of relation-
ships and types of government found within a given society. With the development
of capitalism and liberalism, the idea of the citizen as an individual bearing rights
irrespective of her/his caste, class, race, gender, ethnicity, etc., became entrenched.
Since the 1980s, however, globalization and multiculturalism have provided the con-
texts within which this notion of citizenship has been challenged. The nation, it is
argued, is no longer the sole unit of membership, and ideas of world citizenship and
human rights beyond national borders are being earnestly talked about. Similarly
the individual, it is argued, has been displaced from the core of citizenship theory
and rights of cultural communities and groups have started gaining ground. Thus, it
may be said that the idea of citizenship has developed over several historical periods.
Its form and substance have not remained the same, but have changed according to
specific historical contexts.
BOX 1.1 KEY THINKERS

Aristotle (384−322 bc) was a Greek philosopher, logician and scientist. Along with
his teacher Plato, Aristotle is generally regarded as one of the most influential ancient
thinkers in a number of philosophical fields, including political theory. His philoso-
phy had a lasting impact on the development of all Western philosophical theories.
He wrote on diverse subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry (including the-
atre), biology and zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, government and ethics. Aristotle’s
discussion in Politics is firmly grounded in the world of the Greek city-state, or polis.
He assumed that any state would consist of the same basic elements of a Greek city-
state: male citizens who administer the state, and then women, slaves, foreigners,
and non-citizen labourers who perform the necessary menial tasks that keep the city
running. In the Greek world, citizenship was a much more involved responsibility
than it is in modern representative democracies. All citizens in a Greek city-state
participated in government and held various public offices, which was why Aristotle
considered public office a defining feature of citizenship. Since citizenship involved
an active role in running the state, a citizen identified strongly with the city-state to
which he belonged, to the point that the Greeks considered exile a fate worse than
death. The tight bond between citizen and city-state also explains why Aristotle con-
sidered active citizenship a necessary feature of the good life. He insisted that we
can only fully realize our rationality and humanity as citizens of a city-state, and so
concluded that fully realized humans are, by necessity, political animals.
The origin of the idea of citizenship can be traced back to the ancient Greek and
Roman Republics. Aristotle’s Politics represents the first systematic attempt to devel-
op a theory of citizenship, while the practice of citizenship found its first institutional
expression in the Greek Polis, notably in Athens from the fifth century until the fourth
century bc. The citizenship of the Greeks was very different in its form and function
from citizenship in the modem period. The duality that shapes the modern Polis, such
as a divide between state and society, between public and private, or between law and
morality, simply did not apply in Athens. Instead, the context of Greek citizenship was
that of closely-knit, self-governing political communities characterized by small popu-
lations and minimum social differentiation. In ancient Greece, citizenship was neither a
right to be claimed by, nor a status to be conferred on, anybody outside the established
ranks of the class, no matter how worthy such an outsider might be. Citizenship was
primarily perceived as a bond forged by participation in public affairs and associated
with duties/ responsibilities. Aristotle defined a state as a collective body of citizens, and
a citizen in Aristotle’s view was the ‘one who enjoyed the right of sharing in delibera-
tive and judicial office for any period fixed or unfixed’. Citizens were ‘all who shared in
the civic life of ruling and being ruled in turn’. The affairs of the state were run directly
by its citizens. As a member of the assembly (a deliberative body constituting 5,000
members who met over 40 times a year), each citizen was eligible for various offices
of state, which included financial and military appointments. The organization of the
republic was based on the notions of familiarity and trust, commitment to civic virtue
and the common good, principles of active political participation, the prioritization of
public and political aspects of life over private interests, and the primacy of the identity
of man as citizen. Citizens in the polis ran their own affairs, acting as both legislators
and executors, and defined themselves through a highly developed sense of military
obligation. Citizenship in the polis offered tangible benefits: freedom, the security to
pursue one’s own good, and the opportunity to win honour by guiding and defending
the community.
The status of citizenship in the polis was, however, highly exclusive. In fact, the pri-
mary difference between pre-modern and modern citizenship is that in ancient Greece
and Rome, as well as in those cities that practised citizenship in the middle ages, in-
equality of status was accepted without question. Indeed, citizenship was valued in part
because of its exclusive nature and because it stood as a mark of superiority over non-
citizens, whether they be women, resident foreigners, slaves or the peasantry. Hierarchy
and exclusion were axiomatic in ancient Greece. Slaves were excluded from citizenship
as they lacked the deliberative faculty. Women were seen as lacking the necessary ra-
tionality required for political participation. Additionally, at certain times the Athenian
Polis applied strict criteria to the question of which residents qualified for citizenship
status. In 451−450 bc, under the leadership of Pericles, citizenship was restricted to
only those residents whose parents had both been born in the polis. Citizenship during
Pericles’ time meant common good and common endeavour among citizens. The con-
stitution was not a legal document but a way of life, with every Athenian participating
with total commitment. In the process, individuals acquired a civic personality and a
sense of responsibility.
Roman Conceptions of Citizenship

In Greek polis, as discussed above, citizenship was a privileged status, tied closely to
the notion of political participation. In contrast, the Roman republic developed a more
pragmatic, legalistic and inclusive conception of citizenship as the empire expanded. The
Rulers, by extending privileges of citizenship to all, including the deprived resident for-
eigners, traders, merchants and plebeians (something finally achieved through an edict
in ad 212 by the emperor Caracalla), legitimized its rule and authority in the republic.
Full citizenship entailed six privileges. Of these, four were public rights—service in the
army, voting in the assembly, eligibility to public office, and the legal right of action
and appeal. The other two pertained to the rights of intermarriage and trade with other
Roman citizens. The motive underpinning this move was to dispel the exacerbating
social discontent among the masses. In addition, this also facilitated the collection of
taxes and reduced the overbearing military strength. The status of citizenship in Rome
was detached from an ethic of participation and became a thin and legalistic concept.
For a vast majority of Roman citizens, citizenship was reduced to a judicial safeguard
instead of a status that denoted political agency. In fact, the concept was stretched to
breaking point and citizenship became little more than an expression of the rule of law.
In terms of the definition outlined above, Roman imperial citizenship was citizenship
in name only. According to Derek Heater, the Romans developed a form of citizenship
that was both pragmatic and extensible in application. Yet that very elasticity was the
ultimate cause of the perishing of the ideal in its noble form.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, the importance of citizenship
diminished even further. In the middle ages, the pursuit of honour through the exercise
of citizenship was replaced by the search for personal salvation. The church replaced
the political community as the focus of loyalty and moral guidance. The practice of citi-
zenship, however, did find expression during the medieval period in the context of sev-
eral Italian city republics such as Florence and Venice. Such cities drew inspiration from
the republican model of Greece, and particularly Rome. Importantly, they included an
ethic of participation that was lacking in other forms of political community during
this period. Machiavelli and Rousseau favoured the ideals of civic virtue and partici-
pation as the necessary elements of citizenship. According to Machiavelli, citizenship
was not to be passively enjoyed, but actively exercised as a duty and obligation stem-
ming from concern for the good of the community as much as from self-interest. Rous-
seau considered ‘General Will’ to be citizens contributing without thought of personal
advantage to political decisions.
Citizenship finally found voice as a massively influential political concept in the six-
teenth to the eighteenth centuries in the world-historical events of the American War of
Independence and the French Revolution. The French Revolution (1789) can be seen as
a revolt against the passive citizenship of the late medieval and early modern times. The
revolution attempted to resurrect the ideals of active participation against the claims
of the monarchical/imperial state. Apart from attempting to change the apolitical/pas-
sive lives of citizens, the French revolutionary tradition introduced an important ele-
ment to citizenship, which changed the way rights were incorporated into the notion
of citizenship. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which followed in the
wake of the revolution, brought in the notion of the citizen as a ‘free and autonomous
individual’ who enjoyed rights equally with others and participated in making deci-
sions which all agreed to obey. The manner in which citizenship is understood today
as a system of horizontal (equal) rights, as against the hierarchical (unequal) privileges
which accrued to persons earlier by reason of higher birth, has its roots in the doctrines
of the French Revolution. With the development of capitalist market relations and the
growing influence of liberalism in the nineteenth century, the notion of citizens as indi-
viduals with private and conflicting interests gradually gained primacy, and citizenship
as civic activity, public spiritedness and active political participation was relegated to a
vestigial past.
Evolution of the Liberal Theory of Citizenship

By the sixteenth century, however, the conception of citizenship as a legal status that
guaranteed the enjoyment of liberty/protection became dominant. One of the earliest
political theorists to consider the relationship between the individual and the political
community in this new context was Thomas Hobbes. This relationship is at best termed
subject-citizenship, because it had as its aim the securing of order rather than the pre-
dominance of civic virtue, or the protection of individual rights. In fact, the logic of his
theory, which defended the sovereigns’ right to absolutist power, left little conceptual
space for any sense of citizenship. Yet Hobbes was an important figure in the history
of citizenship, with many of his ideas leading directly to the more developed sense of
citizenship found in classical liberals such as Locke.
First, unlike in the middle ages, where rights were extended to groups, corporations
and estates rather than to individual subjects, the individual in Hobbes’ theory enjoys a
direct relationship with the state, which in practice required a more developed sense of
citizenship through which this relationship could be mediated.
Second, Hobbes believed that in terms of their abilities as well as in their potential to
upset the basis of social order, individuals were essentially equal:
Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there
bee found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than
another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man is not
so considerable, as that one man can there upon claim to himself to which another may
not pretend as well as he.
Crucially, this insight enabled liberal thinkers to make the conceptual link between
equality and ‘citizenship’.
Third, and despite Hobbes’ preference for a monarchical system of government, his
theory breaks with the assumption that the ruler and the state are indivisible.
Fourth, by arguing that the sovereign should enjoy absolutist power, Hobbes was
advocating the concentration of one of the means of violence. This is important for citi-
zenship since it marked a break with the feudal notion of a divided site of power where
violence was exercised by a number of factors. By limiting the exercise of violence to the
state in this way, opportunity was created for more consensual methods of governance
to emerge.
Citizenship and Rights

The liberal tradition founded by Hobbes was further developed by Locke, who built
upon the idea of the egalitarian individual’s direct relationship with the state to con-
struct a right-based theory of citizenship. Locke’s theory aimed to balance a Hobbesian
concern with security with the protection of the rights of ‘Life, Liberty and Property’,
which for most liberals form the basis for the fulfilment of self-interest.
Till most of the twentieth century, the bias in the liberal theory of citizenship in fa-
vour of the individual citizen continued, and citizenship was seen as a legal status which
gave the citizen certain rights assuring protection from state interference. Here, it would
be appropriate to discuss T. H. Marshall’s account of the development of citizenship in
Britain, as outlined in his influential work Citizenship and Social Class, published in
1950. Citizenship in Britain evolved through three stages, beginning with civil rights,
to which political and social rights were subsequently added. In this work, Marshall
studies the growth of citizenship alongside capitalism through a peculiar relationship of
collusion and conflict. Marshall describes the development of citizenship as a process of
expanding equality against the inequality of social class. He distinguishes three strands
or bundles of rights which constitute citizenship: civil, political and social, each having
a distinct history specific to a particular century. Civil rights, which developed in the
eighteenth century, have been defined by Marshall as ‘rights necessary for individual
freedom’. These were ‘negative’ rights, in the sense that they limited or checked the exer-
cise of government power, and included freedoms of speech, movement, conscience, the
right to equality before the law and the right to property. Political rights, viz., the right
to vote, the right to stand for elections and the right to hold public office, developed
by and large in the nineteenth century and provided the individual with the opportu-
nity to participate in the political life of the community. Social rights, which developed
largely in the twentieth century, guaranteed the individual a minimum economic/social
status and provided the basis for the exercise of both civil and political rights. For Mar-
shall, social rights were ‘positive’ rights, enabling one to live the life of a civilized being
according to the standards prevailing in society. These standards of life and the social
heritage of society are realized through active intervention by the state in the form of
social services (the welfare state) and the educational system. Through this progressive
expansion of rights—civil, political and social—the very idea of status underwent a
transformation. Status came to be defined in terms of the equal rights of citizenship in
place of the hierarchical gradation of estates. The dialectic advance of citizenship that
Marshall analysed cannot be termed universal as the evolution of citizenship has in the
last 200 years taken many different forms in different countries of the world; however,
what remains valid in Marshall’s account is the argument that the original claim for
citizenship in the eighteenth century provoked demands for a more comprehensive
understanding of what it means to be a full member of a political community. Each re-
articulation of the idea of citizenship has been associated with struggles to enlarge the
circle of those entitled to participate as equals in public deliberations about the nature of
the collective, and each has involved efforts to deepen the meaning and expand the
significance of citizenship for members of excluded groups.
Dilemmas of Liberal (Universal) Citizenship

For most of the twentieth century, the dominant understanding of citizenship contin-
ued to place the individual at its core, and citizenship was seen as a legal status indicat-
ing the possession of rights. Citizenship in the democratic nation-state established the
principle of non-discrimination insofar as all citizens participate equally in universal
rights and entitlements. This ideal of ‘Universal citizenship’ is premised on the assertion
of the equal moral worth of all persons, who, according to Kant, are deserving of equal
respect as rational agents capable of directing their lives through principles. After all,
it had been this assumption of equality that underlay the political attack on the ancient
regime with its system of status and group differences before the French Revolution.
We inherited from the Enlightenment an ideal of universal citizenship which claims
to deal with us in our essentially human concerns. The vision of democracy associated
with this ideal claims to treat us as abstract individuals or citizens regardless of our sex,
race or class. Liberalism takes no interest in the character or identity of individuals; nor
is it concerned directly with furthering the human cause. It has no collective projects,
expresses no group preferences, and promotes no particular individual or individual
interests. It is only concerned with upholding the framework of law within which indi-
viduals and groups can function peacefully. This of course is not to deny that upholding
the framework of the rule of law may at some time require intervention in the affairs
of individuals and groups. However, liberal politics is indifferent to both particular hu-
man affairs and the particular pursuits of individuals and groups.
The dominant liberal model of citizenship, as discussed above, has some limitations.
Contemporary debates on citizenship and rights have therefore questioned the idea that
the (individual) citizen can enjoy rights independent of the contexts/circumstances to
which s/he belongs, that is, class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. Since the 1980s, globalization
and multiculturalism have newly interpreted the notion of citizenship. Ideas of world citi-
zenship and human rights beyond national borders are gaining ground. Given that mod-
ern societies are being increasingly recognized as multicultural, the liberal understanding
of the idea of citizenship has been opened up for debate. The specific contexts—cultural,
religious, ethnic, linguistic, etc.—of citizens are now seen as determining citizenship in
significant ways. This ongoing contest aims to make visible those differences which liberal
theory saw as irrelevant for understanding citizenship. In most societies, ethnic, religious
and racial communities have pressed for rights that would look at their special cultural
contexts and substantiate the formal equality of citizenship. An increasing number of the-
orists argue that different groups can be accommodated into common citizenship only
through adopting what Iris Marion Young calls ‘differentiated citizenship’. Young argues
that in a society where some groups are privileged while others are oppressed, and yet
one which insists that as citizens, persons should leave behind their particular affiliations
and experiences and adopt a general point of view, serves only to reinforce the privileged.
This is because the perspectives and interests of the privileged will tend to dominate this
unified public, marginalizing or silencing those of other groups seeking to redefine the
principle of equality, to make it compatible with the ‘multicultural present’.
Will Kymlicka, too, provides a framework of representation and membership which
accommodates cultural and group differences in such a way that a person’s group mem-
bership and membership in a cultural community do not pose any disadvantage to
her/him. Moreover, Kymlicka also seeks to find a meeting ground between the rights
of cultural communities to self-preservation and those rights of individuals defined
as civil and political rights. He suggests that the demands of national minorities and
ethnic groups may be accommodated within a framework of democratic citizenship
(a) by protecting the common rights of all citizens, which basically means the protec-
tion of the civil and political rights of individuals: freedom of association, religion,
speech, mobility and political organization in order to protect group difference, and
(b) by accommodating cultural diversity through special legal and constitutional mea-
sures, with members of specific groups being guaranteed special rights. Kymlicka iden-
tifies three forms of group-differentiated rights:
(i) Special group representation rights: For example, democratizing the structures
of state within mainstream political institutions by making it more representa-
tive, that is, making legislatures more representative by including members of
ethnic and racial minorities, and women, the poor, disabled, etc.
(ii) Polyethnic rights concern themselves with the specific rights of immigrant
communities, enabling them to express their particularities and differences
without fear of prejudice or discrimination in mainstream society. These in-
clude protecting their religious and cultural practices.
(iii) Self-government rights recognize some kind of political autonomy or territo-
rial jurisdiction of the national minority.
Bhikhu Parekh identifies two kinds of rights that can be claimed by a collective:
derivative and primary collective rights, wherein cultural community rights are identi-
fied with the latter category. Derivative collective rights are acquired by pulling individ-
ual rights together or alienating them to the collective right of trade unions or clubs.
Primary collective rights are of two kinds: individually exercised and collectively ex-
ercised collective rights. Individually exercised collective rights are manifested in the
Sikh right to wear a turban, and the Muslim right to the time for prayers. Collectively
exercised collective rights are or can be exercised by the collective. Examples of such
rights are the right to national self-determination, the right of a community to make
representations to the government or be consulted by it on issues that are of vital interest
to it. Parekh disagrees with the view that collective rights are a threat to individual rights.
Instead, he points out that all rights can be misused, including individual rights. He states
that there is a highly complex relation between individual and collective rights, which
has often been over-drawn. Some collective rights threaten individual rights, for example
the right of a group to enforce moral conformity. Some are preconditions of individual
rights, for example a political community’s right to self-government or independence.
Some collective rights protect individual rights and empower their bearers because orga-
nized groups and communities are better able to defend the rights of their members, for
example, a community’s right to its culture, language or educational institutions.
Globalization and Challenges to Citizenship Theory Today

In the contemporary arena, the sphere of citizenship rights has changed drastically.
The post-Cold War era, followed by the breakdown of Soviet Russia and the unsettled
situation in Eastern Europe, massively transformed the rights of citizens. But the most
important factor in addition to these changing circumstances was the emergence of
globalization, which has severely questioned the prevalent notions of citizenship. Pro-
cesses of globalization are beginning to change our perception of the nature of rights.
The new security dilemmas associated with cross-border threats—such as nuclear
annihilation or ecological disasters—are making states more sensitive to the rights of
others. Injustices and rights violations within states can no longer be easily contained,
and state sovereignty is undoubtedly being challenged by the extension of arguments
for human rights and by a more vigorous UN. Regional bodies attempting to manage
the problems associated with globalization, such as the European Union (EU), are also
extending citizenship rights beyond the boundaries of individual states. In fact, the EU
is unique amongst regional economic bodies because unlike, say, the North American
Free Trade Agreement or Association of Southeast Asian Nations, it had looked to
create political and not just economic institutions of cooperation.
Another way in which globalization is challenging an abstract view of rights is
through enhancing awareness of threats to the eco-structure, and therefore humanity’s
vulnerability to the harm caused by ecological damage. This idea captures the relational
nature of citizenship in a way that the atomistic logic of liberals such Hobbes and Locke
fails to grasp. A relational view of rights demands not only that we find ways to extend
benefits to all peoples, regardless of national boundaries, but also means recognizing
that rights are only sustainable if we display a much greater sense of responsibility to
other communities and to our natural environment. Global citizenship must involve re-
sponsibilities as well as rights. Ecological citizenship means extending our understand-
ing of citizenship beyond material concerns with welfare rights and rights to property
and market exchange. It represents a deeper conception of citizenship than that offered
by classical liberalism. Many of the responsibilities associated with this form of post-
liberal citizenship will be voluntary obligations rather than enforceable duties.
Conclusion
Citizenship, in its modern understanding, refers to full and equal membership in the
political community, which in the present global context refers to the nation-state. How-
ever, citizenship also provides a terrain for a number of contesting views over its form
and substance. Historically, civic republicanism formed the most influential under-
standing of citizenship. The dominant understanding of citizenship today comes from
the liberal tradition, which sees it as constituting a set of individual rights. Most con-
temporary contractarian liberals, especially since the 1971 publication of John Rawls’
A Theory of Justice, claim that a liberal account of justice uniquely permits citizens of
diverse beliefs and backgrounds to form, revise and pursue their own conceptions of
the good. Liberal theories and institutions, however, as discussed above, today confront
an ever-increasing array of demands from ethnic cultural minorities for respect and
recognition. The problem concerning how to respond to these claims has come to pre-
occupy leading political theorists. Cultural pluralists and communitarians regard indi-
vidual rights as meaningless, unless they also take into account the specific contexts of
the rights-bearing individuals. The multicultural theorist champions the cause of group
rights to redress the discrimination meted out to cultural groups on account of unifor-
mity in procedures of liberal democracy. However, there is almost no unanimity among
thinkers with regard to the nature of the groups, their appropriate political stature, and
the range of permissible diversity suited to multicultural polity. While Young champi-
ons the cause of all oppressed groups, Kymlicka privileges national groups over ethnic
ones. Parekh’s analysis shows concern mainly for non-liberal society. In essence, he
provides a critique of the Western discourses on multiculturalism by trying to include
elements from Asiatic societies. Despite these divergences, the conception of citizen-
ship has today raised a host of important questions, and addresses inequalities among
nation-states in the world. It focuses our attention on questions of rights, freedom
and equality, political allegiance to the state, civic loyalties within the community, and
cultural and emotional ties and identities that mediate the relationship between citizens
and the state. These diverse understandings of citizenship thus make it an important
concept, significant for understanding modern democratic societies today.
Summary
• A citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights atten-
dant to, and assumes the duties of, membership. The development of citizenship
rights has involved a series of struggles to dismantle the modes of exclusion
which prevented marginal groups from enjoying full-fledged membership to the
political community.
• In Greek polis, citizenship was a privileged status, tied closely to the notion of
political participation. The recognition of citizenship as a legal status in the Ro-
man Empire brought in a certain degree of inclusiveness.
• The French Revolution (1789) resurrected the ideals of active participation
against the claims of the monarchical/imperial state. T.H. Marshall distinguished
three strands or bundles of rights constituting liberal citizenship: civil, political
and social, each with its distinct history specific to a particular century.
• Contemporary debates on citizenship and rights have questioned the idea that
the (individual) citizen can enjoy rights independent of the contexts/circum-
stances to which s/he belongs, that is, class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. Today,
talks of community rights—cultural/religious—have become integral to an un-
derstanding of the notion of citizenship.
• Since the 1980s, globalization and multiculturalism have provided the contexts
within which the notion of citizenship has been challenged. Multiculturalism,
plurality, diversity and difference have become significant terms of reference in
thinking about citizenship today.
Questions for Discussion

1. What do you understand by citizenship? Briefly discuss the events leading to the emer-
gence of modern citizenship.
2. In what ways do the classical notions of citizenship differ from modern citizenship?
Illustrate this with a few examples.
3. What are the strengths and limitations of the liberal notion of citizenship?
Suggested Readings
Aristotle, 1992, The Politics (London: Penguin).
Barbalet, J. M., 1988, Citizenship (Milton Keynes: Open University Press).
Faulks, Keith, 2000, Citizenship (Routledge).

Heater, Derek, 1980, Citizenship (London: Longman).
Held, David, 1994, ‘Transformation of Political Community: Rethinking Democracy in the Con-
text of Globalization’, in Ian Shapiro and Casino Hacker-Cordon (eds), Democracy’s Edges
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Kymlicka, Will and Wayne Norman, 1994, ‘The Return of the Citizen’, Ethics, 104 (January).
, 1995, Multicultural Citizenship: Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Clarendon
Press).
Parekh, Bhikhu, 2000, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory (Lon-
don: Macmillan Press).
Roy, Anupama, 2005, Gendered Citizenship: Historical and Conceptual Explorations (New Delhi:
Orient Longman).
Taylor, Charles, 1994, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Amy Gutman (ed.), Multiculturalism: Ex-
amining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Turner, Bryan S., 1986, Citizenship and Capitalism: The Debate Over Reformism (London: Allen
and Unwin).
Young, I. M., 1990, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
2
The Classical Conception
of Citizenship
Ashok Acharya
The polis, properly speaking, is not the city-state in its physical location; it is the
organization of the people as it arises out of acting and speaking together, and its
true space lies between people living together for this purpose, no matter where
they happen to be.
Hannah Arendt, 1958
Introduction
In the Suppliant Women, written probably around 422 bc, Euripides—one of the great
Greek tragedy playwrights living in fifth-century bc Athens—captures some aspects
of the conventional contrast between one man’s rule (understood here as tyranny) and
the rule of the many. A messenger from Thebes, as Euripides recounts, appears before
Theseus of Athens and asks who the master of the land, whom he should give the mes-
sage of King Creon to, is. Theseus responds by saying: ‘To begin with, stranger, you
started your speech on a false note by asking for the master here. The city is not ruled
by a single man but is free. The people rule, and offices are held by yearly turns: they
do not assign the highest honours to the rich, but the poor also have an equal share.’
Unimpressed, the Theban messenger engages Theseus by arguing that the city he comes
from is ‘ruled by one man and not by a rabble. There is no one to fool the city with flat-
tering speech and lead it this way and that to suit his own advantage. And anyway how
can the common people, if they cannot even make a speech properly, know the right
way to guide a city?’ Not to let go of the wordy contest, Theseus deepens the contrast by
suggesting that there is ‘nothing more hostile to a city than a tyrant. In the first place,
there are no common laws in such a city, and one man, keeping the law in his own
hands, holds sway. This is unjust. When the laws are written, both the powerless and the
rich have equal access to justice, and the little man, if he has right on his side, defeats the
big man. Freedom consists in this: “Who has a good proposal and wants to set it before
the city?”’ (Euripides 2004: 154-55). The contrast between the injustice of a tyrant’s rule
and the chaos involved in the rule of the ‘rabble’ in a democracy is hard to miss. For
many of democracy’s imperfections, one of the first that needed a robust defence during
a time when the idea and its practices, albeit imperfect, emerged, was: How do we stand
up to secure a form of collective self-government that was intrinsically good?
Many others, such as Herodotus, Plutarch, Thucydides, Demosthenes and Aristotle,
have written or commented on some aspect of the Athenian democratic experience that
roughly dates back to the sixth-fourth century bc. As scholars pore over the available
sources, dig for new ones, debate the authenticity of the available sources, and try new
lines of interpretation in order to reconstruct that ancient democratic experience, most
agree that democracy in ancient Greece was a novel experience and one that gives us—
we, the citizens of contemporary democracy—some useful lessons to learn from. While
we hold in abeyance our own views on what we need to learn from the Greeks, we do
need to engage the claim on whether ancient Greece was the first place where democ-
racy took root. What explains the popularity of the Greek, or the classical, model? Can
the attention that the Greek experience has drawn in Western literature be attributed
primarily to the wealth of scholarship surrounding the origins of democracy? Or has
our own understanding of democratic citizenship been so warped that we have not
expanded the imaginary of democracy to include other valuable experiences in other
places? These questions assume an enhanced significance in the present century, when
we find ourselves more open to sharing political knowledge—especially on the compar-
ative evaluations of democratic politics—than before, when the journey of democracy
was widely assumed to be a one-way flow—from the West to the rest.
There is no doubt today that the Greek experiment was not the sole narrative of the
early origins of democracy; however, it certainly was unique. There are other parallels
to the Greek experience, narratives of different places in ancient times. For instance,
we know that democracy in some form flourished in ancient Egypt and India, and
there are good reasons to unearth what we may find of value to compare and learn
from different sources. Perhaps at a later time such an exercise might help us to better
understand the trajectories of democracy as it has evolved in various places, and how
these might serve us to enrich our understanding and explanation of the plural origins
of democracy. Perhaps when we are able to unearth all of that, and establish interre-
lationships across space in seeking to decode the plural nature of such origins, would
we rewrite much of the uncritical, conventional accounts of democracy and citizenship
The Classical Conception of Citizenship 17
today. This, however, need not detain nor detract us any longer beyond flagging the
complex origins of democracy. We turn our attention, in what follows, to how classical
citizenship is captured both in theory and practice and the lessons that we can learn
from this account.
Classical Citizenship in Theory

The term ‘classical’ comes with a double bind: first, something which denotes ideal or
authoritative and is hence worthy of serious attention; and second, it has reference to
a particular period in history that in turn refers to the ancient civilization, especially
to Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries bc and later to that of Rome (Pocock 1995:
29). One of the paradoxes of the experience of democracy in ancient Athens is the fact
that while Athens was at the peak of this experimentation in actual practice, the ancient
Greek political philosophers, especially Plato and Aristotle, were less inclined to con-
sider democracy as a preferred regime in their works.
Aristotle
Aristotle was one of the first ancient political philosophers to chronicle the democratic
experiment in classical Greece. He draws from that experience to frame his own con-
ception of citizenship. Aristotle is famous for his remark: ‘Man is by nature a political
animal [zoon politikon]’. This was not intended as a casual remark but encapsulates, on
the contrary, a major thrust of his political philosophy. At the core of the statement is an
account of the origins of political community or the polis—how it comes into being for
natural reasons and exists for the sake of the good life, which is the end of the political
community.
Nature, in Aristotle’s usage, reflects the very process of evolution. The polis, having
grown out of natural partnerships such as the household and the village, is natural
because it fulfills the end to which human life tends—self-sufficiency. All partnerships
are natural in that they serve the ends of self-sufficiency; however, the polis, or the
city-state, ‘while coming into being for the sake of living … exists for the sake of living
well’ (Aristotle 1984: 1252b). As a form of political partnership, it is higher than other
forms of partnerships for it enables and directs us towards the good life. Clearly, there
is something else to nature that assigns the polis a higher standing. For Aristotle, the
answer lies in recognizing that the aim of the good life of the polis is a natural end, its
telos, and indeed the telos of all associations prior to and smaller than the polis. This is
why political partnership is the highest form of partnership and the polis, Aristotle is
quick to add, is ‘prior by nature to the household and to each of us’. He would go on to
explain that ‘the whole must of necessity be prior to the part’ (ibid.: 1253a).
What set humans apart from other animals, according to Aristotle, are the faculties
of speech and reason (logos). Speech ‘serves to reveal the advantageous and the harm-
ful, and hence also the just and the unjust’, and enables humans a perception of the good
and the bad, the just and the unjust, and other related objects of human judgement
(Aristotle 1984: 1253a). These faculties predispose humans to deliberate upon their
flourishing (eudaimonia) as active partners engaged in the quest to realize the political
community. As such, the polis is greater than its parts, and its citizens (polites). Citizen-
ship is and must be geared towards the goals of the polis. Aristotle, though, is aware of
the diversity of the poleis (plural of polis), and would make a case for a regime-differ-
entiated understanding of citizenship. That is, the nature of citizenship varies from re-
gime to regime, and citizenship is to be understood as largely regime-specific. In other
words, the requirements of citizenship in a democracy are different from those required
by, say, an oligarchy or aristocracy.
The Aristotelian conception of citizenship essentially hinges on what Aristotle de-
scribes as ‘ruling and being ruled in turn’. The citizen in an unqualified sense is de-
fined by no other thing so much as ‘by sharing in decision and office’ (Aristotle 1984:
1275a).
A citizen in the common sense is one who shares in ruling and being ruled; but he
differs in accordance with each regime. In the case of the best regime, he is one who is
capable of and intentionally chooses being ruled and ruling with a view to the life in
accordance with virtue (ibid.: 1283b, 84a).
This view is in contrast to the Platonic ideal in which ruling is a prerogative of a

distinct class. One needs to step down from this ideal, Aristotle may insist, in order to
accommodate the practice of sharing power among active partners as equal citizens.
But the universe of citizenship in a Greek polis was restricted to adult males born to
members of the same. In most poleis there were a significant number of inhabitants who
were not accorded citizenship. Women, slaves and metis (of foreign origin) comprised
the excluded lot, and ironically constituted the majority in any polis. What, then, justi-
fies the political privilege of citizenship for the adult males only? The idea of ‘ruling and
being ruled in turn’, Aristotle argued, must apply to ‘things advantageous’. He goes on
to argue that ‘immediately from birth certain things diverge, some toward being ruled,
others toward ruling’ (1984: 1254a). For as the soul rules the body, ‘intellect’ rules over
‘appetite’; it is advantageous for both the body and the appetite to be ruled by the soul
and the intellect. This sets the tone for the master-slave relationship, as one where the
master is the ruler and the slave the ruled. This relationship, Aristotle would contend,
is not an equal one, and the axiom of ‘ruling and being ruled in turn’ would only apply
among equals. Similarly, ‘the relation of male to female is by nature a relation of superior
to inferior and ruler to ruled’. The slave ‘participates in reason only to the extent of per-
ceiving it, but does not have it’ (ibid.: 1254b). In Aristotle’s exclusionary schema then,
the free person rules the slave, the male the female, and the man the child in different
ways. The parts of the soul are present in all, but they are present in a different way. The
slave is wholly lacking the deliberative element; the female has it but it lacks authority;
the child has it but is incomplete (ibid.: 1260a).
It is important to notice that in building these relationships of inequality, he is making

a larger case for separating the household (oikos) from the polis. By separating the work
of the master from that of the slave and man from woman, Aristotle’s polis builds up a
public sphere that belongs only to adult males. How arbitrary is the distinction? As mod-
ern subjects, we are most likely unconvinced by his arguments and take affront to the
arbitrariness of the distinctions employed. Is he only justifying the prevalent convention
of slave-owning, or is there more to it? Perhaps there is a bit of conventionalism. And
perhaps there is also a perceived need, within the Aristotelian system, to free males from
everyday chores and thereby allow them more time to participate as active citizens.
Aristotle requires citizens to inculcate certain virtues that will prove crucial in the
pursuit of the good life. For him, human character is neither wholly good nor wholly
bad, and definitely not fixed at birth. Hence, without proper laws and education, people
are liable to degenerate in various ways. Citizens need to have the right habits instilled
in them, both by a regime of education and by appropriate laws. Early on in The Poli-
tics, Aristotle claims that ‘just as man is the best of the animals when completed, when
separated from law and adjudication he is the worst of all’ (1984: 1253a). Further on, he
would make a stronger case for the rule of law over the rule of men. In a stronger sense,
the rule of law better reflects the principle of ‘ruling and being ruled in turn’, but the
argument goes deeper when Aristotle suggests that
one who asks law to rule, therefore, is asking god and intellect alone to rule, while one
who asks man adds the beast. Desire is a thing of this sort; and spiritedness perverts
rulers and best men. Hence law is intellect without appetite (ibid.: 1287a).
Laws shape citizens’ characters, and education fosters a collective spirit. Aristotle
favours a state-sponsored education programme, which should be common to all and
is not to be introduced on a private basis. ‘Since there is a single end for the city as a
whole, it is evident that education must necessarily be one and the same for all’ (1984:
1337a). This is a far cry from our times; most liberal democracies allow the coexistence
of both public and private schools, even if the curriculum remains the same. Much of
the contemporary revival of civic republicanism is inspired by Aristotle, and it is easy
to understand why claims for a common education system with a curriculum designed
to inculcate in citizens some of the significant civic virtues are being made. If education
shapes characters in a desired way and induces the cultivation of virtues, what brings
together the citizens in a polis and keeps them bonded are the associational ties of civic
friendship (philia). Ties of friendship do not run counter to the demands of justice in a
political community, but complement each other. What is more, they help to arrive at
harmonious agreements in the disputes that generate in a diverse citizenry.
Aristotle’s works on citizenship as a full-blown account in The Politics is one of the
earliest systematic attempts to theorize the subject. His limitations apart, The Politics
has inspired almost all successive scholars to imagine and engage with the ideal of citi-
zenship in their own times, most of all in the modern period.
Classical Citizenship in Practice

Any serious, scholarly discussion of citizenship is held to be relatively incomplete with-
out an understanding of how not only the idea, but also the practice of citizenship
originated. Knowledge of the ancient practice becomes invaluable, especially when the
practice in question offers an alternative or corrective to practices in contemporary
times, as we debate the continuing significance of our democratic lineages. We would
get a better sense of the idea of classical citizenship in practice if we turn our attention
chiefly to the working of the classical model of democracy in Athens, although we need
to be forewarned that it is only recently, say, in the last couple of decades, that we have
turned serious scholarly attention towards a reconstruction of democracy in practice by
piecing together classical literature with archaeological discoveries.
Demos (people) was an expression to denote the collective existence of citizens. Most
accounts of citizenship are incomplete without reference to the democratic poleis of
ancient Greece. Democracy took many, many years to take root in Athens and other
poleis. It was a powerful practice; it was powerful because it empowered the majority,
who were poor. In giving power to the people, it frightened the rich. This was a major
revolution in the collective life of a polis. Resonating with Aristotle’s views to a large
extent, many scholars of ancient Greece judge how ‘[i]n ancient democracies, as indeed
in all poleis of whatever constitutional or ideological hue, citizenship was construed and
constructed actively, as a participatory sharing’ (Cartledge 2007: 157).
The participatory sharing of power (or ‘ruling and being ruled in turn’) grew out of
the constitutional reforms carried out in the Athenian polis. Two figures, Solon and
Cleisthenes, loom large in ancient history, to whom credit must go for having rescued
Athens from tyranny and the reign of the archons (aristocratic rulers), and initiating
reforms that paved the way for the evolution of democracy. Whereas Solon chiefly insti-
tuted reforms aimed towards freeing the poor from debt and introducing a mixed con-
stitution whereby power could be shared between different social classes, Cleisthenes
brought about political reforms by reconstituting the demes that made up the polis and
in securing the allegiance of the citizens towards the polis instead of the traditional
loyalty to one’s tribe. The Athenian citizenry chiefly comprised of a large body of small
landholders, supported by the institution of slavery.
The democratic polis had three main institutions: the Assembly (or the Ekklesia), the
Council of 500, and the People’s Court. The Assembly (Ekklesia) was the regular gather-
ing of adult male citizens to deliberate upon and vote on decrees and laws that touched
their lives, both public and private, involving matters as diverse as taxes, war, treaties,
religion, public festivals, ostracism, and various other sundry matters. The Assembly
captured the spirit of isegoria—the equal right of every Athenian citizen, irrespective
of one’s class background, to speak on issues of public significance. All citizens were re-
quired to attend the Ekklesia, which met roughly 40 times in a year. However, although
the population of the Athenian citizenry varied from 30,000 to 60,000 over the period
of the democratic polis, the actual attendance in the Ekklesia was roughly around 6,000-
8,000 where the required quorum was 6,000. There could be various reasons for this.
One reason that perhaps explains this non-participation may well be that it was easier
for wealthy citizens to attend meetings than it was for their poorer counterparts. An-
other reason could be that those citizens who lived in the countryside and away from
urban clusters would have found it difficult to attend meetings at short notice (Rhodes
2009: 65). However, those who did attend had the freedom to raise any particular mat-
ter that they felt was of concern for the entire polis.
The Council of 500 (or Boule) effectively represented the government of Athens. Its
500 members were drawn from the 10 demes (formed by Cleisthenes), with each select-
ing 50 members by lot to the Council, who served for a year. A citizen needed to be 30
years of age to be selected to the Council, and then could be selected only twice in his
lifetime. The Council also had a President, rotated among members, and he was like the
Chief Executive Officer of Athens. The main function of the Council was to prepare the
agenda for the Assembly. Whereas each citizen could become a member of the Council
twice in his lifetime, he was paid for attending meetings. Athenian democracy required
every prospective member of the Council, including other public offices, to undergo a
public scrutiny by citizens, in which they could be asked personal questions determin-
ing their suitability to political office. The Council’s agenda was usually controlled by
one of the demes, who divided the year into 10 parts. Each deme was also required to
rotate amongst its members the office of the President, and Aristotle records in The
Constitution of Athens that this effectively meant that a President enjoyed the office for
only one day and one night!
Participation in the Assembly and the Council essentially meant the involvement of
citizens in framing and passing decrees, which had more immediate relevance than the
framing of laws (nomos), the passing of which involved other bodies such as Nomothetae
and involved a longer and complex procedure. Most scholars—except those who ro-
manticize the Athenian model—argue, however, that the participation of ordinary
citizens in the Ekklesia and Boule was more or less compromised by the domination of
citizens from aristocratic and wealthy backgrounds, besides the presence of the dema-
gogues who dominated proceedings.
In Solon’s mixed constitution of sixth century bc, where power was shared between
the oligarchs, aristocrats and ordinary people (or the many who were poor, referred to
as the kakoi), the principle of democracy was introduced not in the Council or the po-
litical offices, but in the courts. From then on, the role of the courts has assumed a pro-
found significance in Athenian democracy. Later, as democracy took root, they would
be known as People’s Courts in the fifth and fourth centuries bc. The People’s Courts
(also known as Heliaea) were primarily responsible for the administration of law, and
were also sites for public trials (recall the famous trial of Socrates). These courts had
large juries with more than 200 jurors who listened to oral arguments in both civil and
criminal cases, as well as to appeals made by citizens who were dissatisfied with the rul-
ings of the Assembly or the Council. Jurors were paid for their service, which allowed
poorer citizens to participate in the governance of their city.
Besides participation in the above institutions, which were thrown open to all, citi-
zens were also obligated to be conscripted for service in the army as hoplites (heavy-
armed infantry) if they had the means to buy their own armoury as well as financially
support the war efforts of the polis. In other words, the obligations of citizenship in-
volved serving the polis with ‘person and property’. There has been some criticism of
these practices, suggesting that due to these obligations, the appropriate roles of citi-
zenship were understood differently by the rich and the poor. Cutting across class dif-
ferences, however, Athenian citizens related to each other as members of a face-to-face
community. Finley (1983) describes this pretty well:
This was not only a face-to-face society, it was also a Mediterranean society in which
people congregated out of doors, on market-days, on numerous festive occasions,
and all the time in the harbor and the town square. Citizens were members of varied
formal and informal groups—the family and household, the neighbourhood or village,
military and naval units, occupational groups (farmers at harvest-time or urban
crafts which tended to concentrate in particular streets), upper-class dining-clubs,
innumerable private cult-associations. All provided opportunities for news and gossip,
for discussion and debate, for the continuing political education … (p. 82).
This depiction captures not only the nature of the Athenian community, but also
that of other cities. Depending on the types of regimes that each had, there would be
subtle differences between them. A large part of our analysis has focused on Athens,
chiefly because it symbolized the pinnacle of the classical democratic experience, and
also because it is written about more than other poleis (except Sparta). As new material
emerges on Athens and life in the Greek polis, some of the earlier ‘romances’ of modern
authors is now being replaced by a more accurate, historically-sensitive balanced analy-
sis. Given this new interest and a newer approach, one more sober and less romantic,
we rethink what it is that we take as our lessons from the classical model of citizenship,
and how these help us evaluate contemporary democratic practices.
Classical Citizenship: A Model for the Future?

As citizens in modern democracies, which are much larger than the Greek poleis, we enjoy
a few basic rights that we consider for the most part inviolable. Modern liberal democra-
cies bestow upon their citizens certain rights, and also require a certain way of doing poli-
tics that is institutionalized. Opposition and contestation are built into both the electoral
framework and the public space. We have political parties, interest groups, more formal
structures, associations and political processes that were largely absent in the Greek polis.
One could argue, for instance, that citizens in Athens had ‘rights’ in a loose sense of being
able to express themselves in the Assembly or the courts or participate in public activities,
but most such ‘rights’ are to be understood in a different vein and certainly not in the way
we understand rights today (catalogued in the Constitution and zealously guarded by
the courts). By any stretch of the imagination, the Greek polis was anything but ‘liberal’,
although it was and still remains tied to the democratic imagination.
One paradox of ancient Athens that remains unexplained is the trial and execution of
Socrates. Some regard this ‘as clear evidence of Athenian democracy’s moral turpitude’
(Ober 2008: 79), and certainly a denial of the freedom to deserve a fair trial. Was this
one of the reasons for Plato’s anti-democratic political philosophy? Whichever way we
answer this, the fact remains that Plato and Aristotle, both of whom defined the content
of ancient political philosophy, were sceptical of the inherent goodness of democracy.
It is difficult to explain how, when ancient Greece was experimenting with novel demo-
cratic practices, including citizenship, of course with all their limitations, the pinnacle
of ancient Greek philosophy epitomized in the works of Plato and Aristotle achieved its
greatness outside the realm of the democratic imagination. Perhaps one answer lies in
how both theory and practice, despite their differences and separation from each other,
took all too seriously the collective pursuit of the good life in different directions.
What lessons do we as citizens of contemporary democracy take from the classical
conception of citizenship? For one, we are reminded of the selfless service of ‘virtuous’
citizens to their political community. This has been the stuff of current discussions on
participatory, deliberative and republican (each one is distinct from the other) concep-
tions of citizenship, and has animated both political theorists and practitioners from
Rousseau through J. S. Mill and Tocqueville, to Hannah Arendt and others. At the heart
of all these different conceptions is a desire to reclaim for democratic life the imperative
of active citizenship.
Second, it is believed that some forms of accountability found to be lacking in contem-
porary forms of electoral democracy can be revived by looking back at the ancient model,
and best reworked at the local levels of governance. Novel practices of accountability
(such as social audits or democratic audits), the sine qua non of any true democracy, need
to be encouraged outside the realm of formal political structures and institutions.
However, in a globalizing world, there may well be limits to the use of the ancient
model to undertake cosmopolitan projects. As responsible citizens of an increasingly
interconnected world with a greater perception of responsibility towards the needs of
those who live beyond the borders of our political communities, we would find it diffi-
cult, if not impossible, to balance our interests of active citizenship, both at the local and
global levels. So a more realistic assessment of the classical conception of citizenship
may be called for. But the idea of the bounded polis with an active citizenship body will
keep alive the democratic imagination for a long time.

1. Does the phrase ‘ruling and being ruled in turn’ correctly capture the classical conception
of citizenship? Does this help us understand the politics of exclusion in ancient Greece?
How?
2. What, according to you, are some of the innovative features of Athenian democratic citi-
zenship?
3. What useful lessons do we derive from the classical model of citizenship?
Suggested Readings
Arendt, Hannah, 1958, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Aristotle, 1984, The Politics, Translated and with an Introduction, Notes and Glossary by Carnes
Lord (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Cartledge, Paul, 2007, ‘Democracy, Origins Of: Contribution to a Debate’, in Kurt A. Raaflaub,
Josiah Ober and Robert W. Wallace (eds), Origins of Democracy in Ancient Athens (Los An-
geles: University of California Press).
Euripides, 2004, Suppliant Women (lines 346–57, 403–50), trans. D. Kovacs, in Eric W. Robinson
(ed.), Ancient Greek Democracy: Readings and Sources (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell).
Finley, M. I., 1983, Politics in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Heater, Derek, 2002, What is Citizenship?(Cambridge, England: Polity Press).
Ober, Josiah, 2008, ‘What the Ancient Greeks Can Tell Us About Democracy’, Annual Review of
Political Science, 11: 67–91.
Pocock, J. G. A., 1995, ‘The Ideal of Citizenship since Classical Times’, in Ronald Beiner (ed.),
Theorizing Citizenship (New York: State University of New York Press).
Rhodes, P. J., 2009, ‘Civic Ideology and Citizenship’, in Ryan K. Balot (ed.), A Companion to
Greek and Roman Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell).
Walzer, Michael, 1989, ‘Citizenship’, in Terence Ball, James Farr and Russell L. Hanson (eds),
Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
3
Citizenship and National Identity
Suparna Priyadarshini
Legendary painter M.F. Husain, who was granted Qatari citizenship, has
surrendered his Indian passport to the country’s mission in Doha, a media report
said today. After handing over his passport Husain said ‘India is my motherland
and I simply cannot leave that country. What I have surrendered is just a piece
of paper,’ he further added, ‘Art is universal and something that transcends all
artificial boundaries. I am just a living being in the universe created by God. I
will have a small patch of land on the earth when I die. Where I am going to be
buried on this earth is not a problem that affects me.’ He also clarified that, ‘I have
not abandoned India. Though I consider myself a world citizen, I am accepting
Qatari citizenship because of some technical reasons and artistic conveniences.’
Outlookindia.com, 8 March 2010, Dubai
Introduction
What exactly does this all mean? Does this mean that the already ambiguous terminol-
ogy, ‘citizenship’, is becoming more complicated and losing its classical meaning? Ques-
tions related to the academic import of citizenship and its relationship (if any) with
other closely linked terms like national identity and nationality have been plaguing the
minds of many. In fact, concepts like Nation, Nationality and National Identity need to
be studied and critically analysed with reference to the changing scenario. This is the
thrust area that I would like to deal with in the next few pages. However, any clarifica-
tion with regard to understanding the concepts in a modernized world should be done
Citizenship and National Identity 27
in the context of citizenship. Accordingly, before going into any details, let us take a
look at the questions that form the body of this chapter.
• What is the significance of citizenship in the life of an individual?
• Is citizenship merely an official status?
• Does it (citizenship) have any bearing on the mental set-up of an inhabitant?
• What are the differences/similarities between the concept(s) of nation and state?
• What are the various approaches to and forms of nationalism?
• What is national identity? What is its importance in the life of an individual?
• In India, do we see a possibility of conflating citizenship and national identity?
Citizenship as such is a universal phenomenon, although it is confined within
national boundaries, as explained in Chapter 2. With the world shrinking and the exten-
sion of interaction among nations along with the movement of people across national
boundaries, a whole new meaning of the term citizenship is now unfolding. Given this
new perspective emerging out of the world scenario, one is tempted to examine the
import and implications of the term. Against this backdrop, it would be interesting to
glance through the following example illustrating the confusion that people might have
vis-à-vis citizenship.
BOX 3.1
Biswajit and Anita, a middle-aged Indian couple from the eastern part of India, have
been serving at Berkeley in California since the last 25 years. One evening their 18-
year-old daughter Kakoli suddenly stopped writing while filling up a form for em-
ployment and posed a question that startled as well as confused Biswajit, a middle-
rung executive. Kakoli’s question was—‘Papa, we eat typical Indian food like fish
curry and rice for our principal meals, belong to a religion other than that of average
Americans, observe festivals like Diwali and Dussehra, unlike theirs. On the whole,
we lead a lifestyle different from people around us: then why am I expected to declare
my nationality as “American” instead of “Indian” in this admission form?’
Kakoli’s confusion over her true identity is shared by thousands of people residing
in countries away from their ‘homeland’, and instances such as these clearly spell out
the intimate connection between a person’s citizenship and her sense of belonging.
Before we dwell on this question, it would be better to understand the concepts that
involve the whole question of citizenship and national identity.
Understanding Citizenship
Citizenship in the present-day world is not only a popular, but also a universal phenom-
enon. Usually every individual—apart from certain exceptions—is a citizen of one or
the other state. The idea of citizenship is much wider and comprehensive today than it
was in ancient Greece or Rome or even Medieval Europe, as has already been discussed
in Chapter 2. Today, all persons who are members of a state and who enjoy certain
civil and political rights are its citizens. In the past, however, it was connected with the
privilege of taking active part (women and slaves, though, were excluded from partici-
pation) in the political affairs of the city-state (the classical era). A citizen today enjoys
all permissible civil and political rights by virtue of that membership, and owes her/his
allegiance to the state where s/he is a member. Hence, a citizen also owes certain duties
to the state. So the concept of citizenship carries with it not only the idea of civil and
political rights, but also the responsibility for duties and social services. The new cri-
teria proposed for granting citizenship in the UK, which involves the establishment of
some sort of record of social service rendered to the needy, is an apt example.
Recently, political thinkers from both the right and the left have begun viewing citi-
zenship as a unifying force in a divided world. Cultural pluralism in modern societies
highlights the problem of citizenship. The agreement between politicians of various
persuasions has created a climate of enthusiasm about citizenship as a political con-
cept. It is also apparent that theoretical disagreements about the meaning of citizenship
are reflected in the popular understandings of the idea. We may agree that within an
open and interactive society, public institutions and policies must recognize the basic
rights and liberties of an individual. Thus, citizenship and rights are intricately inter-
woven. Citizenship, along with rights, then forms the basis of one’s membership within
a particular community in the present-day world. This means that in the contemporary
world, citizenship is not just a certain status defined by a set of rights and responsi-
bilities; rather, it acts as an identity for people in a society. In short, it is an integrative
function which promotes a shared identity among various social groups, and simulta-
neously acts as an expression of an individual’s membership in a political community.
The Birth of a Nation

It is often observed that a person finds it easy and convenient to immediately identify
and mingle with another person speaking the same language, sharing the same cultural
values, observing the same festivals and sharing the same lifestyle. This cultural as-
similation instinctively brings people closer than merely sharing a citizenship status.
In a metropolitan set-up, whether it be a college or university campus, an office or resi-
dential apartment, or a social club, people look for their own ilk, whom they identify
by any of the above-mentioned factors. Although this strongly motivates such people
to live together, it does not necessarily disrupt their national outlook, which they share
by virtue of being citizens. For instance, pride in being Indian is evidenced through the
glee expressed over winning a cricket match or a heritage site being included among
the Seven Wonders of the World (the Taj Mahal). It brings no less happiness to Indians
to gain recognition through their attainment of excellence in the field of information
technology, a Booker Prize, or even an Oscar! The consciousness encompassing each
such example indicates a sense of belongingness or loyalty towards a particular com-
munity or social group, and this ‘national consciousness’ often gets transformed into
the concept of the nation.
The term ‘nation’ is derived from the Latin word ‘Natio’, which means ‘birth’ or ‘race’.
The origin lies in the word Nascor, ‘I am born’, whose ideal form is Natus sum, ‘I have
been born’. Nation as a term gained popularity mainly during the French Revolution,
where it was used to denote ‘patriotism’. So we often see nation being conflated with
other words such as state, race, ethnicity, xenophobia, patriotism and nationality. Hence,
Nation is where an inhabitant’s emotional, material and moral meanings are invested.
It is a territorial entity where inhabitants not only find themselves politically engaged,
but also experience a strong ‘sense of belonging’. Perhaps that is why it is called a ‘home-
land’—whether adopted or ancestral. It is this moral and psychological investment (by
people) that provides a rooted base to the otherwise abstract concept of nation.
The formation encompasses three different processes, namely sentimental—that is,
when people share the same ethnic origin; political—in the quest of gaining indepen-
dence and recognition in the form of a state; and doctrinaire—when boundaries are re-
drawn due to historical and structural changes. Although on the face of it all three attri-
butes seem to overlap, each has its own distinct historical consequences and reasoning.
However, the most widely accepted notion remains that a nation is associated with a
shared sense of identity, which in this modern era is usually transformed into a political
entity called the state. Thus, it would not be incorrect to say that the state strengthens
the basis of a nation and marks the emergence of nationality or a nation-state.
The twin concepts of ‘state’ and ‘nation’ are often diffused. Undoubtedly the co-
terminality between them has become part of everyday life. On a regular basis, vari-
ous admissions forms, passport forms, or even applications for jobs demand that one
disclose his or her nationality. These forms are interested in knowing about a person’s
citizenship status. Being a political organization, the state may grant citizenship, but na-
tionality might be different. We often come across statements like ‘one Indian national
arrested in Australia’, or ‘five nations meet against growing terrorism’. In the former, ‘citi-
zen’ should have been used instead of ‘national’ while in the latter, the reference is to
‘state’ and not ‘nation’, Walker Connor, in Ethnonationalism: The quest for understanding
(1994), attempts to distinguish between these concepts. He says, ‘Whereas states are
legal and territorial entities and generally multi-national, nations are self differentiating
ethnic group at whose core is an intensely subjective psychological identification, which
exists beyond reason.’ Another popular interpretation is by Max Weber, a nineteenth-
century German sociologist, who defines nation in terms of a ‘prestige community’ and
argues that the nation derives both from the material interest of the state and a sense of
‘irreplaceable cultural values’ propounded by intellectuals. He strongly opposes the
objective basis of a nation, that is, vernacular language, blood and common descent,
while agreeing with the subjective basis of a nation, that is, the sentiment quotient.
Thus, he believes that the nation, being a community of sentiment, would lead to the
creation of a state on its own.
A classic example would be that of Jews and the formation of Israel. Jews were scat-
tered across the globe, but belonged to the same community. The strong feeling towards
living together led to the creation of the state of Israel. This is evident from the words,
The Palestinian people [do] not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means
for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today
there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for
political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian
people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct
‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.
The feeling of being an alien in their own land is deep-rooted amongst the people,
and finds vent in the declaration of Ahad Ha’Am, the Zionist, during the 1920s, the
period of turmoil, ‘Better to die in the Exile than to die here and be buried in the land
of fathers, if that land is considered the “homeland” of the [Palestinian] Arabs and we
are strangers in it.’ His words created a nationalistic fervour all across the land, and
remained unforgettable throughout the annals of Palestinian history.
Conversely, whether nation is a political or cultural entity remains debatable. An-
thony D. Smith, in The Ethnic Origins of Nations (1986), distinguishes between the
relationship shared by nationalism and modernization. He believes ‘ethnies’ or pre-
modern ethnic communities that are bound by a common culture and language to be
the parental node of modern nations. Thus, according to him, these culturally rooted
‘ethnies’ that are embedded in heritage evolved into modern nations when they came in
contact with the doctrine of sovereignty. This juxtaposition occurred in Europe in the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and in Asia and Africa in the twentieth
century. On the other hand, modern thinkers such as Eric Hobsbawm in Nations and
Nationalism Since 1780 (1990) have emphasized the extent to which nations are ‘invent-
ed traditions’, rather than accepting the traditional thinker’s belief that modern nations
have grown and become urbanized out of time-honoured ethnic communities. All said
and done, the notion that a nation is a conglomeration of various cultural streams is,
however, a more popular belief, and has been endorsed by most thinkers. Nevertheless,
the political connotation attached to the word ‘nation’ cannot be dismissed completely,
although it has been very poorly represented in literature. A German historian, Fre-
drich Meinecke, even attempted to present a difference between a political nation and a
cultural nation in his book Cosmopolitanism and the Nation State (1907). Still, the fact
that they are interdependent and intertwined makes it difficult to choose either one.
From the above discussion, it is quite evident that the birth of a nation is certainly not
a sudden occurrence, but a gradual process. It is true that nations are ‘organic’ (read
natural) units bound together by cohesive cultural traditions and historical processes,
which make them relatively more stable than any political structure. We are now in
a position to ask about, discuss and perceive the status of the United Kingdom, and
how we are to recognize it: as a British nation or a conglomeration of four different
nations—the English, the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish?
Nation-State and its Formation

The meaning of the term ‘state’ has changed from time to time since the Greek era. This
political concept has undergone a profound change from city states like Athens and Spar-
ta to nation-states like the USA and India over the years. At present, the state has been
reduced to a high political concept forming a mere part of the nation-state, thereby ac-
quiring a political meaning that is much narrower than that of a nation. A modern nation
represents multiple aspects of the human personality. Ideas are nurtured through a par-
ticular language, culture, habits and lifestyle, as well as aspirations and sentiments. The
nation overwhelms the individual with its persuasive power, while the state subjugates
the individual to its coercive authorities. The state dictates whereas the nation adopts.
Over the passage of time, a nation either transforms into a state or a state graduates into
a nation-state due to social, ethnic and cultural factors, besides political aspirations. One
of the essential attributes thrust into the melting pot of a nation-state is the willingness of
the people to live together. Some people consider the question of Tibetans in India in this
light. In the same vein, Islamic fundamentalists threaten to wreck the unity and determi-
nation of Kashmiri people to exist harmoniously in the Indian subcontinent.
In a nutshell, a nation-state seeks to unite people subjected to its rule by means of cultural
homogenization. Not all nation-states are homogeneous; some may contain various minor-
ity and ethnic groups within their territory. For example, the UK comprises of recognizable
nations—Scots and Welsh—as sub-units of a larger nation-state. So a nation-state is defined
in the present-day scenario as having an official language, a bureaucracy to harmonize soci-
ety, a distinct system of law, and a currency system of its own. Hence, a nation-state’s prime
role remains to nurture cultural confluence and strengthen political unity.
Nationalism: Then and Now

Nationalism as a concept has been a very abstract one. Political thinkers all around the
world have tried and are still trying to provide it with a concrete base. As far as Western
nationalism is concerned, it attempts to organize the people politically, and its coun-
terpart, the Eastern version, emphasizes the establishment of an identity which speaks
volumes about the people’s cultural sameness. However, ‘Nations’ and ‘Nationalism’ still
remain central phenomena in the modern world. They feed into, and are fed by, many
social, cultural, economic, and political factors and processes. Most of the world’s events
(good or bad) involve some kind of nationalistic aspiration which varies from the at-
tainment of freedom to the search for a national identity, or acquisition of a national
status. Nationalism to many is a ‘sentiment’ or a ‘condition of mind’ of a group of people
with a similar history, language, culture, or lifestyle, and is considered to be based on
the political belief that a large and loose political group subscribes to. In the words of
Hans Kohn (2000), ‘Nationalism is a state of mind, but it is also an ideological project
since the group that adheres to it also seeks to find expression in a sovereign state.’
This means that nationalism is broadly a state of mind. It is a powerful idea that forces
a person or a group of people to translate their ambitious pursuit towards a mother-
land into an organized activity, which ultimately results in the formation of a sovereign
state. If we look over the chapters of history, we come across many such instances when
people came together and found a power that brought about rapid and radical changes,
upturned thrones, and caused social and political revolutions. Rebellion against the
atrocities of the feudal lords led to a decline of feudalism, which also paved the way to
the era of enlightenment. Hence, the period of renaissance began. Therefore, national-
ity is not a term coined to define the mere identity of people; rather, it acts as a force or
a drive to meet the desired ends and find expression in that achievement.
In its inception as an ideology, nationalism is firmly rooted in Europe. During the
period 1870−1914, great developments took place which cast its effect all over the world.
Great historical upheavals such as the French Revolution, the great Unification of Italy,
Unification of Germany, the Russian Revolution, the Crimean War, Russo-Japanese War,
1904−05, all played an important role in paving the way to national bonding and creating
nationalistic fervour. In fact, nationalism and sovereignty go hand in hand. Nationalism
has been seen to further the impulses and attitudes of the masses. At the same time, it
has also been a potent force in justifying the authority of a state, legitimizing its rule and
using force against its own citizens as well as other states as in the case of Nazi Germany
or fascist Italy. Interestingly, nationalism plays a twin role at two different levels—intra-
nationally and internationally. Intra-nationally, it promotes unity and gains sympathy
from all fellow members. Internationally, however, it suffers from various complexities.
It gathers mutual distrust and hate from other countrymen who fall outside the ‘national’
orbit. Here, nationalism not only promotes sectarianism, but also divides the world on
a cultural basis at times. However, world history shows us that in general all kinds of
nationalism, whether Western or Eastern, remain tolerant towards each other. The only
exception is fascism, which as a political practice pushed nationalism too far.
A nationalistic struggle often gets transformed into a natural community, which is

inclined to live under one political roof. What drives people is the notion of indepen-
dence and the right to demand an equal standing with others in the world order. Na-
tionalism is the motivating factor in modern politics because the modern state is truly
a nation-state. However, even rooted facts like the above can be shaken and different
aspects emerge for which there are no explanations; and I feel that makes it more in-
teresting. The Lebanon case, embedded as it is with ideological contradictions and in-
ternal historical social conflicts, is perhaps the best example to bring out the irony and
enrich our understanding of nationalism in a non-European context.
BOX 3.2 THE LEBANON CASE

Under the Ottomans, the region bordering the Eastern Mediterranean was divided
into semi-autonomous enclaves ruled by an Emir or Sheikh mostly appointed by the
Sultan. When Europe, especially England and France, threw out an economic and
military challenge to a decaying empire, Lebanon became a fertile ground to acceler-
ate the fall of the Ottoman Empire and witness the advent of Western modernization.
The Maronites, a major Christian sect, was the first to fan the flames of nationalism.
They were regarded as people under the protection of Islamic law, Ahl al-Dimmah,
and were eager to subscribe to this new ideology of nationalism which preached
self-determination and independence. However, The Druze, a traditional elite sect
of landowners, perceived nation-building under the Maronites as hegemonic and a
serious threat to their long-held authority, and feared that they would become a mi-
nority. For obvious reasons Lebanese nationalism was not accepted by other inhabit-
ants as enthusiastically as among the Maronites. The strongest objection came from
the Sunni Muslims who advocated a larger concept of Arab nationalism, Al-ummah,
as an alternative. Soon, Phoenician and Arab history assumed centre-stage to replace
the Ottoman concept of an Islamic nation. Now Arabism was to be reconciled with
the new nation. No one was able to bridge the gap even though many similarities
could be laid. Years after the end of its lengthy civil war, Lebanon’s instability is im-
peding its reconstruction and recovery. These primordial concepts remain powerful,
if not dominant, elements in defining a Lebanese nation that encompasses all people
regardless of their religious or clan affiliations. The current Lebanese conflict is root-
ed in an effort to merge those concepts and elevate national identity above the rest.
Within the Asian panorama, the Indian freedom struggle is a classic example of the
intense love people have for their motherland. The course of the Indian freedom struggle
was influenced by renaissance and reformation, which further strengthened the emo-
tional attachment people had to their motherland. The socio-religious undertones of
‘Shakti’ worship or the ‘Ganapati’ festival transformed into deeply patriotic movements
like ‘Bande Maataram’. Such emotional attachment to the motherland further inspired
Indians to liberate themselves from the shackles of British imperialism. Ultimately India
emerged as the largest democracy in the world.
The modern world portrays a weak image of birth of a nation. After the disintegra-
tion of the Soviet Union in 1989, around 20 or more new nations have been formed.
The creation of these nations, however, was not the result of nationalistic aspirations or
any enduring movement, but was rather built around some contingent ethnic or cul-
tural formation backed by a political institution. So the concept of ‘Nation’ no longer
rests on a feeling of self-determination (based on will), where the self was ‘national’ in its
outlook. Hence, the nation remained only a product of some political crisis.
Another thread of modern thought pioneered by Michael Billig (1995) and termed
‘Banal Nationalism’ contends that nationalism is no longer a remote concern, but is
constantly ‘flagged’ in the media through routine symbols and habits of language. It is
reinforced in daily lives and deeply ingrained in contemporary consciousness. The term
Nationalism thus continues to be a major ideological force in the contemporary world,
regularly conveyed through small, familiar turns of phrase. These reminders operate
beyond the level of conscious awareness and even today, patriotic feeling runs high and
people are prepared to make sacrifices for the defence of their nation. Nationalism has
many facets to it, and to understand the very essence of this ideology, one has to fully
fathom five main approaches.
Approaches to Nationalism
An approach generally connotes a particular way of perceiving things or one’s own
mode of interpretation of a topic or subject. In contemporary times, a lot has been writ-
ten on the theme of nationalism. However, there are few political thinkers who have
had a great impact on the debates surrounding different issues of nationalism. These ap-
proaches provide insights into the various thought processes surrounding nationalism,
and are presented here to familiarize the readers with them. I have compartmentalized
the approaches into five different kinds: Organic, Operational, Descriptive, Modern
and Ethno-Symbolism. Broadly speaking, these approaches signify and encompass all
aspects of nationalism, but as the subject is so vast and has so many facets, there still
remains more room for thought.
Organic
This is one of the most basic, popular, and to some extent crudest approach to Nation-
alism. I call it ‘basic’ because it is the most common perception held by people about
nationalism. It is ‘crude’ because it (generally) lacks theoretical inputs; rather, it is in-

stinctive and based on presumptions. This approach is too value-laden in comparison
to others, which are mostly fact-based. The bearers of this approach placed nationalism
in an imaginative category where its origin remains unknown. Organic means natu-
ral. Hence, it implies that nationalism is as old as nature, and thus needs no factual or
empirical proof to establish itself. Within this approach are two factions, those who see
nation as a natural part of the human condition, falling outside time and history (the
Primordialists); and those who regard nation as natural, yet feels that it falls within
the historical record (the Perennialists). Primordialists like Pierre Van Den Berghe in
Race and Ethnicity: A Sociological Perspective (1978) opine that nations originate from
tribes and are held together by sentiments of kinship. This further gives rise to genetic
reproduction within the group. Here, primordialism is seen to conflate cultural with
biological groups. The deep-rooted and natural sentiments of belonging to extended
families are transferred to ethnic and national communities through the recognition of
cultural signs of similarity, and a reflection of their biological lines of descent. Historian
Clifford Geertz in The Integrative Revolution (1963) resorts to cultural primordialism
while distinguishing between primordial and civil ties. For Geertz, primordial attach-
ments tend to be overriding, but it is a power that results from the importance that human
beings attribute to cultural givens rather than from any property of the ties themselves.
Another contemporary version proposed by Anthony D. Smith (1986) is where ethnic
identity can be traced back to centuries, where an ‘ethnie’, as defined by him, would
be ‘named human populations with shared ancestry, myths, histories, cultures, having
an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity’. This is simply to say
that ethnic identity has existed in a non-institutional manner. Even today, to a greater
degree, many people perceive nationalism keeping in mind their own ethnic origins
and cultural situatedness. Also, the nation is seen as primordial and natural, part of
the human existence, which is not bound by time or history. For them, nationalism has
existed since time immemorial.
The perennialist pays close attention to the record and transformations informed by
history. The basic premise remains that nations are found in every period of history;
they are immemorial but not natural. Their existence can be traced and mapped. There
can be two versions of this form. One, ‘continuous perennialism’, believes nations to
be immemorial, but consider their roots to lie mostly in the pre-modern era. In The
Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (1997), Adrian Hast-
ings disagrees that the date of commencement of the nation (nationhood) is the French
Revolution, as defined by modernists. Instead, he traces the historical record to the high
middle ages, with the exception of Armenians, Jews and Persians in the ancient world.
The second version, as emphasized by John Armstrong, is known as ‘recurrent perenni-
alism’. In Nations before Nationalism (1982), he adopts a cyclical view of the emergence
of the nation. He does not really differentiate ethnic from national identities, but sees
modern nations as continuous with earlier cycles of ethnic and religious identity; the
emergence of nations is not something novel, resulting from the forces of moderniza-
tion, but a precipitate of a confluence of factors that have been forging ethnic and other
identities over the longue duree since the demise of the ancient world. Susan Reynolds,
a medieval historian, in Medieval Origines Gentium and the Community of the Realm
(1983), finds a middle path to the debate between the retrospective and teleological
perspective on the making of national identities. She prefers to use the term ‘Regnal’
to characterize political connections among medieval Western kingdoms. Perennial-
ists like Joshua Fishman in Social Theory and Ethnography: Neglected Perspectives on
Language and Ethnicity in Eastern Europe (1980) attribute the birth of nationhood to a
process of authentication, whereby the citizens of that nation adjust to the changes in
their own ethnic identification. Thereafter it does not remain a mere biological need,
but becomes more of a psychological one. This approach, as mentioned earlier, is the
most widely accepted by people the world over. The understanding of nationalism often
involves the usage of phrases like ‘glorified history’, ‘national heroes’, ‘war greatness’,
‘golden ages’, and of course ‘Nationalists’.
Operational
At a functional level, nationalism is primarily seen as fulfilling three different roles.
First—and the most important—is attending to certain psychological functions.
Psychological functions are mainly related to people’s craving for a distinct identity.
Nationalism provides such an identity to people. During times of declining religious
belief and tradition, the consequent loss of identity leads to what is popularly known as
an ‘identity crisis’. People are often identified by their ethnicity and language, through
which they are separated from outsiders. Nationalism invariably marks this border-
line. Ethnic conflicts, along with modern urban growth, have a direct bearing on the
development of nationalism. Of course, this does not hold vis-à-vis the situation in the
United States, where ethnic conflict and growth remain separate to a great extent. Eth-
nic language identities are often used to exclude outsiders from limited resources such
as jobs and housing. For instance, the fear of losing their identity recently led Assamese
people to raise their voices against Bengali-speaking Bangladeshis. There was no less
importance attached to the loss of vocation and cultural invasion. They were apprehen-
sive of being swamped by illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Ernest Gellner’s (1983)
argument that culture replaces social structure as the provider of identity has shaped
the way identity is seen in the modern world. Apart from providing a psychological
blanket, there are a variety of functions that national identity claims to perform in a
society, such as job reservation or political mobilization.
The second and most popular role of nationalism is promoting modernization

(although it has frequently been used for the purposes of anti-modernization as well). It
is true that after the ideas of nationalism and modernity were established firmly, people
used the concept of nationalism to support their notions of modernization. While na-
tionalism is not the sole instrumental in the project of modernization, one can perceive
it as a strong component of modernity when one goes beyond functional explanations
to structural accounts.
Lastly, nationalism is considered to serve class interests from a Marxist perspective.
A connection between the interests of the bourgeoisie and those of the nationalists can
quite often be discerned. When the bourgeoisie does not side with the nationalists,
it aligns itself with the other class. A bourgeoisie can develop a political identity and
capacity through the existing pattern of economic exploitation, which can be further
spread with the help of nationalism. From a historical perspective, it can be said that the
role of capitalism has undergone certain changes. There is something different about
the structure of the bourgeoisie as a class and its relations with other classes. These new
ideas are evidenced through the existence of self-help enterprises, which are a part of
cultural institutions like dissenting religious groups, educational bodies or profession-
al associations. The bourgeoisie emerges through the parliament’s structure of public
opinion in the field of politics. The bourgeoisie gets to govern through the economic
and cultural influences they exert without directly exercising power. This phenomenon
is intimately related to the significant role played by cultural–political identities, which
remain a merely functional component of national identity. Leaving aside the validity
of the argument, here one moves from the functional to the structural, which connects
the central role of the national idea (nationalism) to modernity.
Descriptive
As is obvious from the term, the detailed narration of historical accounts is what con-
stitutes the heart of this approach. It is proclaimed as universal and essential by all
historians the world over. Not only do they take the rise of nationalism for granted, but
they also like to tell the tale of its rise. All such stories begin with the traditional, pre-
national state of affairs, which may or may not be informed of nationalism for histori-
ans. Evidently the ‘national history’ of Germany begins with the Holy Roman Empire
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, much before the unification took place.
The historians, after mentioning the weaknesses of the traditional imperial regimes,
turn their attention to more dynamic groups or institutions, and the bearers of modern
ideas and practices like entrepreneurs and educated officials. By doing so, they try to
explain how traditional institutions crumbled in the face of modern forces, and how
such forces come together and reinforce each other. In the middle of the nineteenth
century when national movements were taking shape, nationalists played an important
role in elaborating such stories. Historians like Von Treitschke and Von Sybel indulged
in a reinterpretation of German history that was similar to Droysen’s interpretation of
Alexander the Great and his invasion of the civilized parts of Greece. Academic histo-
rians have conclusively accepted the descriptive as the correct approach to presenting
historical accounts like the emergence, expansion, and success of national movements.
Imaginative skills, flowery language and glorification of the past make up the differ-
ent faces of the narrator’s dice. The French philosopher Ernest Renan in What is a
nation? (1996) represents this genre when he sees a nation as a ‘soul’ embedded with
past memories, clutched to the present by people’s desire to live together. According
to Renan, the past is full of ancestral heroism and devotion to glory. It is in the pres-
ent that the past is brought back to life under new banners of solidarity and a ‘daily
plebiscite’. Such narratives can be used to present a breakdown of the last multinational
empire, the Soviet Union, and its satellite states of Eastern Europe. This in fact means
that the rise of modernity heralds the fall of the traditional. To this, Modernists pose
a question: is it really necessary to theorize the sequence of events to provide a true
picture of what is happening? Earlier, the descriptive form had become an important
component of the national movement, projecting it in the form of progress with con-
sequences to be realized in the future. Later, more conservative narratives of critical
forms of nationalism continue to present the story as one that is yet to be finished.
In this manner, the descriptive mode could support liberal, conservative and radical
forms of nationalism.
Modern
The modernists view the dawn of nations as a recent and novel phenomenon. It is gen-
erally the outcome of the nationalistic pursuits undertaken. To modernists, national-
ism preceded nations; hence nations do not have a very long history to claim. Nations
are constructed and are a result of a planned and conscious move. Thus, acquiring
membership to a certain group doesn’t remain a mere quality; rather, it increases the
individual’s capacity for doing. As Ernest Gellner (1983) would put it, nationalism ‘in-
vents nations where they do not exist’. The staunch supporters of this kind of approach
are Ernest Gellner, Elie Kedourie, Eric Hobsbawm, John Brueilly and Benedict Ander-
son. Gellner speculates that as the waves of modernization hit Western Europe, culture
acted as the binding agent in achieving the ends of industrialization. Gellner, however,
feels that it is the linguistic element that is most important. Given the unevenness of
modernization, it is possible to encounter conflicts of an ethnic nature which forces
urbanized peasants to break away from the old polity and move towards the con-
struction of their own nation. Elie Kedourie, Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm
subscribe to the idea of nations being modern inventions rather than old perennial
institutions; Anderson and Hobsbawm, in fact, provide the cultural dimension of a
broadly Marxian account. In Nationalism (1960, 1993) Kedourie speculates that na-
tionalism is a modern European invention and advocates ‘National self-determination’.
This concept acknowledges that it is the nationalist ideologies that mobilize the masses
to secure a self-rule, thereby bringing in greater stability and secular progress. When-
ever Imperial discrimination and enlightenment philosophy undermined traditional
communities (family, religion, etc.), it always provided fertile ground for marginal-
ized sections to rebel. This historical truth is evident in all revolutionary nationalisms,
as seen in the German Romantic intelligentsia and Asian and African anti-colonial
intellectuals.
The nation is an ‘imagined community’ and a cultural invention, according to Bene-
dict Anderson (1991). ‘Imagined community’ denotes a sovereign, united and artifi-
cial boundary, with little or no interaction amongst the inhabitants. He argues that
the real factor behind the creation of a nation is mass communication—‘print capital-
ism’. Similarly, Eric Hobsbawm (1983) distinguishes between two phases of national-
ism, one, civic-political nationalism which flourished in Europe between 1830–70,
and second, the ethno-linguistic type which flourished from 1870–1914. Although
he cannot see any connection between the two, both nationalisms are composed of
‘invented traditions’—of national history, culture and mythology, which are actually
created by state elites and capitalists to exercise greater control over the masses with-
out being overtly visible. The political explanation of nationalism is also found in the
writings of dependency theorists like Tom Nairn—The Breakup of Britain: Crisis and
Neo-Nationalism (1977); Miroslav Hroch—Social Preconditions of National Revival in
Europe (1985); and Michael Hechter—Rational Choice Theory and the Study of Ethnic
and Race Relations (1998). The centre-periphery models tend to tie the advent of na-
tions and nationalism to the economic development of ‘uneven capitalism’ and mod-
ernization.
Partha Chatterjee (1991, 1995), Phillip Schlesinger (1987, 1992), Homi Bhabha
(1990) and Nira Yuval Davis (1997), to name a few, are concerned with post-modern
development. The works of these theorists mark the dissolution of nation-states and the
obsolescence of nationalism in varying degrees.
Ethno-symbolism
As the term suggests, ethno-symbolism connotes the way in which symbols, myths,
memories and traditions help to preserve and determine identities. Rather than talk-
ing about the historical moorings of the emergence of nations, this approach hints at
the recurrences and continuities between pre-modern and modern ideas. Hence, the
emphasis is more on the cultural antecedents of nations. Pioneered by Anthony D.

Smith (2009), this approach has also been lauded by sociological historians like John
Hutchinson (2000) and John Armstrong (1982), who interrogate the sociological sig-
nificance of cultural elements in regenerating the nation. Ethno-symbolism, a synthesis
of modernist and traditional views, is concerned with the nature of ethnic groups and
nations, and the need to consider their symbolic dimensions. It is a cyclical concept.
The ethno-cultural symbols/elements keep returning to strengthen ethnic boundaries,
and hence contribute to the persistence of ethnic identity in determining one’s national
identity. Even historical medievalists like Adrian Hastings and John Gillingham, de-
spite questioning the historical roots of a modern nation, believe in the continuity and
endurance of ethnic symbols. As Donald Horowitz (1985) and Joshua Fishman (1980)
would agree, to analyse the formation of modern nations without referring to their
ethnic base/ roots is to prune that formation. To this, modernists like John Brueilly in
Approaches to Nationalism (1996) or Eric Hobsbawm (1990) would counter that there
could be no possible linkages between proto-national communities and modern na-
tionalisms unless there was a continuous dynastic rule like that of Tsarist Russia. In
modern times, social clubs, where folk tales are narrated, theatrical presentations of
mythological accounts take place, or folk traditions revived, try to re-establish ethnic
unity and further the strong ethnic boundaries.
Forms of Nationalism
There are several instances in world history where nationalism can be evidenced in one
form or another. Nationalism manifests itself either as part of the official state ideology
or as a popular non-state movement, and may be expressed along civic, ethnic, cultural,
religious or ideological lines. Nationalism can be broadly categorized under certain
heads, which stem from politics, religion, culture, ethnicity, historical struggles, etc.,
and are presented in Table 3.1.
It is very difficult to attempt a strict division or compartmentalize the contents of
Table 3.1, as they tend to overlap or are at times repetitive. Such categories are not
mutually exclusive, with many nationalist movements combining some or all of these
elements in varying degrees. Besides the types mentioned above, there are other forms
of nationalism, like ideological, pan-nationalism, legal and Romantic, which have also
affected societies the world over. In this regard, it will be pertinent to mention Hans
Kohn and his unique classification of various forms of nationalism as ‘Western’ and
‘Eastern’ in his work The Idea of Nationalism (1944). While the Western or ‘Civic’
form has always been socially and politically inclined towards establishing the pillars of
sovereignty, the Eastern or ‘Ethnic’ form seeks the doctrines of self-identity and strives
to defend and protect the unique culture of the community.
Table 3.1 Forms of Nationalism
Type In a nutshell Theoritical inputs Evidenced at/in

Civic It lies between liberalism and J. J. Rousseau, Social United States of
rationalism, and is based on Contract school of America, France,
distinct identities thought, J. Habermas, European nations
accompanied by rights, and Eric Hobsbawm, Bene-
an augmented representative dict Anderson. Mazzini,
democracy. The state derives Anne Phillips, Simon
political legitimacy from its Bolivar
active citizenry. Membership
is voluntary
Ethno- Emerges from descent or Johann Gotfried Von Native Americans,
cultural the shared culture between Herder, Fichte, Anthony Africans, non-
members. Culture is the sole D. Smith, Elie Kedourie. Western tribal
basis represented by various Charles Taylor, Michael movements, China
markers, and there is a crav- Sandel (National Minori-
ing for self-determination to ties), Canada
emerge as a nation. Member-
ship is hereditary
Religious The result of a shared religion Pakistan, Bangla-
combined with culture, lan- desh
guage or ethnicity, more like
theocracy
State Intense military feeling, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini Italy (Fascism),
regimented and based on Germany (Nazism)
morality, loyalty and good
citizens
Diaspora Represented by the adoption Iris Marion Young, Canada, New Zea-
of statehood after migration Will Kymlicka, Bhikhu land, India, USA
personal reasons such as em- Parekh, Joseph Carens
ployment or immigration
Anti-Colonial Based on a struggle to attain Bipin Chandra, Partha India, Pakistan,
freedom or independence Chatterjee, M. K. Gan- Africa
dhi, Franz Fanon, Mar-
cus Garvey, Khomeini
National Identity
‘Committing yourself is a way of finding out who you are. A man finds his identity by
identifying. A man’s identity is not best thought of as the way in which he is separated
from his fellows but the way in which he is united with them.’ This quote, by Robert
Terwilliger, adequately explains the essence of a citizen’s identity.
The phrase ‘I am’ refers to the uniqueness in an individual’s character. This ‘unique-
ness’, whether in terms of language, race, religion or lifestyle, probably makes up one’s
identity. It also presupposes the existence of the ‘other’. It is very difficult to define iden-
tity in precise terms. When identity is qualified by the term national, it acquires a fixed
meaning that is quite different from both the terms taken separately. To put it simply,
national identity is the collective identity that people acquire through identifying with
the nation. The issue of identity is definitely not a new one; earlier, though, identity was
restricted to the political arena. The issue of identity as a social question has emerged
out of modernity. It is only in recent times (eighteenth century onwards) that indi-
viduals have become conscious of their selves. It (identity) marks the exclusivity of an
individual from the rest of her/his fellow members. It also involves the identification of
identical attributes or properties within the group. Hence, it presupposes a dialogical
recognition of each other. So, the identity that originates from the interaction between
an inhabitant and his nation is called national identity. The essence of national identity,
when defined, is an expression of belongingness, an ideal of shared values, proof of a
distinct membership, and affiliation to a particular group.
While identity has no legal or juridical basis, it often becomes the subject of confron-
tation and struggle. Citizenship, in contrast to identity, has more to do with status, one
that is expressed legally. Although identity too can be considered a status (social), it is
universally accepted as the basis of recognition demanded by various groups. However,
citizenship and identity are similar in that they are both ‘group markers’. While citizen-
ship marks the membership to one polity from another, identity marks groups from
each other on the basis of their social and cultural weight. The correlation between
citizenship and national identity will be taken up later in this chapter.
Markers of National Identity

What makes us different as individuals? Have you ever thought about the grounds on
which you claim that you and your friends are similar/different? National identity is
often equated with the attributes shared among individuals in a particular group. The
various markers forming the basis of national identity are presented in Figure 3.1.
All the markers stated above have been pressed into service by particular collectivi-
ties to assert their national identity. These indicators develop into a strong bond, paving
Race Tribe Ethnicity Gender Culture

Customs
Language and Ideology Political
Practices Religion traditions
Figure 3.1 Markers of National Identity
the way to the various types of nationalisms illustrated above. Often these markers be-
come the sole reason behind or basis for a nationalistic struggle; for example, ‘race’ was
the sole reason behind Black nationalism in the USA, or Welsh nationalism in the UK.
According to my perception, while all the markers are important, race and language are
more pronounced and unequivocal, as can be seen across the history of nationalism.
However, the Swiss nation is an exception. Switzerland, despite having three major
languages—French, German and Italian—has always lived in complete harmony, and
the languages have coexisted peacefully outside the confines of any nationalistic archi-
tecture. Another classic example highlighting the importance of these indicators, in
particular political traditions, customs and practices, and race, is nationalism in the
UK. Bound by conventions and age-old traditions, the UK is considered a closed soci-
ety where age-old customs gloriously unite the people.
Forms of National Identity

National identity takes two forms—cultural and political.
Cultural Form
The idea that nations are essentially ethnic or cultural entities has claimed universal
acceptance. This idea can be traced back to the writings of Herder and Fichte, who em-
phasized that it is the appreciation of one’s culture that lies behind the political quest for
gaining statehood. Hence, this form equates national identity with volksgeist—a concept
first put forward by German folklorist and romanticist Johann Gottfried Herder, and
associated with national, racial or ethnic stereotypes based on generalizations, often
exhibited through collective memories, myths, customs and traditions. Among contem-
porary thinkers advocating this theory are Charles Taylor (1994) and Michael Sandel
(1998) of the communitarian clan. ‘Civilizations are not god’s gifts, but an achievement.
It provides sense of identity and security to people where they live a life of cultured
men—within a community’ (Taylor). The Communitarians believe that solidarity is
important among those who share the same historical traditions or customs. They also
stress the capacity of a group to confer identity upon those who are otherwise left isolat-
ed. Cultural embeddedness provides an individual with stability and a sense of belong-
ingness. This belongingness or ‘collective identity’ becomes the national identity. For
these individuals, collective identity overrides the individual identity. National identity
is considered synonymous with one’s membership to a particular community. Groups
or communities are formed on the basis of various markers, as explained in Figure 3.1.
These cultural forms also proclaim that a shared ‘national’ identity is necessary to mo-
tivate citizens to work together in the name of justice. On the whole, a cultural form in-
dicates belongingness to one nation, and taking pride in it. It is based on group interest,
fostered through a common language, culture, habits and lifestyle, and even common
religious celebrations. These are the indicators of social cohesiveness that ultimately
generate a feeling of togetherness. The political community also becomes an essential
institution in the promotion of a collective identity, which subjugates the notion of
selfhood among individuals. A contemporary example would be that of Quebec. Thus,
the national in national identity essentially remains cultural to a large extent, finding
expression in political institutions.
Political Form
The political form of national identity refers to the membership to a political commu-
nity whereby members share and exercise political power in equal proportion to other
members. National identity stems from political participation and carries with it the
responsibility of self-governance through a deliberative mechanism. Thinkers like Ju-
rgen Habermas and David Miller have overemphasized this aspect of political identity
as against that based on ethnicity, culture, etc. The universal value of equity and equal
participation is based on sharing and availing equal opportunities to reflect one’s politi-
cal opinion. This selfless political commitment to collective welfare has been lauded by
thinkers like Habermas as the real significance of national identity. How important this
form is can be understood from the fact that persons of Indian origin have been able
to occupy high political positions in countries like Fiji, Guyana, and the province(s) of
West Indies and Canada, regardless of their ethnic and cultural identities. This form
also endorses the classical Greek distinction between the ‘private’ and the ‘public’ sphere,
where private stands for particularism and public for universalism. As delineated by
Habermas in Legitimation Crisis (1973), the public sphere is where subjects participate
as equals in rational discussions in pursuit of truth and the common good. He states
that prior to the eighteenth century, European culture had been dominated by a ‘rep-
resentational culture’, where one party sought to represent itself by overwhelming its
subjects. Habermas identified representational culture as corresponding to the feudal
stage of development, marked by the appearance of a public sphere. In the culture char-
acterized by the public sphere, there was a marked public space controlled by the state,
where individuals exchanged views and knowledge. In Habermas’ view, the growth of
coffee houses, reading clubs, newspapers, etc., in eighteenth-century Europe marked
the gradual replacement of representational culture with public sphere culture. This
culture marked the beginning of the formation of distinct identities based on knowl-
edge and political discourse, rather than on mere cultural ties.
David Miller’s republican conception of citizenship and national identity (2000) is
seen as a middle path between the communitarian and liberal conceptions. He argues
that in the republican form, the citizen is ‘someone who is actively involved in shaping
the future direction of his or her society’. According to him, the republican conception
better accommodates cultural diversity than the other versions ‘by virtue of its ability to
draw groups who initially have very different priorities into public debate, and to find
compromise solutions to political issues that members of each group can accept’. Thus,
he advocates deliberative democracy in modern societies. He maintains that a demo-
cratic system should be deliberative, to the extent that the decisions taken should reflect
the open discussions between participants. This would not only enhance the quality of
citizenry, but would also be significant in protecting distinct identities.
Correlation Between Citizenship and National Identity

To study the complexity of linking citizenship with national identity, I would recom-
mend an overview of the patterns instrumental in establishing a link between these
two concepts. There are three popular patterns: ‘hegemonic’, ‘uniformity’ and ‘pluralist’.
The first pattern is often associated with feudal states, where a dominant group estab-
lishes its cultural practices as the ‘National Culture’. The only option that other cultural
groups (which are supposedly inferior) have is to either assimilate within the dominant
culture, or accept their fate. The gradual fading of feudal states with the emergence of
capitalist states led to a redrawing of the existing relationship between citizenship and
national identity. One such example would be that of old colonial empires.
The second pattern is called the uniformity pattern. Here, the emphasis shifts from
culture to the nation, and its connections with a political organization called the state.
This pattern has given rise to two exclusive yet coexisting schools of thought. One be-
lieves that each nation must have its own state, that is, ‘national and political bound-
aries should co-exist’. The second states that an individual’s national identity revolves
around her/his urge to preserve her/his own language, customs and culture. This does
not necessarily mean that each nation should have a separate sovereign state, as this
school of thought is of the firm belief that the co-existence of various nations under one
political roof is possible. A example would be the UK and Switzerland.
The pluralist pattern is the one most popularly advocated by socialist states. It pre-
supposes a tussle between nations that are historic, and those that are non-historic.
While this pattern does not deny the coexistence of various nations within one state, its
obvious preference is for historic nations. The problem faced by such nations relates to
the hierarchization of nations. In every multi-national socialist state, there has emerged
an inequality or great national chauvinism, which has contributed to their disintegra-
tion. The former USSR, which suffered a similar crisis, disintegrated in 1989.
In this democratic era (which, however, is not a universal practice), it is clear that the
hegemonic model has been delegitimized. and hence has lost its significance. Even the
pluralist model has gone down as a failed experiment. The survival of the ‘one nation—
one state’ slogan has come into question. These patterns hint at a changing relationship
between identities that first become national, and then transform into citizenship.
Citizenship and national identity are commonly understood as legal and political
concepts, respectively. Often, though, they are used interchangeably to mean one and
the same thing. While the national identity of an individual is determined according to
his citizenship status in the concerned state, the reverse is not always true. Citizenship
has a legal connotation and implication, and only a part of it is associated with national
identity. The other aspects of citizenship imply political rights to self-governance, and
other fundamental rights such as the right to vote; the right to contest elections; the
right to occupy elective public offices; rights to state protection against violation of
fundamental rights, etc. The exercise of these rights are considered routine affairs, and
therefore citizens fail to measure their import. However, when one is voting or contest-
ing elections, one understands the serious implications of citizenship. During the Iran-
Iraq war, the Government of India carried out an unprecedented, large-scale evacua-
tion of Indian citizens from the war zone through more than 200 sorties executed by
Air India planes. This is a splendid example of the state protection granted to citizens,
which stems from their right to life. Similarly, the protection of citizens’ interests is the
continuous duty of Embassies, High Commissions and consulates in foreign countries.
National identity carries with it the political affiliation to, and the friendly or unfriendly
image of, the state of which one is a national. While an Indian national has a friendly
image in Russia or the Maldives, it is not quite so in Pakistan. The political undertones
of national identity comes into play in situations of illegal entry, the grant and extension
of visas, grant of permission for trade, etc.
However, the correlation between citizenship and national identity is undergoing a
profound change. The classical implications of concepts that are at times interchange-
able are being slowly eroded; the latest in this regard would be the case of M. F. Hussain.
Sometimes national boundaries are not taken as guarantees of safety, but as stumbling
blocks on the path of free travel and freedom of trade. Restrictions on the repatriation
of one’s hard-earned money to another country or taxation thereon, customs duties,
etc., are considered hindrances to the progress towards global citizenship and a world
state. Legally speaking, certain political rights accruing through citizenship are restrict-
ed by age; for example, no one can exercise their franchise before the age of 18 in India.
National identities, though, are recognized irrespective of age. All said and done, there
exist a very subtle distinction between these two familiar terms. However, interchange-
ability in their use has not affected or eroded the legal and political significance associ-
ated with both concepts/terms.
Recent Debates
Recent developments concerning citizenship and national identity have attracted wide
attention, either in connection with conformity to the traditional concept, or attempts
at its reform. The following have caught the attention of most political scientists.
Civic Republicanism: The substance of Republican politics is interdependence; hence,
the central strands in civic republicanism are freedom, civic virtues, participation, the
common good, and public versus private interests. It began with the Graeco-Roman
writers, who placed public participation, civic pride and discussion at the heart of the
body politic: the Greeks defined as an idiot anyone who was not an active citizen or
who had no time for public affairs. This problem has been carried over by the critical
school theorists, who perceive active citizenry as a sine qua non for a healthy society.
Diversity: Diversity and group difference are features of almost all but the most insu-
lated societies. All modern states face the problem of diversity, even if they do not will-
ingly endorse it. This can be seen from the conflicting claims expressed through various
social movements by groups who share identities and follow practices conferring such
identities. Such groups, representing different interests, fight for social inclusion, exclu-
sive identity and recognition. In a narrow sense citizenship is exclusionary, and helps to
ignite the flames of diverse socio-political problems.
Teaching in schools: The purpose of education, it has been said, is to make people
aware and enlightened. Yet many have lost sight of this ultimate objective of education,
as a means to a better life. Education is no exception to the over-politicization of every
aspect of socio-economic life. Today, state control over education has degenerated into
interference by politicians who exert a vice-like grip on all matters, from the contents
of a course to the appointment of teachers. For instance, during the reign of the BJP-
led NDA government, under the ministry of Murli Manohar Joshi a course revision of
history took place, highlighting the party’s political agenda (Hindutva) and neglecting
all other important historical accounts. In Sri Lanka, the civil war has led to the ero-
sion of a value-based education, which could have promoted tolerance, free debate and
rational discussion.
Dual Citizenship to Multiple Citizenship: The concept of citizenship underwent a

profound change within the ambit of the constitutional decree of the USA, evolving
and establishing ‘Dual Citizenship’. Although state and federal citizenship in the US
have been constantly debated, the question of political convenience has taken an upper
hand in maintaining this system in addition to the maintenance of separate identities
and equal status of the federating units. This question has recently gained prominence.
After M. F. Hussain gave up his citizenship rights, policymakers and the media in In-
dia deliberated the possibility of granting a dual citizenship status to Indian citizens.
The recent celebration of ‘Pravasi Bhartiya Divas’ is clear manifestation of the Indian
diaspora’s intention to accept dual citizenship. With the emergence of the European
Union, the question of multiple citizenship has cropped up. This involves not only bor-
der security issues, but also the welfare and aids extended to a citizen, which might be
affected.
Changing Grounds of the Grant of Citizenship: As far as the grounds for grant of
citizenship is concerned, recent developments in the UK are noteworthy. Significant
changes to the process, whereby citizenship is to be acquired by naturalization, have
been made by the UK government through the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration
Act 2009. The conditions for granting citizenship keep changing due to the threat of ter-
rorist strikes, disloyalty, problems of unemployment leading to job scarcity for its own
citizens, etc. The most recent development in this regard is the screening of citizenship
applications on the grounds of voluntary social work, community service and the ab-
sence of a criminal record. Israel made news with its grant of the Law of Return, only to
be applicable to Jews or their offspring and not to the non-Jews who opted to convert—
even if the conversion followed Orthodox procedure in line with state religious courts.
The proposed legislation would broaden the authority of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel,
giving them an upper hand on matters of conversion, and in the process would also
amalgamate conversion law and citizenship law.
Peculiar Politico-economic Problems Affecting India: The issues concerning citizen-
ship in India are: the statelessness affecting the Tibetan people who migrated to India
along with the Tibetan government in exile under the leadership of the Dalai Lama.
However, unlike the acceptance of the erstwhile East and West Pakistan displaced per-
sons (refugees) by the Indian government, the Tibetan people have not been extended
any political rights. A large number of the Tamil-speaking people from Sri Lanka who
came to India during the civil war have now settled here, and some of them are now In-
dian citizens. This question has acquired complexity due to the political and linguistic
aspects affecting the original inhabitants. The determination of the national identity of
Bangladeshis (Chakma migrants) in Assam is an issue that has of late changed into a
political question. The livelihoods of the Bengali-speaking Bangladeshis in Assam have
come under scrutiny. There is an apprehension that the Assamese would become mi-
norities in the state. While national boundaries are being obliterated under the impact
of the global village with its world citizenship, one feels confident that these problems
will solve themselves in the long run.
Post-Nationalism
The wave of nationalism that overtook the world during the nineteenth and twenti-
eth centuries have waned from the beginning of the twenty-first century. The factors
contributing to a nationalist spirit, beginning with ethnicity to language through re-
ligion and race, are losing their grip in the face of new socio-economic institutions,
which are fast replacing them. The barriers associated with nationalism are giving way
to multi-national territorial entities like the European Union, and to trans-national re-
gional organizations like ASEAN. Strict legal restrictions, including for visas, are being
done away with to advance the economic interest of the states concerned. Better eco-
nomic prospects are undermining all other ‘national’ considerations, which are now
considered narrow and parochial. Liberalisation is fast overtaking the narrow interests
of nation-states. Arash Abizadeh, in Liberal Nationalist versus Postnational Social Inte-
gration: on the Nation’s Ethno-cultural Particularity and Concreteness (2004), argues that
only ‘post nationalist theorists provide a coherent, democratically motivated theory of
multinational democracy’, and that ‘the viability and desirability of multination fed-
eralist arrangements lie in their capacity maximally to meet the diverse demands of
citizens’.
It is now being debated whether socio-political homogeneity will follow the in-
tricately interwoven economic interests (or prospect thereof) of the multinational
organizations emerging in the world. Of course there are divisive forces like religious
fundamentalism, which stand as bottlenecks in the way of the formation of such mul-
tinational entities. Under the impact of such multi-state organizations, the meaning of
citizenship and national identity are undergoing a profound change. The avoidance of
double taxation, duty-free entry of goods and commodities, unobstructed migration
of human resources, pooling of resources for fighting dreadful diseases, engagement
in a continuous upgradation of technologies, and an appreciation of alien cultural
traits and traditions constitutes the symptoms of a new post-nationalist world.
India: A Case Study

India is distinguished by its diversities. Admittedly the Indian case can be referred to as
the most complex, because with its multitudinous cultures it is virtually a mini-world
in itself. Its old identities are fast giving way to new ones. Globalization and technology
have shrunk the world, and at this juncture it is pertinent to not only ponder the design,
make and cut of the fabric that clothes India, but also examine the soul within.
The task before us is to first familiarize ourselves with the historical processes in-
volved in the formation of Indian society. There are five particular phases in which
Indian society developed. The initial formation took place with the ‘accretion of immi-
grants and dislocation of original inhabitants’. It began with the coming of the Aryans
around 3,500 years ago, which pushed the original inhabitants—the Dravidians—to
not-so-friendly geographical locations. The extent of the influence the Aryans had on
contemporary India can be inferred from the fact that 83 per cent Indians are Hindu—a
religion widely proclaimed and firmly established by the Aryans. In fact, India is often
referred to as a ‘Hindu country’. Apart from religion, they have given us social stratifi-
cation in terms of the ‘Varna system’, and the mother of all languages, Sanskrit, which
about 72 per cent of Indians are well-acquainted with. This phase shows how an ‘ethnic’
grouping transforms itself into a nation under a new political head.
The second phase of development begins with the Mughal conquests. Islam as a
religion subsequently spread across the country, and today India stands as the coun-
try with the third largest Muslim population in the world. Urdu—the language most
strongly identified with the Muslim population in India—has been included in the VIII
Schedule of our constitution.
The third phase of cultural influence was exerted by the British. The practices of
Christian missionaries led to a limited spread of Christianity as a religion, which ac-
counts for 2.5 per cent of the total population of India. The English language, on the
other hand, continues to have a powerful presence in our country, and is the main lan-
guage of learning and administration in India.
The fourth major influence is that of the Indian Freedom Struggle. It would not be
an exaggeration to suggest that Indian nationalism and consciousness as we understand
them today were solidified for the first time during the national liberation movement.
It is here that we first refer to the ‘national’ as a cultural rather than a political concept.
The imperial powers exerted an economic and political domination, as well as cultural
influences on Indian society. The freedom struggle is distinguished by a unity mani-
fested by a highly heterogeneous population, characterized by myriad languages and
dialects, religions, literature and art.
The last phase was the Partition of India and Pakistan on the basis of religion. This
divide led to the largest transfer of human populations. About nine million Sikhs and
Hindus were displaced, with approximately six million Muslims leaving the country.
These phases have undoubtedly had a huge influence in shaping our national iden-
tity. However, external influences in the form of India’s neighbouring countries, with
whom there is a great deal of cultural commonality, have also played a role. Nepal,
for instance, practices Hinduism and exhibits a long religious traditional history.
Apart from the socio-cultural similarities, the problem of identification of Nepali citi-
zens in India and vice-versa remains perplexing. Similarly, while Sri Lankan Tamils
are citizens of Sri Lanka, they participate in and share cultural values with the Tamils
in India. Another case would be of Punjabi Hindus and Muslims of India and Paki-
stan. What do these examples suggest? These hint at the prevailing disjuncture between
nation and state in South Asia. This is because the whole of South Asia shares some
historical process or the other, such as imperialism, great wars or immigration, all of
which India has passed through. Hence, India presents the most baffling of all cases
when it comes to relating citizenship with national identity.
Right from the Mahabharata age when internecine warfare was quite frequent, ‘In-
dia’ was more a cultural concept that bestowed a separate identity on each of its inhabit-
ants. Despite the political, ethnic and religious divisions, this national cultural identity
with its political undertones has existed over centuries without being affected by the
characteristics usually associated with the modern state and citizenship. In this context,
the questions that arise are: which India did Alexander the Great invade? And which
India did the Chinese traveller Huang Tsang visit? This ‘India’ perhaps comprised all
the princely states mentioned in the Mahabharat.
Here, it will be interesting to take note of a peculiar vocabulary that is often used
with reference to the Indian land—‘Desh’. ‘Desh’ can be understood at two different
levels: one, when it is associated with India as a union of states, where it is used in con-
nection with one person’s geographical position within a single political administrative
unit. It is this that is demonstrated through active reference to our freedom struggle
and nationalism. Hence the phrases like ‘Desh-prem’ or ‘Desh-Bhakti’ in patriotic films
and historical accounts. Second, ‘Desh’ implies not merely a territory, but also a com-
mon pattern of culture shared by a certain group of people. This concept of ‘Desh’ is es-
sentially anchored to the notion of a cultural homeland, that is, a nation. Thus, India is
often taken to be a country with many ‘Desh’. One common idea that both versions hold
is that an individual is either an ‘insider’ or an ‘outsider’. Anyone outside the boundaries
of ‘Desh’ is an alien or foreigner, and hence an outsider. They are termed ‘videshi’. So
from the beginning we built an imaginary world around ourselves, which fosters fear
and distrust of a ‘Videshi’, who does not share a common identity in terms of either
language, culture or lifestyle with us.
However, there may be situations where the identities of a ‘Deshi’ and ‘Videshi’ co-
incide, with an outsider merging with the identity of an insider. Of late there have been
various demands for the creation of political administrative units within the Indian
state—like Gorkhaland for the Nepalese—or the demand to expel migrants from other
states, like the mobilization against Tamils in Bangalore or Biharis in Mumbai. Com-
mon to all these demands is the strong identification of communities within a specific
geographical territory, often referred to as ‘home land’. Hence, identity in India remains
primarily ‘national’ by nature. However, despite the diversity, India managed to stand
united. This feeling of oneness is attributed to the nationalist feelings attached therein,
often exhibited publicly through statues and pictures of war heroes and national leaders
across cities, elaborate accounts of heroic nationalists in history books, calendars carry-
ing inspirational photographs and glorified images of the Indian freedom struggle, etc.
These feelings are despite differences in religion, caste, language, etc., and truly present
a ‘national’ picture of a united India.
India, due to its multifarious persona, encompasses every marker of national iden-
tity, like religion, language and tribe, and to some extent caste. Although there are many
religions practised in India, Hindus form the majority at 83 per cent, followed by Mus-
lims and Sikhs. In some cases religion forms the basis of national identity, with groups
insisting on forming a separate sovereign state, for instance, the demand for ‘Khalistan’
by Sikhs. This tendency is also evident among those who claim language or tribe as the
basis of their identity (national), for example the Tamils or Mizos and Nagas. For other
groups, a linguistic identity becomes more important. This can be seen in the case of
tribes who occupy a certain territory and use a common dialect, and fail to identify any
other attribute as their national identity.
The problem of caste, however, is peculiar to the Indian subcontinent. Of late, caste
has increased in importance. Hinduism has a long history of casteism, which has led to
many riots, protests and change in policy formations. Unfortunately, politicians today
are reaping the benefits of encouraging caste-based politics and forming one-off parties
like the BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party). The framers of the Indian Constitution guarantee
common citizenship rights irrespective of diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. However,
at times the problem of identification acts as a hindrance in promoting egalitarianism.
This not only breeds internal tensions, but also poses a serious threat to democratic
principles. The essential fabric of Indian society has always remained multi-national; a
little effort to create awareness among Indians and promote equality among the existing
identities would help to retain this unique, multi-national, yet democratic face of India.
Conclusion: The Changing Face of National Identity

The advent of globalization and post-nationalism has certainly ushered in radical
changes in the perception of citizenship and national identity. National identity no
longer remains a homogeneous concept involving regular markers such as language,
race, customs, etc. Today, it signifies a multidimensional and plural form where being a
citizen is not only being a member of a nation–state, with nationality being the master
identity. Rather, the identity of a modern citizen engulfs various other values, which
directly contribute to make up his identity. So it would be unfair to place citizenship
essentially within the framework of fixed rights and privileges, because it now entails a
broader vision that questions the notions of difference and identity based on an equal
distribution of rights and privileges.
This shift in the perception of citizenship can be for two reasons. First, the continued
neglect of personalized human experiences has led to a bitterness among citizens, who
consider the very concept of citizenship unjust and unfair. Second, when we talk of na-
tional identity, we should remember that these experiences have normally engendered
a search for origins and a formation of distinct identities. A failure to recognize this will
only lead to further fragmentation.
The question is: how do we protect these ethnic, social or political identities at the same
time? The challenge is to conceive a new way of governing ourselves, perhaps by restruc-
turing the conception of citizenship. The new cultural politics has effectively questioned
the master identity imposed by the modern nation-state. However, the task of democratic
societies today is to recognize the rights of these diverse group in their constitutions.
Through new social movements, the citizenry is demanding a change in the estab-
lished norms of citizenship. These new movements and the resultant cultural politics
have propagated numerous social, political and cultural groups in search of new identi-
fication, politicization and solidarity. These can be seen as efforts to redefine and recon-
stitute identity through political and discursive struggles over group rights and values.
I have chosen a couple of important emerging forms which could, in the future, be
decisive vis-à-vis the stature of citizenship and claims of a new identity. While they
may not have been recognized officially, they have something exclusive/distinctive to
contribute to the making of a citizen’s identity. These are Ecological citizenship, Sexual
citizenship, Computer and technological citizenship, Diasporic citizenship, Urban citi-
zenship, Cosmopolitan citizenship and Consumer citizenship.
The assumption carried forward by proponents of these forms of citizenship is that
the world is essentially plural, that is, divisions are not only vertical, they also have
horizontal ramifications. A multilayered conception of citizenship is required to fulfil
the demands of such a plural and fragmented society. These forms hint at the changing
face of citizenship, and also define the growing affinity towards individualism. Multi-
cultural thinkers, advocates of deliberation theory, and propounders of group rights
or the politics of difference have tried to offer solutions, which have been addressed in
subsequent chapters.
Under the impact of factors operating in an era of post-nationalism, political divi-
sion is giving way to economic cohesiveness. A change in attitude marks a cosmopoli-
tan era in which a sense of statelessness is setting in. Globetrotters are on the rise; a
large number of people throng the markets of Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai with
their monthly shopping lists. Against this backdrop, it is appropriate to return to Hab-
ermas and his prophetic pronouncement that the political identity of the nation-state
would give way to cultural identity (multicultural?). Nevertheless, the importance of
forces such as religious fundamentalism, cultural exclusivity, and the preservation of

tradition and heritage has not reduced. As we know, transcending international borders
is no longer a limiting factor since physical barriers are crumbling under the pressure of
globalization, world trade and market economy. Accordingly, the narrow definition of
citizenship and the associated national identity has acquired a newer and broader con-
notation indicating a march towards global identity and world citizenship.
Summary
National identity is not complete in itself. To understand it in its totality, one needs
to delve into the origins of a Nation. Nationhood has to do with how people conceive
themselves. There are two ways of understanding this: cultural—when people are not
held together due to physical necessity but by the web of customs, traditions, ethnic-
ity or shared history. The second is political, where national identity is linked to active
citizenry and political participation. Also important is constitutional patriotism, which
emerges from the role of law, constitutions, etc., as elaborated by Habermas.
All nations suffer from high political ambitions. It is this will which paves the way
towards nation-building, and this will making/seeking exercise is politically termed
nationalism. Thus, nationalism is the journey of an individual’s will, which ultimately
(though not always) seeks to build a place of its choice, called the nation. This in turn
explains national identity.
This exercise, when supplemented with high political aspirations, culminates in the
formation of nation-states. Nation-states are modern entities which are not necessarily
homogeneous. They are narrower and more modern than the concept of the nation itself.
The origin of the nation has several explanations. The primordialists/perennialists
view nationalism as an organic ideology where nation is the natural entity. The descrip-
tive or narrative interpretation fashions nationalism with a gloriously heroic past. And,
as delineated by operationalists, the purpose of nationalism has been three-fold—to
evoke a sense of identity, to serve class interests, and to promote modernization. Mod-
ernists term nation a recent invention and the result of a conscious move. Lastly, ethno-
symbolism fuses the roots of nationhood (ethnicity) with modern ideas. These thinkers
believe that the formation of the nation cannot be complete without referring to one’s
ethnic symbols—traditions, history, ethnicity and customs.
It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive
when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the
stars. With the advent of globalization, the post modernists foresee the withering away
of the nation-state and emergence of a multicultural/multinational fabric of societies.
Also the era of post-nationalism informed by high-end economic relations, seems to
attempt at a reinterpretation of one’s national identity.

1. What are the various perspectives on nationalism? Which one seems to fit better with
contemporary democracies?
2. Discuss the recent developments in the field of citizenship. How have they influenced
other parts of the world?
3. What are the debates around national identity? What is the basis of choosing one’s
identity?
4. Is the modernization approach predominant in the formation of a nation?
5. Is it possible for a person to remain a nationalist, yet deny political affiliation to a particu-
lar state?
6. Is it possible to grant overlapping citizenship rights to a single individual?
Suggested Readings
Anderson, Benedict, 1991, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Na-
tionalism (London: Verso).
Billig, Michael, 1995, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage Publications).
Breuilly, John, 1992, Nationalism and the State (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
Gellner, Ernest, 1983, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell Press).
Habermas, J., 1992, ‘Citizenship and National Identity: Some Reflections on the Future of Eu-
rope’, Praxis International, 12, pp. 1–19.
Hutchinson, John and Anthony D. Smith (eds), 2000, Nationalism: Critical Concepts (London
and New York: Routledge).
Isin Engin, F. and Patricia K. Wood, 1999, Citizenship and Identity (Sage Publications).
Jayal, Niraja Gopal and Pratap Bhanu Mehta (eds), 2010, The Oxford Companion to Politics in
India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press).
Kedourie, Elie (ed.), 1971, Nationalism in Asia and Africa (London: Widenfeld and Nicolson).
Kymlicka, Will and Norman Wayne (eds), 2000, Citizenship in Diverse Societies (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
Miller, David, 2000, Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Oommen, T. K., 1997, Citizenship and National Identity: From Colonialism to Globalism (New
Delhi: Sage Publications).
Roy, Anupama, 2005, Gendered Citizenship (New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan).
Smith, Anthony, 2009, Ethno-Symbolism and Nationalism: A Cultural Approach (Routledge).
Taylor, Charles, 1994, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Amy Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism and
the Politics of Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
4
Liberal Theories of Citizenship
Kumar Rahul
Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous (persons) citizens, there can be no

free and independent nations ….
Vaclav Havel (b. 1936), former President of the Czech Republic
Introduction
Have you ever wondered why citizenship theories have been a victim of academic apa-
thy? Theorizing citizenship was a forgotten venture in political philosophy. There was a
long intellectual silence on citizenship after Aristotle and that silence was broken only
in 1950 with Marshall’s celebrated essay, ‘Citizenship and Social Class’. J. M. Barbalet
goes to the extent of saying that there is nothing that could be described as a theory of
citizenship at all. Take a look at the trajectory of post-World War II political theory. You
will notice that democracy and justice were the most dominant themes. Even though
Marshall had sparked off a little interest in citizenship, it remained in the penumbra
of democracy and justice for a long time. At best it was a supplementary concept and
could never occupy centre-stage. Why, then, a sudden revival of interest in citizen-
ship? If we take a look at events that occurred over the last two decades or so, we will
see some momentous development, which has unsettled some of the conventional and
established principles and practices of social and political life. For example, the advent
of globalization and the retreat of the welfare state have redefined and restructured the
nature of our relationship with family, society and community. Also, we see that hith-
erto marginalized and excluded groups and categories have made themselves politically
Liberal Theories of Citizenship 57
visible. Globalization has a lot to do with citizenship. It tinkers with the framework of
our relationship on a day-to-day basis. As the previous chapters have shown, citizen-
ship is nothing but the framework of the relationship of individuals with their immedi-
ate political community. The ethic of citizenship requires that we bear some rights and
reciprocal responsibilities. Hence, those political and theoretical developments were
bound to have an effect on theories of citizenship as well.
There were some other empirical reasons too. Many liberals believed that a liberal de-
mocracy could function effectively even in the absence of a virtuous citizenry. They had
an indelible faith in the efficacy of institutional and procedural devices of democracy.
However, this myth was soon exploded, and they gradually began to realize that demo-
cratic governance required a tolerant, responsible and enlightened citizenship.
Later, with the advent of a more complex society, many new and competing forms
of identity, such as regional, ethnic, religious, etc., came to the fore. They demand full
membership to the community. Liberal society is struggling to cope with them and to
counter the challenge posed by the emergent forms of diverse identities. Hence, it was
a contextual stimulation to refashion citizenship so that it could take up new challenges
and become a dominant framework to explain current social and political processes.
Yet another reason can account for a renewed interest in citizenship theories. John
Rawls published ‘A Theory of Justice’ in 1971 and with this dawned an era of norma-
tive political theory. Rawls constructed an image of a ‘separate individual’, very loosely
committed to the political community. Rawls invested his individual with the power to
exercise autonomy, to the extent of revising the nature of his relationship with his own
community. Rawls dominated the intellectual stage in the last quarter of the twentieth
century until challenged by the communitarians in a big way. Communitarians argued
in favour of defining the ‘individual-community’ relationship in a reciprocal way, that
is, by according priority to the ‘good’ of the community rather than to the ‘rights’ of the
individual. The resurrection of communitarianism influenced the theorizing of citizen-
ship. Hence, citizenship was revisited in the hope that it would mediate the debate be-
tween liberals and communitarians.
One Liberalism or Many Liberalisms?

Pose this question to yourself. You might get confounded. Now, consider the figures 4.1
to 4.4.
Look at these figures. You will notice that from Figure 4.1 to Figure 4.4, the area of free-
dom decreases with the increase in the size of the state. Figure 4.1 depicts the anarchist
position wherein the state is not visible. Figure 4.2 shows the classical liberal position
or the libertarian position, where the state is supposed to discharge the bare minimal
functions. Thus, the size of the state in Figure 4.2 is relatively small. Now, in Figure 4.3, the
F
R
E
FRE E D O M
D
O
M
Figure 4.1
STATE
R E
F E
M D
O
Figure 4.2
STATE
R E
F E
M D
O
Figure 4.3
FREEDOM
STATE
Figure 4.4
size of the state is apparently bigger, which results in the fettering of individual freedom.
What it means is that the state assumes too many responsibilities unto itself. It tries to
give a new meaning to freedom by laying emphasis on the conditions of enjoying freedom
rather than on freedom per se. For example, the state ensures the availability of decent
public health measures, the right to healthcare, right to basic education, and a social safe-
ty net to protect against discrimination and indigence. If the size of the state is increased
further, it is seen to swallow the entire area of freedom. Consequently, we see in Figure 4.4
that the arena of the state is totally congruent upon the space for freedom. Either there
is no freedom, or only a negligible amount of freedom. This is known as the totalitarian
position, where the scope for normative concepts like rights, democracy and citizenship
becomes redundant. We will not be considering Figure 4.4 in this chapter.
What we conclude is that the nature of liberal citizenship would depend on how one
might want to conceive of liberalism. In Figures 4.1 to 4.4, we measured liberalism only
on the scale of freedom. There are other core values as well, for example what place it
accords to rights, equality, justice, tolerance, etc. Given the diversity of values that it pro-
motes and the extensive premises it rests on, one might struggle to regard it as a coherent
body of literature. The best we can do is compare liberalism to a big tree around which
many thickets of small plants have grown. Hence, it would be a mistake to accept any one
version of liberalism as the most correct and authentic. It would be a mistake to conceive
of liberalism as a coherent set of principles and practices. Rather, it would be more plau-
sible to think of liberal theory as a cluster of overlapping ideas. At times they are mutually
contentious. Liberal theories have competing conceptions of what the most important
principles are, and how those principles ought to be conceived of and justified.
For example, there is the familiar contest between egalitarian and libertarian ver-
sions of liberalism (the Rawls-Nozick debate in the 1970s), the contention between po-
litical and comprehensive liberalism, etc. Therefore, it is necessary for us to analyse the
concept of citizenship co-extensively with liberal thought. However, the many facets of
liberalism do not suggest that liberalism is an amorphous mush. Chapter 3 outlined the
conceptual and historical overview of citizenship. There remains little doubt that of all
the modern ideologies, liberalism has had the most profound influence on the theory of
citizenship. The main focus of this chapter is to trace some important interconnections
and tensions in the trajectory of citizenship alongside the principles and practices of
liberalism, and to highlight some theoretical questions that will stimulate a rethinking
about citizenship.
What Does it Mean to be a Liberal Citizen?

Before we delve into this question, let me first briefly summarize what it means to be a
citizen. Imagine what your life would have been like had you not been a citizen. Many
would be unable to even imagine it because we take certain rights and freedoms guaran-
teed to us for granted. For a moment, forget that you are an Indian citizen. Imagine that
you have gone to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and are told to pay more for a ticket than the
native Indian standing beside you. You are asked to pay more fees at the college you are
studying in. You are stopped from claiming some welfare facilities offered by the Indian
state at no cost or at subsidized rates. You are prevented from voting and contesting in
an election. Suddenly you realize what being a citizen is all about and what a non-citizen
is denied. Thus, in the most generic sense, a citizen enjoys ‘full and equal membership’
to a political community, and is one who bears certain rights and responsibilities by
virtue of that membership. For example, many rights, like the right to vote and stand for
elections, and many social security facilities are not available to foreigners. Citizens are
not merely bearers of certain rights and responsibilities, they also carry certain identi-
ties. They are considered the inheritors and trustees of their culture and civilization.
Hence, citizenship has three essential components—right, responsibility and identity.
We have differing views of citizenship because political philosophies differ in their con-
ceptions of what construes right, responsibility and identity. They also differ in the rela-
tive importance accorded to them. All this makes citizenship an arena of contestation
and an interesting site for political theorizing. It is in this context that one can connect
with Vaclav Havel’s quotation, cited at the beginning of this chapter, that is: the freedom
of a nation is contingent upon the freedom and autonomy of its citizens. A free nation
is not one that is free only from foreign occupation; rather, a free nation promotes a
framework within which its members (citizens) have free and equal access to those con-
ditions of freedom that help them become what they want to become, realize their capa-
bilities, exercise their rights without fear, and have their freedom and rights respected.
Most importantly, they can live—irrespective of their number in the populace—with a
sense of pride and security in their identities. What we can conclude is that the common
core lying behind all talk of citizenship, including liberal citizenship, is the idea that ‘full
membership’ to a community is a necessary condition for a good life. This statement
shall be the yardstick for exploring and illustrating liberal theories of citizenship. In this
exercise, we shall juxtapose other notions as well, albeit briefly, in order to provide a
clearer picture of liberal citizenship.
Citizenship in Classical Liberalism

Classical liberalism is the original version of liberalism, of which liberty is the core value.
Hence, for liberals, liberty is by default the most essential condition for enjoying life to
the maximum. Two characteristic attributes of citizenship—rights and equality—were
already inherent in the concept of natural rights. Needless to say, the theory of natural
rights is at the heart of classical liberal political theory. Natural rights are genetic to the
rise of both liberalism and capitalism, and have a predominantly civic thrust. Hence,
equality was construed as ‘equality of moral worth’ in claiming civic freedom. About
the year 1679, John Locke wrote ‘Two Treatises of the Civil Government’; however, they
were published only in 1690. In the second of his treatises, Locke expounded his theory
of natural rights—‘to preserve the life, liberty, and the estate’. They were presented in the
form of rights to enforce their inviolability. Rights have traditionally been thought of as
the guarantor of freedom. Those rights were provided moral sanctity, in the sense that
the kind of freedoms they were going to safeguard constituted the basic precepts and
essence of human life. The metaphorical use of the term ‘natural’ was invoked to stress
the inseparability of those freedoms from human life. It is to be noted that it connoted
only a limited sense of equality—equality of moral worth in enjoying one’s life and lib-
erty. This is the reason why the right to life and liberty is the quintessence of liberalism.
The natural equality of moral worth was also invoked in terms of having ‘freedom of
choice at the market place’, that is, to conduct economic business without interference
from coercive agencies like the state. And reciprocally, property was thought of as a
necessary condition of life and liberty. Such a philosophical posture is genetic to the rise
of capitalism. The fact that the right to life, liberty and property are not mutually exclu-
sive gives liberalism and capitalism a special relationship. Their relationship is congeni-
tal, in the sense that they are products of the same historical process and components
of the same philosophical statement. One can also say that they are in a relationship of
cohabitation and cotermination to philosophically complement each other. Hence, if
citizenship is simply a manifesto of rights and equality, the seeds of liberal citizenship
can be traced in the doctrine of natural rights itself.
However, is the possession of some specific set of rights alone a sufficient condition
for citizenship? If rights were to be a prerequisite for the status of citizenship, why was
it missing, even though individuals had natural rights? T. H. Marshall has illustrated
this point in his tripartite exposition of citizenship. Given that natural right is a philo-
sophical statement of both liberalism and capitalism, one can draw an image of liberal
citizenship on that basis. But we left behind the question of ‘identity’ in the preceding
discussion, which is also an important yardstick. We cannot downplay the importance
of identity in a discussion of citizenship. To understand it in a broader way, let us now
appreciate the relationship between citizenship and capitalism.
Citizenship and Capitalism

There is a view that the emergence of capitalism paved the way for the evolution of
citizenship. Pre-capitalist societies were feudal, and were hierarchically ordained. One’s
work and one’s destiny were situated in one’s station in the social hierarchy. Relation-
ships were defined on the basis of personal subservience rendered to the masters.
Hence, there was no sense of community membership. The economy was pre-modern,
fragmented and diffused. It was pre-modern in the sense that market dynamics were
missing. There was no single unified currency system either. Let us not forget that cur-
rency is also an important symbol of national pride, and hence a source of identity. The
accrual of wealth was linked to social status, and even this prerogative was hierarchi-
cally ordained. However, due to a combination of historical and structural constraints,
there began a process of decay of feudal society and polity. This decay brought about
structural changes in the nature and configuration of society, and set the stage for the
emergence of a market economy. These changes were also conducive to the emergence
of liberal citizenship. The idea of citizenship was a fillip that accelerated the transfor-
mative process from feudalism to capitalism. This was given effect by integrating the
notions of ‘civic equality’ and ‘national identity’. So, in a way, capitalism facilitated the
emergence of liberal citizenship.
However, it is important to note that the relationship between the two has not always
been smooth. At times they have been at loggerheads. This is because the concept of
the individual is too strong in capitalism. Individuals dislike being identified with the
community too strongly through bonds of membership. Rather, they like to remain
‘free’ and ‘autonomous’ vis-à-vis their community. They believe that one should be free
in the exercise of entrepreneurial freedom and in the pursuit of individually defined
goals. Also, one should write the story of one’s own destiny. Hence, correspondingly,
liberal citizenship is defined by a set of civil rights honoured by the community, that is,
the state. Those rights are contractual, in the sense that citizens render an obligation to
the state in lieu of the latter safeguarding their rights. The state interferes as little as pos-
sible in a citizen’s life. Thus, when compared to republican citizenship, the liberal vari-
ant does not demand too many obligations from citizens. It has a very weak and loose
sense of membership. But with the advent of social rights, the relationship between
citizenship and capitalism started fraying. The addition of social rights to the fold of
liberal citizenship curbed the latter’s individualist obsessions, and provided an egalitar-
ian thrust to liberal citizenship. However, the ethic of capitalism weakened this thrust
by according primacy to the economic relationship over all others. Modern states are
often caught in this juggle. A normative question that strikes our mind is: What should
the state do in this context?
Social Citizenship
Modern discussions of social citizenship generally start with T. H. Marshall. In 1949,
Marshall, then Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, delivered
lectures at Cambridge. In the following year, he published these lectures in an essay
form, titled Citizenship and Social Class. It became one of the classic books of citizenship
theory. Its impact in the academic world was so profoundly felt that Ralf Dahrendorf
described it as ‘one of the gems of social analysis’. In many ways, it lies at the heart of
citizenship theory. However, the foundations of social citizenship had been laid even
prior to Marshall. J. S. Mill and T. H. Green had sparked a rethinking of classical liberal
theory. Mill, in particular, has often been cited as a representative thinker who departed
from the tradition of classical liberalism. As we have discussed earlier, classical liberal
theory rests on the doctrine of natural rights. Natural rights do not permit the commu-
nity/state to interfere in an individual’s life. Individuals form the most sacrosanct cat-
egory. The state bears a commitment to honour and preserve what Habermas has called
‘civic privatism’. Hence, the critical question for Mill was how to reconcile the social and
individual aspects of human life. Mill argues that important freedoms must be situated
in a social context. He also departs from the typical utilitarian position which associ-
ates and reduces liberty merely to the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
He sounds like a foundationalist comprehensive liberal when he recognizes the worth
of the community in promoting the good of citizens. There is no doubt that he can be
regarded as a seminal thinker on the topic of social citizenship. Likewise, Green does
not consider individuals to have rights against the state. Rather, it is the state which
provides social recognition to rights and ‘hinders the hindrances to good life’.
Green and Mill’s call to rethink liberalism has much to offer to theories of citizenship.
One can dwell on them to construct an image of an ‘active citizen’ who understands her
right to develop and realize her individuality, and render reciprocal obligations to the
community. Drawing on them, later social liberals hoped that this theory would have
the potential to reduce the conflicting relationship between capitalism and citizenship.
T.H. Marshall is the most prominent among these thinkers.
Marshall begins with his tripartite analysis of citizenship, which he divides into civil,
political and social components. The civil element is composed of the rights necessary
for individual freedom, for example, liberty of person, freedom of speech, thought and
faith, the right to own property and enter into contracts, and the right to justice. The
political element includes the right to participate in the political process, like the right
to elect, to cast a vote, contest in elections, etc., as a member of a political community.
The social element comprises a whole range of rights, ‘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 civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society’
(Marshall 1950: 8).
His main argument is that citizenship contains three bundles of rights. Social citizen-
ship is a vital underpinning for the other two, civil and political. What is important to
note is that these three sets of rights evolved over three successive centuries. According to
Marshall, civil, political and social rights evolved in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries, respectively. Hence, he attaches a temporal dimension to the evolution of
citizenship rights. The process of evolution followed a sequential logic. One set of rights
set the stage for the rise of the next set in a sequential order. This aspect of his theory
invited scathing criticism from several quarters; this will be discussed a little later.
Marshall’s theory of citizenship profoundly influenced the nature of liberalism. For
classical liberals, membership to a political community counted for little because it de-
manded too much from the members. They did not want the autonomy of individuals
to be hampered in any significant respect. But for Marshall, citizenship is not simply a
conjunction of civil and political rights, which unfolded in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, respectively. It is not enough to have merely an ‘equal moral worth’, which civil
rights ensured. Civil rights were dispensed with a presupposition that one was equipped
with the means to protect oneself against social and economic insecurities. Hence, an
individual could not claim social protection from the state. But Marshall argued that civil
rights were meaningless unless buttressed by social rights. Social rights provide ‘equal so-
cial worth’, which is at the heart of social citizenship. It gave a direct sense of community
membership based on loyalty to a civilization, which was a common possession. Marshall
writes, ‘If you … explain to a pauper that his property rights are the same as those of a
millionaire, he will probably accuse you of quibbling. Similarly, the right to freedom of
speech has little real substance if from lack of education; you have nothing to say that is
worth saying, and no means of making yourself heard if you say it’ (Marshall 1950: 21).
We can now return to a question we had raised earlier. How does the state mediate
the jugglery between citizenship and capitalism? Citizenship is a principle by which
social life is organized on the basis of equality; in contrast, capitalism is a system of
class inequalities. The ethic of capitalism entails the maximization of profit, regard-
less of whether it endangers community membership. Such a tendency legitimizes the
need for state intervention. Marshall invested the state with the power to deliver welfare
functions. We popularly refer to such states as ‘welfare states’. In the schema of a welfare
state, welfare is considered a social right. The state bears an obligation to guarantee a
minimum supply of goods and services to the people, referred to as ‘social security’.
The state also assures persons of their right to a share in the social heritage, which gives
them a sense of being citizens. Marshall seized the emergent contexts within which the
rise of a welfare state looked imminent. He was hopeful about the capacity of a welfare
state to do away with the socio-economic paradoxes of society. It seems that Marshall’s
chief concern was to moderate, reform and civilize the liberal-capitalist society, and he
believed that social citizenship could do the job.
Like Marshall, Rawls too was enthusiastic about the welfare state. He was optimistic
that the welfare state could ameliorate the hardship of the worst-off without destroy-
ing the ethic of liberalism. His theory of justice has been hugely influential. However,
little attention has been paid to Rawls as a theorist of citizenship. For the major part of
the twentieth century, the concepts of individual liberty and social justice have been
viewed as mutually exclusive. F. Hayek was among the first to stress the incompatibility
of these two values. Social justice is generally concerned with securing a specific pat-
tern of distribution of goods and services in society on the basis of certain criteria. Each
criterion depends on a particular conception of the good. When a society adopts any
one of these criteria to dispense social justice, it adversely affects the freedom of those
who do not favour such a notion of the good. One solution, then, is to stop worrying
about distributive concerns and leave it to the market to do the needful. The market
would generate an automatic effect to alleviate the misery of the worst-off. This was at
the core of the libertarian argument, a position that Rawls radically altered. In his view,
all distributive questions are to be settled by the state. The state is the key agency to
perform distributive tasks in such a way that the worst-off gets the best deal. Any theory
of citizenship is meaningless unless it provides for social empowerment. He advocates
a re-arrangement of social and economic inequalities in such a way that the deprived
ones get the larger share of the cake. Hence, in Rawls’ view, a redistribution of social
and economic rights must be the chief component of the citizenship project.
Contesting Social Citizenship

One problem with the social citizenship of Marshall and Rawls is that it is agency-based.
For them, the state is the agency to facilitate conditions for a good life. Critics with a left
leaning have pointed out that they ignore a serious question. They forget that even the
state can act to further the interests of a particular class. Inequalities in capitalist societies
are structural. Civil and political rights are products of bourgeois revolutions. Thus, the
introduction of social rights to the fold of citizenship cannot dismantle the structures of
inequality inherent in the capitalist system. There is a structural commitment on the part
of the state to further the interests of the bourgeoisie. Hence, the Marshallian attempt to
civilize capitalism through the introduction of social citizenship will always be in vain.
Since the 1970s, feminist theories have sharply criticized the liberal model of social
citizenship. Their contention is that liberal citizenship is sharply gendered, for it per-
petuates the private/public dichotomy. (For a detailed discussion, refer to Chapter 7.)
Some methodological doubts have been raised about Marshall’s approach to citizen-
ship. Critics find a strong teleological element in Marshall’s account of tripartite citi-
zenship. Anthony Giddens is a leading member of these critics. They argue that com-
partmentalizing citizens’ rights into three sets is misleading. What is the teleological
method? In a social analysis, when events are explained in terms of the telos (goals, pur-
pose) that are going to be achieved, it is called the teleological method. In other words,
when the accomplishment of the telos follows a logical pattern, it is called teleological.
So, according to Giddens, Marshall has treated citizenship as though it has unfolded
in phases according to some inner logic inherent to the modern era. By attributing the
evolution of citizenship to a structural logic, Marshall meant to imply that the said evo-
lutionary process was smooth and deterministic. Hence, one set of rights prepared the
stage for achieving another set of rights in a sequential order. Thus, civil rights paved the
way for political rights, which in turn paved the way for achieving social rights. Critics
in general and Giddens in particular noted with disdain that Marshall underlined the
indispensability of this process. Critics charge Marshall with obscuring many historical
facts and undermining the role of social movements in obtaining citizenship rights. He
has overstressed the indispensability of the evolutionary process. Although defenders of
Marshall maintain that the progress of citizenship rights followed an evolutionary logic,
historical evidence suggests otherwise.
Giddens finds a crisis of cogency in Marshall’s defence of civil citizenship as a ho-
mogeneous category of rights. He distinguishes civil rights for individual freedom from
economic civil rights. The first category was fought for and secured by the emergent
bourgeoisie. It was crucial to the consolidation of industrial capitalism. On the other
hand, the second set of economic civil rights was fought for by the working class. Trade
unions played a crucial role in securing those rights. This category of civil rights en-
sures what Marshall calls ‘industrial citizenship’. Giddens has strong reservations against
Marshall’s lumping together of two different categories of civil rights.
An important area of concern for Giddens is the fact that Marshall has treated the
expansion of citizenship rights as an ‘irreversible process’. However, the rise of libertari-
anism and New Right theories has proved otherwise. In addition, Giddens also sees in
Marshall’s account ‘an over simplification of the role of state and politics’ (Held 1998:
193). In Marshall’s account, the three variants of citizenship, namely civil, political and
social, are complementary components. One can detect a weakness in this thesis. While
civil citizenship is directed against the state, social citizenship is guaranteed by the state.
While civil rights go against the state, social rights flow from the state. They are in
simultaneous contradiction. The main thrust of social citizenship is that the state pro-
vides social security. The expenditure incurred by the state in providing social security
is met through progressive taxation. This is where social rights and civil rights are at
loggerheads. Taxation potentially invades the civil rights of individuals. The crux of this
argument is that whereas civil rights entail downsizing the state, social rights involve it
in a big way. Hence, they lack a relation of complementarity, as Marshall claims.
David Held has defended Marshall strongly on certain issues. Held does not believe
that Marshall’s theory rests on an evolutionary logic. Rather, Marshall takes a more con-
tingent view of historical change. In Held’s study, Marshall has accounted for the role
of ‘struggle’ as well as ‘social movements’ in the development of rights. There have oc-
curred ‘struggle against hierarchy in its traditional feudal form, struggle against in-
equality in the market-place, and struggle against social injustice perpetrated by state
institutions’ (Held 1998: 193−94). Citizenship and Social Class is the seminal work in
which Marshall examined the relationship between citizenship and social classes. He
described the relationship between the two as some sort of ‘warfare’. According to Da-
vid Held’s analysis, he was referring to major social movements that have shaped the
contemporary world. Not only that, in later works Marshall is ‘even more explicit about
formative role of political and social conflict’ (ibid.: 194).
The Question of Autonomy

The most commonly received critique of social citizenship theory is the charge that it
breeds a ‘culture of dependency’. It puts in place a nanny mechanism of social control,
develops a tendency towards state paternalism, and thus promotes a notion of ‘passive
citizenship’. The paternalistic approach to citizenship seeks to promote certain ways of
living, considered better and more valuable, and discourages others. It even justifies the
state’s use of coercion to make people more moral.
On the other hand, autonomy theorists speak the language of moral independence
and moral freedom. There are two distinct ideas behind autonomy. One is that people
should not be dominated by others, not even by the state. The other, as Joseph Raz
states, is that they should be self-governing ‘creators of their own moral world’ (1988:
154). This is one good reason why an autonomy theorist would object to the paternal-
istic thrust of social citizenship.
A deeper analysis shows that Marshall’s concept of social citizenship does have an
underlying element of autonomy. Marshall agrees that class inequalities hinder a full
measure of citizenship. His social citizenship seeks to correct the economic inequali-
ties that compromise one’s ability to act autonomously. However, it fails to consider
autonomy in terms of ‘capacity’, which is impaired in many ways other than economic
asymmetries. For example, caste, ethnic and gender hierarchies prohibit free choice and
preferences in one’s social life. Social citizenship theories are accompanied by an over-
whelming quest for security; the problem, though, is that the quest for security is often
attended to at the cost of dignity and integrity. It undermines autonomy.
Liberal theorists of autonomy would have yet another issue with Marshall’s social citi-
zenship. According to Marshall, it is ‘a direct sense of community membership based on
loyalty to a civilization which was a common possession’ (Marshall 1950: 92). To what
extent should the community be allowed to meddle in a citizen’s affairs? Here, Rawls and
Marshall would have different answers. Marshall’s social citizenship takes more account
of solidarity than does Rawls’. Membership to a community is, for Marshall, the sole basis
for acquiring social rights and constitutive entitlements. Citizens have the right to live the
life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society. However, in
Rawls’ view, there can be no authoritative prevailing standard for citizens. Rawls sanctions
the moral permissibility of affirming, rejecting or revising the norms and standards of
society if they do not conform to our rationally chosen conception of the good. He terms
this ‘rational autonomy’. The quintessence of the whole discussion is that liberals argue
for making autonomy the cornerstone of a theory of liberal citizenship.
The criticism levelled against Marshall only proves his intellectual prowess, and
highlights the grandiosity of his work and its capacity to generate intellectual ferment.
The appreciation and criticism that Marshall has received only proves the extent to
which his work has been read, argued and debated. The fact that it continues to gener-
ate intense theoretical stimulation is what elevates it to the level of a ‘classic’. Therefore,
it cannot be shrugged off as ephemeral in any sense.
The New Right Conception of Citizenship

The New Right is an umbrella term. It covers under its banner a range of ideas, often
imprecise and contradictory. For example, it includes within its fold neo-liberals and
neo-conservatives, who are opposed to each other on certain issues, particularly the
nature and function of the state. It even extends to monetarism and public choice theory.
What is interesting to note is that the New Right School is united not so much by what
it believes in, but by what it rejects. All thinkers of the New Right are wary of the social-
ist, collectivist and welfarist economics attributed to the state. They vehemently oppose
the post-war liberal consensus developed around the idea of a welfare state. In their
view, the market is the best creator of wealth, the best allocator of values, and the best
guarantor of personal freedom. In the context of citizenship theory, they pose a central
question: Who needs a theory of citizenship? In sharp contrast to social liberals, they
have traditionally espoused a minimal state and identified it as the realm of coercion
and unfreedom. The ideas of the New Right became very popular in the mid 1970s, and
radically altered the nature of politics and economics in the USA and Europe.
One can ask why a neo-liberal conception of citizenship should be studied when
none of its exponents has made any direct reference to the concept of citizenship. As
outlined earlier, citizenship is simply construed as a relationship between the individual
and the state. Considering that the New Right accords too much importance to the au-
tonomy of individuals and seriously doubts the efficacy of the state in providing a good
life to its citizens, it has much to offer a liberal theory of citizenship.
Defence of Market Rights

The best way to introduce a libertarian1 conception of citizenship is to ask why citizen-
ship is needed at all. The historical context of libertarian citizenship can be traced to
1
Although there are some distinctions between the terms ‘libertarianism’ and ‘New Right’, for the
purpose of this chapter I shall use them interchangeably.
the British Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, when she sought
to redefine citizenship by asserting market rights in place of social rights. Later, it was
realized that the increasingly global nature of the economy meant that the social rights
of citizenship associated with social liberalism were becoming unaffordable. Libertar-
ians argue that people seek to pursue their values and preferences through private activ-
ity rather than public redistribution, which is what social liberalism entails. They can
satisfy their needs through market exchanges and through the formation of voluntary
associations. Why, then, would they subscribe to a framework of citizenship that is
unnecessarily demanding? With this fundamental question in mind, a discussion of
libertarian citizenship can be initiated.
In social citizenship theory, a tension exists between different kinds of rights, for
example, between civil and social rights. In the context of libertarian citizenship, a
distinction has to be made between civil rights and market rights as well. Classical
liberals championed civil rights, which included an individual’s right to enter into con-
tracts and exercise autonomy. Civil rights enable individuals to take charge of their own
lives and speak for themselves. They also entailed a constitutional guarantee of civic
freedom, uninterfered with and unfettered by the political apparatus. They entailed a
political arrangement in which the state was placed under a contractual obligation to
discharge only protectionist functions in matters of civil administration, leaving indi-
viduals free to take charge of their lives, liberties and properties. In this context, there
is an element of foundational or moral equality inherent in the classical liberal doctrine
of citizenship. All citizens are equally endowed by nature in claiming or exercising free-
dom. Libertarians remove this egalitarian aspect of classical liberal citizenship. They
are committed to privileging market rights, which are defined as ‘entrepreneurial free-
dom’, that is, the freedom to earn and own property and have that property protected.
What is interesting to note is that at the heart of market rights is one’s ‘right to be
unequal’. It is here that libertarians depart from classical liberals. The core argument is
that entrepreneurs would create opportunities for all members of society. Hence, soci-
ety will become more prosperous through the dynamics of inequality. The extension of
market rights would promote the virtue of personal responsibility, so vital to the ethic
of citizenship.
Contemporary Debates in Liberal Citizenship
Equality or Responsibility?
Historically speaking, liberal theories of citizenship have been narrowly focused on the
political and civil rights of individuals. They have been somehow reluctant to articulate
the substantive claims of individuals for economic equality. Libertarian citizenship,
rather, justifies economic inequalities. This has invited criticism from polemic schools.
For instance, Marx has asserted that citizenship without an economic dimension is
not citizenship at all. To be more precise, the rights of civil citizenship, possessed by
all were, meaningful only for a few. A central problem associated with liberal political
theory is its dualistic notion of equality. Free markets produce economic inequali-
ties. However, it is interesting to note that the status of citizens as political equals re-
mains entrenched. Hence, from a critical point of view, liberal citizenship is an empty
promise of equality. The greatest challenge before liberal citizenship theory remains
the same: how does one integrate conflicting dimensions of equality into a theory
of citizenship?
At one point in time, the concept of social citizenship as we have discussed earlier
was seemingly prepared to address this challenge. The development of social citizen-
ship involved many admirable achievements. It partly succeeded in harmonizing a link
between economic and political equality. However, the problem was intensified in sub-
sequent decades. Social citizenship came under attack in the 1970s and 1980s from a
strong neo-liberal critique. Welfare institutions and solidaristic ambitions of citizen-
ship were decried. In their place, neo-liberalism offered a much thinner conception
of ‘active citizenship’, wherein the value of ‘personal responsibility’ came to the fore.
Instead of demanding equality as a right, active citizenship motivates people to take
charge of their lives. The notion of personal responsibility entailed individuals to make
responsible choices for themselves and for their families.
Contemporary political theory has seen some interesting encounters between egalitar-
ian liberals and neo-liberals. Many scholars, like Dworkin, Cohen and Roemer, have ar-
ticulated that equality and responsibility need not remain incompatible. In recent times,
the doctrine of luck egalitarianism has gained momentum in this debate. Luck egalitari-
anism is a position associated principally with the writings of Dworkin, Cohen, Richard
Arneson and John Roemer. Dworkin says that a person should not be worse-off than
anyone else with respect to some given metric or currency of goods merely as a result of
brute bad luck (Cohen 1989: 916). The purpose of luck egalitarianism, adds Cohen, is to
eliminate involuntary disadvantage. Hence, there is a moral commitment on the part of
luck egalitarians to equality. But the route to achieving this equality is a little different. It
expunges the involuntary disadvantages caused amongst individuals by bad luck. Accord-
ingly, when disadvantages are not involuntary, they are no longer objectionable. On fur-
ther simplification, it can be inferred that when disadvantages are caused by those factors
over which the agents have control, they cease to be objectionable. Hence, the luck egali-
tarian theory has radicalized the equality-responsibility debate. The concurrent point that
runs in both luck equality literature and neo-liberal conceptions of responsibility is that
they refrain from making demands on the resources of the state. One is supposed to make
prudent choices for oneself and be responsible enough to bear the consequences.
However, despite the luck egalitarian effort, the issue has not been settled by any
stretch of the imagination. There is as yet no core conception of responsibility under-
pinning all competing versions of citizenship. The neo-liberal vision of ‘active citizen-
ship’ is extremely narrow in the range of responsibility it invokes. It is predominantly
an economic category. The ethic of responsibility does not connote the duties of citizen-
ship in the republican sense. Although the luck egalitarians were motivated by a desire
to neutralize the individualistic thrust of neo-liberalism under the guise of equality, the
effort has not paid off. It has not enriched egalitarian citizenship enough to pose a chal-
lenge to the neo-liberal project.
Recognition or Redistribution?
The recognition/redistribution debate was brought to the limelight by Nancy Fraser.
Although she is known for her account of justice as ‘participatory parity’, the debate
that she kicked off is of normative importance for a liberal theory of citizenship. In the
preceding section, we discussed equality and responsibility. The question of identity
cannot be left behind in a discussion on citizenship. In the 1970s and 1980s, potentially
competing forms of identities dominated the political scene. The rise of new social
movements generated a new hope among the hitherto excluded categories struggling
for recognition and political space. These struggles were loaded with emancipatory
promise. Marshall has written that social citizenship promises citizens the right to share
in social heritage. It is here that anti-foundationists have a problem with Marshall’s
thesis. To think of social heritage as if it were common to everybody is a modernist
claim. Modernists believe in the universality of culture and community. This is in sharp
contrast to the argument anti-foundationalist and relativist theories put forward—the
recognition of ‘difference’ is at the heart of their argument. Hence, there is not one,
but many social heritages. There is not one culture of citizenship, but many cultures of
citizenship. The issue of identity is very complicated. Authors tend to include in this
category many different aspects related to identity, both individual and collective. This
is inescapable since citizens have a subjective sense of belonging, what Carens called
the ‘psychological dimension of citizenship’ (Carens 2000: 166). Therefore, there were
protests against theoretically privileging ‘nationality’ as the most dominant and accept-
able premise of citizenship. The banners of sexuality, gender, ethnicity and race became
politically visible in the recognition of different identities.
The central question that then lies at the heart of the citizenship debate is: which way
should one go, towards recognition or redistribution? Recognition involves the issue of
identity, whereas redistribution aims at equality. ‘We are facing, then, new constellations
in the grammar of political claims-making’ (Fraser 2000: 108). Feminism had earlier fore-
grounded itself in the demand for a redistribution of resources. The trajectory of feminism
has moved from one extreme to another. Later, a new variant of feminist theory, known as
‘difference feminism’, asserted and celebrated the specificity of those feminine virtues that
emanate from and characterize the sexual difference between female and male (this will
be discussed in detail in Chapter 7). However, the main question here is: has the empha-
sis on recognition of identity resulted in the relative decline of the claims for egalitarian
distribution, which was so prominent in the Marshallian and Rawlsian schema?
‘Economy’ and ‘culture’ are the sources of two types of citizenship rights. The former
generates a demand for the right to equal resources, the latter for the recognition of
cultural identities, resulting in a politics of redistribution vs. the politics of recognition.
Many believe in a dualist approach that presumes a substantive separation between
economy and culture. Others favour an approach according to which economy and
culture are wholly interlocked. For example, Habermas confirms that the politics of
identity has displaced the politics of equality. The rise of new social movements has
substantiated this shift. New social movements such as black civil rights movements,
the second wave of feminism, environmental movements, etc., have been widely wel-
comed. They suggest that questions of identity are rather more important than ques-
tions of economic equality. Nancy Fraser, however, rejects this dualist approach. She
prefers to employ an approach that cuts across such putative boundaries, and laments
that the shift from redistribution to recognition is disturbing. Economic globalization
is to be blamed for this shift. She belongs to the new generation of the critical theory
school. Hence, unlike Habermas, she seems to be in search of a broad normative lan-
guage that could unite economic and cultural forms of justice. Although she seems
to have rarely used the language of citizenship, her political theory provides enough
resources for us to formulate a radical account of equal citizenship.
Liberal Citizenship and Social Movements

Bryan Turner has been at the forefront in arguing that ‘social movements’ should be
brought to the centre-stage of the theoretical inquiry of citizenship. As discussed ear-
lier, citizenship accrues certain rights and privileges by virtue of membership to a po-
litical community. These rights and privileges cannot be said to have been conferred
by an easy-going evolutionary process. They have been fought for. This is at the core of
Turner’s argument. Turner argues that social movements have played an integrative role
in securing citizenship rights. Social movements were not directed towards capturing
the seat of political power; rather, they played a historic role in arousing the collectivist,
rightful and egalitarian aspirations of people, arranging and shaping them in the proper
ideological context and fighting for them at different fora for their acquisition.
It is argued that ‘class’ and ‘social movement’ are two analytically distinct categories.
Hence, to infer that by describing the relationship between citizenship and social class
as warfare Marshall was referring to social movement, as David Held does, is fallacious.
Marshall adopts the former as his tool of analysis, whereas Bryan Turner adopts the lat-
ter. Turner considers social movement a more valid category than class in understand-
ing and explaining the development of citizenship. Contrary to class, social movements
draw upon people from diverse backgrounds. Hence, the citizenship rights won by so-
cial movements happen to be qualitatively more inclusive. Many sociologists, like Alain
Touraine, have underscored the transformative role of social movements. They regard
them as a source of cultural transformation in society. Social movements bring about
significant changes in historically settled social relations and cultural patterns, thereby
playing a key role in defining and redefining our rights and responsibilities vis-à-vis
our community. Ultimately citizenship is also a network of our relationship with com-
munity and culture. Hence, the thematic importance of social movements in theories
of citizenship cannot be ignored.
Liberal Citizenship and Environmentalism

Liberals consider citizenship the framework of the relationship between a community
and its members. However, environmental theorists and activists have serious problems
with this definition. They argue that in such an account of citizenship, the concerns of
nature and the natural environment are not adequately addressed. Hence, liberals and
environmental theorists differ starkly in their approach and assumptions.
Liberals’ approach to citizenship is anthropocentric. It takes negligible account of the
natural environment. Anthropocentricism is a way of thinking that regards humans as
the source of all value. It is predominantly concerned with the unfettered furtherance of
human interest, even at the cost of the environment. On the other hand, environmen-
talists adopt an ‘eco-centric’ approach to deal with the ‘human-nature’ relationship. It
takes an organic view of nature, of which humans are a part. Hence, they argue for a
replacement of liberal citizenship with what they call ‘ecological citizenship’. Ecologi-
cal citizenship entails a rethinking of the human-nature relationship. Nature has to be
brought to the centre-stage of social inquiry. The ethic of ecological citizenship requires
us to think and behave in ways that are less damaging to the natural environment. This
is at the core of their argument.
Concluding Remarks
Who needs a theory of citizenship? Different variants of liberalism respond differently
to this question. The common core of all liberal approaches to citizenship, however, is
that the state continues to be the context of inquiry. While it is venerated by social liber-
als, neo-liberals want it banished.
The aim of social citizenship theory is solidaristic; however, the New Right School
wants to make it explicitly contractual, wherein citizens become rational consumers of
the public good. It means that citizens would have a choice to satisfy their needs through
multiple agencies at their disposal, not necessarily by the state. The problem with this no-
tion is that the redistributive character of citizenship will be completely lost. There will be
no measures undertaken by the state to offset the inequalities of the market. For example,
the right to livelihood, shelter, housing, healthcare, etc., would no longer be available to
citizens free of cost as they would be under the social citizenship scheme of Marshall and
Rawls. In countries where human development indicators are not satisfactory, access to
public goods cannot be left to depend entirely on the vagaries of the market.
Marshall’s citizenship has paid scant attention to categories like women and ethnic
and other marginalized groups in his explanatory framework. An explanatory frame-
work of the relationship between individual and community must attempt to capture
the plurality of ways in which we are situated in and related to our community. Citizen-
ship is a virtue and a mode of organizing social life by providing a measure of equality.
The exclusion of any individual, group or class amounts to depriving them from the
means to a good life, which membership bestows. Today, the nature and configuration
of society is much more complex. The multicultural aspects of society have become
theoretically prominent. With globalization, social relations are seemingly becoming
very complex, both temporally and spatially. But when Marshall was writing, liberalism
did not have even a coherent theory of cultural and moral diversity. A non-pluralist
account of liberalism did not envisage much of a role for culture in defining the good
life. In recent years, though, liberals have come to realize that cultures are crucial in
defining the content of a good life. They now seek to redefine liberalism to make it
more accommodating of diversity. Hence, liberal citizenship faces a daunting challenge
today. It has to keep a promise to ensure the security of all citizens, while retaining their
freedom, autonomy, individuality and cultural diversity.
Questions for discussion

1. Do you think that even post-colonial societies follow the same evolutionary pattern of
citizenship as suggested by Marshall?
2. In this chapter, you have seen that there is no singular form of liberalism. Hence, there
is no one single conception of liberal citizenship. Can you think of some other forms of
liberalism and corresponding liberal citizenships?
3. Do you think that a concept like citizenship is losing significance in this globalizing
world?
4. Suppose the enforcement of a citizen’s right leads to or results in an infringement of cer-
tain human rights of a foreigner in your country. How will you react to it? Discuss.
Suggested Readings
Barbalet, J. M., 1998, Citizenship (Buckingham: Open University Press).
Carens, Joseph, 2000, Culture, Citizenship and Community: A Contextual Exploration of Justice
as Evenhandedness (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Cohen, G. A., 1989, ‘On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice’, Ethics, 99 (4).
Dworkin, Ronald, 2000, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Boston: Harvard
University Press).
Fraser, Nancy, 2000, ‘Rethinking Recognition’, New Left Review, 3 (May−June).
Held, David, 1998, Political Theory and the Modern State (New Delhi: Maya Polity).
Heater, Derek, 1999, What is Citizenship? (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Kymlicka, Will, 2002, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
———, 1995, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
———, 2006, ‘The Multicultural Welfare State’, http://www.ihi.aau.dk/freia/pt_konf/willkym-
licka_lecture_notes.pdf.
Kymlicka, Will and Norman, W., ‘Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work in Citizenship
Theory’, Ethics, 104 (2), 1994.
Marshall, T. H., 1950, Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Marshall, T. H. and Bottomore, T. B., 1992, Citizenship and Social Class (London: Pluto Press).
Miller, David, 2000, Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Raz, Joseph, 1988, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Turner, Bryan, 1992, ‘Outline of a Theory of Citizenship’, in C. Mouffe (ed.), Dimensions of
Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community (London: Verso).
5
Multicultural Conception
of Citizenship
Gyanaranjan Swain
Introduction
Many of us would love to settle down in advanced countries like the United States or
Canada for the chance of a better lifestyle. If the law permits, we might take citizenship
of that particular country. Suppose I decide to settle down in Canada, and I take citi-
zenship of that country. What about my rights as a citizen? Would the same constitu-
tional framework be applied to me, or should a different approach need to be adopted
to address my requirements? The problem arises because I have been brought up in a
different cultural set-up. This raises a few pertinent questions. First, should I be forced
to accept a set of rights with which I am not familiar? Second, should the constitution
be adequately amended so as to protect my cultural identity, or is there any other way
out? This chapter seeks to probe these important questions.
With the advent of globalization and the rise in international migration, the concept
of citizenship has undergone vast changes. Traditional concepts of citizenship no longer
seem capable of providing a sufficient basis for political belonging in the light of new
developments around the world. It has become untenable for citizenship to demand
political and cultural homogeneity. Nation-states have become increasingly diverse in
terms of culture and ethnicity. This ethnic and cultural diversity calls for a form of ‘mul-
ticultural citizenship’, which acknowledges not only the individual but also the value of
the different cultural forms in and through which individuality is expressed.
Cultural diversity is not a recent phenomenon. It is an outcome of the process of
globalization and international migration. Cultural diversity engages with the ques-
tion of how people of different cultures can live together. It is only natural that there
will be some minority cultural groups which will demand recognition of their cultural
Multicultural Conception of Citizenship 77
identities. This is a problem faced by almost all liberal democratic countries of the
world. Charles Taylor visualizes the problem in a peculiar way. He argues that for a
liberal society, two types of problems arise: the dignity of the individual, as well as the
claims of the groups or cultural communities to which the individuals belong, need to
be recognized. Taylor argues that a more complex and nuanced answer must therefore
be given to the problem posed by this politics of recognition. Diverse states need to
show a tolerant attitude towards each cultural group.
Defining Multiculturalism
Most societies today are multicultural. Although this was also true of earlier societies,
contemporary multiculturalism is unique in several respects. Taken as a fact, multicul-
turalism simply registers many cultures. As a value, multiculturalism morally endorses
many cultures. To put it simply, multiculturalism resists and challenges the fact and
value of a single-culture society. Multiculturalism responds to the issue of cultural dis-
crimination by privileging the goal of protecting minority cultures. On the understand-
ing that policies of cultural assimilation and homogenization render minority cultures
unviable, it aims to make these marginalized communities and cultures secure so they
can flourish within the nation-state. Politics of cultural assimilation refers to a state
where an attempt is made to protect a single culture and assimilate other cultures with-
in the main culture. Promotion of cultural diversity is one of the cherished objectives
of multiculturalism. It is seen as an essential precondition for an equality of cultures.
Multiculturalism assumes that diverse cultures are acknowledged and accorded respect
in the public domain.
Diversity, as a positive value within multiculturalism, does not simply indicate the
absence of cultural homogeneity. Rather, it points to the presence of several distinct
and heterogeneous cultures. The concept of diversity further asserts that each culture
has attributes deserving of our respect. This perception affirms the goal of preserving
minority cultures, and in a way supplements the importance given to cultural com-
munity membership within the multicultural framework.
Contemporary multiculturalism also endorses the idea of difference and heteroge-
neity exemplified in the concept of diversity. It does not simply point to the presence
of many cultures within the nation-state; rather, it admits that these multiple cultures
are discrete and often incommensurable. The concept of cultural diversity constitutes
the basic idea on which the edifice of multiculturalism is constructed. However, in its
enunciations multiculturalism introduces three important elements.
First, multiculturalism places diversity within the boundaries of the nation-state.
Multiculturalists are concerned primarily with the diversity of cultures within the lib-
eral nation-state. Second, while locating diversity within a society, multiculturalism
draws attention to the presence of heterogeneous communities within the state. Third,
in the course of supporting cultural diversity, multiculturalists distinguish between the
majority community and the minority community. The state is usually identified with
the majority culture and overwhelmingly discriminates against the minorities. Multi-
culturalism is concerned with the fate of minorities and their rights. They use the con-
cept of cultural diversity to analyse the fate of minority cultures in the state.
Why Multicultural Citizenship

Citizenship is a state-centric concept. In general terms, citizenship implies a bundle of
rights and obligations. The state guarantees some basic rights to the individuals, and
at the same time expects the citizens to carry forward the objective of protecting the
unity and integrity of the country. However, with the emergence of globalization and a
widening of the democratic process in nation-states, the notion of rights has undergone
a great transformation. Earlier, the definitions of rights were meant for a homogeneous
population, without taking people’s different nationalities into consideration. Now,
however, globalization has changed the composition of states altogether. Today, one
sees a movement of other nationalities into a particular nation. We see many Indians
going abroad for jobs. So the home state needs to protect its rights, and for that it needs
to rework its own notion of rights. Similarly, the democratic movement has deepened
in states. States are now increasingly facing demands to grant rights to minority groups
present in the country. States have realized that these groups are an important part of
society, and that they need to be recognized as such through a guaranteeing of their
rights. For example, tribals and Muslims are minority groups in need of special protec-
tion from the state against the onslaught of the majority. It is important to note here that
the project of democratization is far from complete today. Many groups and communi-
ties continue to be disadvantaged, and so multiculturalism promises to look at these
communities and the issue of their rights.
The primary agenda of multiculturalism is to construct a public domain where dif-
ferent cultures are present as equals. The protection of minorities and their cultures
through a system of special rights is seen as a necessary step in the realization of this
goal. Multiculturalism does not differentiate between the majority and the minority
on the basis of numerical strength. Instead, it underlines the importance of collective
identities in everyday life. Multiculturalism argues that community membership gives
individuals a specific history. While arguing that cultural communities constitute the
context in which individuals live, experience and form judgements, multiculturalism
does more than assert the existence of the cultural community. It claims that a secure
cultural context is essential for the well-being of the self. The multicultural agenda flows
from this understanding of the value of cultural community membership, and it is this
assessment of community membership that shapes its commitment to ensuring that

minority cultures survive and flourish within the nation-state.
Multicultural Citizenship: A Theoretical Perspective

At its most fundamental level, multicultural citizenship involves a departure from
traditional notions of citizenship, which emphasize individual rights and duties in a
particular state. Multicultural citizenship insists that we recognize cultural differenc-
es between citizens and the unique identity of an individual. Citizens should not be
viewed as merely abstract entities. Multicultural citizenship seeks to protect the integ-
rity of the individual while recognizing that individuality is formed in a variety of social
and cultural contexts.
There are two distinctive theories of multiculturalism—radical and liberal. A dis-
tinction should be made between the radical and liberal theoretical versions of mul-
ticultural citizenship. Radical formulations of multicultural citizenship advocate a
fundamental shift in the understanding of citizenship. They criticize the liberal idea
of universal citizenship, arguing that the concept of universal citizenship makes an
attempt to assimilate other cultures within a single dominant culture. Proponents of
the radical version argue for a ‘differentiated citizenship’, which reserves special rights
for ‘oppressed’ minority groups—for example, affirmative action to improve the edu-
cational or occupational levels of disadvantaged minorities. This notion was developed
by Marion Young, who developed her concept of differentiated citizenship around the
idea of oppression.
However, the concept of oppression being a problematic one, the notion of mul-
ticultural citizenship cannot be built around it. It is extremely difficult to define who
the oppressed groups are and which minorities should be considered oppressed. This
is why Marion Young’s idea of differentiated citizenship has been rejected in political
theory as a viable solution to the problem of minority rights. Marion Young was unable
to provide a proper definition of who the oppressed groups are.
These problems are to a large extent absent from the ‘liberal’ version of multicultural
citizenship, which is more adroit in mediating the relationship between the individu-
al, the identity group and the state. A liberal theory of minority rights explains how
minority rights coexist with human rights, and how they are limited by principles of
individual liberty, democracy and justice. Articulated most comprehensively by Will
Kymlicka, this approach presents multicultural citizenship as a liberal theory of minor-
ity rights, taking as its premise individual freedom as the defining principle of liber-
alism. For Kymlicka, individualism, autonomy, critical self-reflection and choice are
central to liberalism. While Kymlicka was sure that liberalism provided the best oppor-
tunity for protecting minority rights, he was also aware of the limitations of liberalism.
First, a liberal conception of minority rights would not justify internal restrictions.
Internal restrictions imply that minority groups restrict the basic civil or political lib-
erties of its own members in order to retain certain cultural heritages of the minorities.
Liberals are committed to supporting the right of individuals to decide for themselves
which aspects of their cultural heritage they should retain. Liberalism propounds that
individuals should have the freedom and capacity to question, and possibly revise,
the traditional practices of their community. Second, liberal principles are more sym-
pathetic to demands for external protection, which leaves the minority community
vulnerable to the decisions of the larger society.
In short, the liberal view requires freedom within the minority group and equality
between the minority and the majority group. Due to these two limitations, a liberal
conception of minority rights fails to accommodate all the demands of majority groups.
For example, some cultural minorities do not want a system of minority rights that is
tied to the promotion of individual freedom or political autonomy. Kymlicka has tried
to defend the right of national minorities (defined later on) to maintain themselves as
culturally distinct societies, but only if they are governed by liberal principles.
Kymlicka prescribes a new thesis of multicultural citizenship that is essentially dif-
ferent from Young’s concept of differentiated citizenship. The notion of oppression does
not figure in Kymlicka’s understanding of multicultural citizenship. Marion Young had
opposed universal citizenship and replaced it with differentiated citizenship; however,
for Kymlicka, multicultural citizenship is not a critique of or substitute for universal
citizenship. Rather, he wanted to add something to the notion of universal citizenship.
A multicultural state or society needs both universal rights and a special status or some
group differentiated rights for minority cultures. This will produce a comprehensive
notion of justice in a multicultural society.
Marion Young depends heavily on the concept of oppression to highlight her theory
of differentiated citizenship. Kymlicka uses the phrase ‘societal culture’ and defines it as
shared history and language, making it synonymous with a nation or a people. Kym-
licka argues that in a multicultural society, access to a societal culture can become an
issue of equality and justice under certain circumstances. Here. it is important to note
that no state can be culture-neutral. Most of the time the state promotes the majority
culture at the cost of the minority culture, proving that there is a nexus between the
state and the majority culture. The traditional liberal explanation of ethnic and cultural
difference has not been enough. Liberalism needs to put more emphasis on the special
rights of minorities. It has to recognize and protect the cultures of minority groups.
Being aware of the problem with Young’s definition of minorities, Kymlicka tried to
redefine the concept of minorities. As mentioned earlier, Young’s definition of minori-
ties included the vast majority. Therefore, the groups no longer remained a minority.
Kymlicka tried to narrow down the minority groups entitled to special rights. Since
he takes ‘societal culture’ as the central point of reference for defining minorities, it
narrows down the ‘minority groups’ considerably. This definition excludes non-ethnic
groups such as homosexuals, the disabled, etc.
Kymlicka argues that only national minorities and immigrants fall under the category
of minorities. A country that contains more than one nation is called a multination
state. Within a multination state are small cultures called national minorities. Similarly,
because of immigration, the nation-state acquires the character of a multi-ethnic state.
Kymlicka argues in favour of giving these identities specific rights. In this context, he
discusses three important rights. They are:
(i) Self-government rights: Kymlicka argues that multination states need to consid-
er the demands of different cultural groups for governments of their own. One
way of resolving the problem is to grant federalism; however, Kymlicka again
insists that there should be a balance between centralization and decentraliza-
tion. This self-government right, though, should be given to only the national
minorities.
(ii) Poly-ethnic rights: In the age of globalization and international migration, im-
migrants tend to argue for their rights. Poly-ethnic rights imply group-specific
rights given to a particular community. They are intended to help ethnic groups
and religious minorities express their cultural particularity. However, unlike
self-government rights, poly-ethnic rights are usually intended to promote in-
tegration into the larger society.
(iii) Special representation rights: There is a widespread belief that democracy fails to
reflect the cultural diversity of society. That is why there is a demand for special
representation rights in order to rectify the present democratic process. How-
ever, this should be seen as a temporary measure till we achieve a state where
the need for special representation no longer exists.
For Kymlicka, then, cultural membership—that is, membership to a stable and histor-
ically continuous cultural community—is essential to human freedom and autonomy,
and hence is a primary good. Although individuals have a right to cultural membership
and all that follows from it, Kymlicka does not think the right belongs to all minorities
equally. As we saw earlier, he is largely interested in two kinds of minorities, national
and ethnic. According to him, the right to full cultural membership belongs only to the
national minority because it is territorially concentrated, has a more or less complete
cultural structure, and is often protected by treaties. Unlike the majority community,
whose culture is embodied in the major institutions of society and which enjoys consid-
erable power and dignity, the national minority is often disadvantaged by factors beyond
its control and needs the relevant rights to place it on an equal footing with the majority
community. It may therefore legitimately claim the right to self-government, to control
immigration, to restrict the sale of land, to make its own language policy, and so on.
As far as the national minorities are concerned, Kymlicka believes that a liberal society
should not impose its values on them largely for pragmatic reasons. Liberal institutions
can only really work if liberal beliefs have been internalized by the members of the com-
munity concerned, and such internalization is by its very nature a slow and voluntary
process. However, a liberal society cannot accept non-liberal practices, and has ‘a right
and a responsibility’ to discourage them. While it should appreciate that it might not
fully understand minority cultures and that liberality is ‘a matter of degree’, it should act
if there is intolerance of dissent or a violation of basic civil liberties and rights. Although
it may not use coercion, it should speak out against illiberal practices, support and
encourage liberal opinion, offer incentives and apply pressure with a view to stimulating
liberal reforms, devise mutually acceptable mechanisms for respecting individual rights,
etc. If such means do not work and if the violations of liberal rights are gross and system-
atic, liberal society may rightly intervene in the internal affairs of national minorities.
Ethnic minorities fall under the second category. Immigrants are treated as ethnic
minorities. They have voluntarily uprooted themselves from their natural homes, and
thereby waived their right to their culture. Their cultural community is fragmented
and cannot be reproduced in their host countries. And they enter the latter with full
knowledge of its values and practices and implicitly undertake to abide by these. Kym-
licka argues that they therefore have no right to self-government, to provision of pub-
lic services in their mother tongue, and so on. This does not mean, though, that they
have no claims to the recognition of their cultural differences. They may rightly ask to
not be discriminated against, to be exempted from laws and regulations that unjustly
disadvantage them, to be allowed to retain their mother tongues, have their presence
affirmed in the symbols of the state, and so on. By and large, however, their concern,
unlike that of the national minority, is or should be to integrate into mainstream soci-
ety, and these and other related measures are justified only as aiding that process.
Kymlicka’s minority rights thesis has come under lot of criticism. Let us take the case
of the Quebecois in Canada or the aboriginals in Australia. They ought to be called
national minorities because they have an institutionally complete culture. They are vic-
tims of the process of nation-building, and are forced to be a part of the culture of
the majority. That is why these groups always have a strong secessionist tendency. To
accommodate these groups within a multicultural state, we need to give them strong
self-government rights. This can be justified from a liberal point of view. However, Kym-
licka himself admits that these rights pose a serious threat to the integrative function
of citizenship, that is, they are part of a political unit and have to respect its unity and
integrity. This minority group’s basic thrust has been separation and not integration.
Kymlicka puts forth his multicultural theory in the context of a liberal society. How-
ever, a synthesis between liberalism and multiculturalism is not always possible since
all multicultural societies are not necessarily liberal, and vice versa. Kymlicka argues his
theory from within the framework of a specific tradition, and sometimes suggests that
since we live in a liberal society, we should conceptualize and defend minority rights in
liberal terms. This will not be applicable to our societies because our society constitutes
both liberals and non-liberals, and there is a perpetual conflict between them. It would
not be appropriate to call that society liberal as it would exclude non-liberals who are
very much a part of a society. Kymlicka, however, is silent on this matter, because he
assumes that every society has a single ‘societal’ or national culture. This leads him to
impose a single, homogeneous identity on Western societies and to turn liberalism into
their collective or national culture. Critics argue that this theory is more or less an in-
ternal dialogue within the fold of liberalism.
Kymlicka rightly argues that a culture performs a variety of functions. It includes
structuring one’s world, giving life meaning, building a community, and providing a con-
text of choice. Kymlicka lays stress on cultures that enable the fostering of autonomy.
This is a standard liberal understanding of culture. However, there is no reason why this
view should be shared by all. According to Kymlicka, individuals should freely and self-
consciously affirm their membership to their cultural communities. They should reflect
on it critically, locate it within a range of options, and decide freely whether they wish to
subscribe to it. This is certainly a plausible way of conceptualizing and relating to one’s
culture, but it is not the only way. Some communities, such as the indigenous peoples,
Hindus and orthodox Jews, view their cultures as ancestral inheritances, which are to be
cherished and transmitted as a matter of loyalty to their offsprings. Some others, especially
Catholics and members of other religious communities, take their culture as a divine self-
revelation, and view it as a sacred trust to be preserved in a spirit of piety and gratitude.
For Jews, culture adds to their sense of identity and it is not desirable to detach it from the
latter. Many of these communities are not averse to self-reflection, self-criticism and even
change. Indeed, they are intelligent enough to know that they must adapt to changing cir-
cumstances, but firmly believe that it should be done through their legitimate, authorized
representatives, in accordance with their traditions and in a spirit of humility.
Even feminists are unhappy with the multicultural notion of citizenship. For exam-
ple, significant minority groups in many countries constrain girls under the control of
their families. They impose a dress code on them and restrict their movement. They
expect them to take on significant domestic responsibilities, from which their brothers
are exempt. It is therefore difficult to understand how these young women’s cultures
provide them with contexts that enable them to make informed decisions about how to
lead their lives. Many instances of culture-specific discrimination in the private sphere
will never emerge in the public realm. Thus, one’s place within one’s culture is also im-
portant, as a culture can enable an individual to develop self-respect and make choices
about her/his life.
Michael Walter criticizes the liberal theory of multicultural citizenship from a dif-
ferent perspective. He argues that in cases where the state wishes to remain neutral,
there is no point granting minority rights. States like the USA and even international
organizations like the European Union have shown a tendency towards state-neutrality.
In such a situation, the doctrine of multicultural citizenship appears obsolete.
Other Debates in Multiculturalism: Charles Taylor and Bikhu Parekh

In his essay ‘The Politics of Recognition’, Taylor argues that the demands of various
groups for some kind of social recognition have raised the stakes in contemporary de-
bates about multiculturalism, because the issue being debated is not simply material
welfare, but the identities of the participants in social life. In modern society, ‘the un-
derstanding is that identities are formed in open dialogue, unshaped by a predefined
social script. This has made the politics of equal recognition more central and stressful.’
Taylor argues that equal recognition is not only appropriate, but also essential.
In every society, there is a demand to recognize the unique identity of some in-
dividual or group, and how distinct they are from everyone else. The charge levelled
against contemporary politics is that uniqueness has been ignored, or assimilated into
the dominant majority. In Taylor’s analysis, the proponents of the politics of difference
are right, and liberalism is inadequate in responding to the demands for respecting
the distinct identity of individuals or groups. This is because liberalism is ultimately
unsympathetic and inhospitable to difference. For this reason, Taylor is highly critical
of the solution offered by Will Kymlicka, who attempted to show how liberalism could
accommodate difference. Kymilca’s solution is to maintain a position of liberal neutral-
ity, while arguing that since individuals need certain basic cultural goods to pursue a
good life, neutrality requires granting certain groups differential rights (to allow them
to maintain their cultural integrity) in order to allow their members an equal opportu-
nity to pursue the good life. The problem with this solution, according to Taylor, is that
it works only for those existing people who find themselves trapped within a culture
under pressure, and can either flourish within it or not at all. But it does not justify
measures designed to ensure survival through indefinite future generations.
More broadly, Taylor’s point is that the very idea of liberalism as a procedural doc-
trine is untenable. Those who put forward this view of liberalism see it as defending a
neutral regime of tolerance in different ways. The claim of a liberalism that avers to be
blind to difference is that it can offer a neutral ground on which people of all cultures
can meet and coexist. This view means that it becomes necessary to make a certain
number of distinctions between what is public and what is private, for instance, or
between politics and religion; only then can one relegate contentious differences to a
sphere that does not impinge on the political. But this view, Taylor argues, is wrong.
Liberalism cannot claim cultural neutrality. And the controversy over Salman Rushdie’s
Satanic Verses shows how wrong it is, since mainstream Islam refuses to separate reli-
gion and politics. ‘Liberalism is not a possible meeting ground to separate religion and
politics. Liberalism is not a possible meeting ground for all cultures, but is the political
expression of one range of cultures and quite incompatible with other cultures.’
The politics of recognition focuses on the different values, languages and symbols
of people. For example, it takes a Muslim woman’s belief in the principle of modesty as
equally fundamental to her humanity as the capacity for autonomy. The politics of rec-
ognition applies to many disadvantaged groups, including cultural minorities, women,
gays, African-Americans and the disabled. This theory is broader than that of Kym-
licka in that, while it accepts the importance of group rights, it maintains that rights are
unlikely to be enough to bring about mutual recognition between groups. Taylor does
support the group right of the Quebecois to self-government, but he is also concerned
that, for instance, granting the right to Sikh policemen to wear turbans on their patrols
means only that others must tolerate them: they do not have to appreciate the wear-
ing of the turban as a valuable cultural practice (the Government of France recently
banned Sikhs from wearing turbans). This goes against the values of a multicultural
society. The politics of recognition is concerned with transforming attitudes by ensur-
ing, for example, greater professional role models or political representation of minor-
ity cultures. It echoes feminist claims that while women may now have many formal
rights to equality, they will not gain real equality so long as they experience social
discrimination.
The politics of recognition is especially appropriate in relation to the vast tribal popu-
lation of India. They have a communitarian conception of life, and the politics of liberal
individualism is inadequate for their sense of justice. This is partly because it seeks to
give positive value to non-liberal groups. The politics of recognition appreciates that the
very idea of rights is problematic for indigenous people, because the concept depends
on the view that individuals are separate from one another and are the ultimate sourc-
es of value. The idea is often foreign to indigenous people, whose cultural framework
concentrates on people’s connection to others and to the environment. The politics of
recognition enables liberals to recognize not only a set of rights, but also a radically
different community’s understandings of justice and the good. Indeed, the politics of
recognition even question liberal conceptions of nationhood and sovereignty.
Bikhu Parekh presents another variety of multiculturalism. He criticizes Kymlicka
for his liberal conception of minority rights. Parekh argues that most societies today are
multicultural, and not all of them are liberal. A liberal theory of multicultural citizen-
ship has no relevance in the context of multicultural citizenship. Kymlicka is therefore
unable to show them why they should respect minority rights. Traditionally, political
theory has shown how all good societies should be organized, what rights they should
respect, and so on. Perhaps Kymlicka, like John Rawls in his second incarnation, thinks
that all political theory is necessarily embedded in and articulated within the frame-
work of a specific tradition. However, nowhere does he defend such an impoverished
view of his discipline. Kymlicka sometimes suggests that since we live in a liberal so-
ciety, we should conceptualize and defend minority rights in liberal terms. However,
calling our society liberal is to arbitrarily appropriate it for the liberals, and rule our
non-liberals by a definitional fiat. Non-liberals are very much part of our society, but
Kymlicka’s liberally articulated arguments hold no appeal for them. Part of his difficulty
arises from his assumption that every society has a single societal or national culture,
which leads him to impose a single and homogeneous identity on Western societies and
to turn liberalism into their collective or national culture.
Even if we accept Kymlicka’s view that our society is liberal, the problem would still
remain. By his own account, many of the minority communities are not liberal. They do
not share his liberal principles and base their demands on different grounds. For them,
the grounds on which Kymlicka defends their claims are not the ones on which they
rest their claims; besides, they impose a false or irrelevant self-understanding on them.
They would therefore see his theory as no more than an internal dialogue between
liberals, from whose results they do not mind benefiting, but whose terms and assump-
tions they disown. When two parties to a dispute do not share common principles,
one of them is bound to feel morally short-changed and complain of paternalism; it is
worse if their dispute is conducted entirely in terms of principles and idioms accept-
able to only one of them. A liberal theory of multicultural citizenship seeks to account
for the latter from within the framework of a monocultural theory, a paradoxical and
incoherent enterprise.
After criticizing Kymlicka, Parekh discusses his own understanding of multicultur-
alism, popularly known as the dialogical or conversational approach. The prospect of
conversation between people with radically different worldviews is distinct from other
approaches, in that it embraces the idea that cultural diversity is educational and a
cause for celebration; it is not merely a problem that must be controlled or overcome.
In a multicultural society, there are two important aspects to life. The first is the matter
of how conflicts should be resolved legally. This has received maximum attention from
the liberals. Parekh argues that conflicts can be resolved only through dialogue between
the majority and the minority. Conversation between the two helps a multicultural soci-
ety recognize that there are some liberal principles that should never be forsaken—such
as tolerance and dignity. At the same time, some non-liberal principles such as solidar-
ity, humility and selfishness can also find a place in a multicultural society.
The second aspect of multicultural life—one seldom discussed by liberal theorists—
is its common culture. Different cultures influence and illuminate the dominant soci-
ety’s music, dance, arts, literature and lifestyle through their participation. This leads to
the building up of a public culture. This common culture is likely to be the precondition
for an open-minded conversation on justice.
Multiculturalism in Practice
We have seen that there are serious deficiencies within the two dominant theoretical
strains of multicultural citizenship. Perhaps more significantly, a theoretical discus-
sion on multicultural citizenship has been predominantly concerned with minority or
group-differentiated rights. Here, a notable gap within multicultural citizenship arises
between the levels of theory and practice. This is evident upon an examination of mul-
ticultural citizenship regimes in practice, namely in Australia and Canada—the two
most prominent examples of countries with explicit multicultural citizenship policies.
As Joppke has shown, multicultural citizenship in Australia and Canada differ ‘from
that of the theorist by being a citizenship for all, not just for minorities’. Multicultural
rights in these contexts have not been limited to specific minorities, but have been
framed in terms of the entitlements of all citizens.
In the Australian experience, for instance, multiculturalism, at the point of its initial
adoption as policy, was expressed as allowing ‘all members of our society to have equal
opportunity to realize their full potential and must have equal access to programs and
services’, and ‘every person … to maintain his or her culture without prejudice or disad-
vantage’. Multicultural policies in Australia have always been couched in the language
of universalism and integration. Australia has always been concerned with interpreting
multicultural claims as demands for greater inclusion as citizens, and not as attempts
at fragmenting the policy into a set of strong and possibly mutually hostile communi-
ties. Hence the emphasis on multiculturalism as enhancing social cohesion within a
framework of shared fundamental values. Particular stress has been placed on the latter
since the late 1980s with the emergence of a ‘citizenship model’ of multiculturalism.
This model, articulated in the National Agenda for Australian Government policy docu-
ments, defines multiculturalism expressly in terms of the rights and obligations of citi-
zenship. Since the National Agenda, multiculturalism has been understood as conferring
the right to cultural identity, albeit balanced by a number of limits or obligations.
Canadian multiculturalism has been similarly situated within the boundaries of com-
mon political values and structures. It would, of course, be incorrect to conflate the Ca-
nadian experience of multiculturalism with that of the Australian. Most notably, while
Australian multiculturalism has essentially been a response to immigration, Canadian
multiculturalism cannot be understood in isolation from the claims for recognition
made by its French-speaking minority. The adoption in 1971 of a ‘multiculturalism’ has
sought not only to accommodate claims made by immigrant or ‘ethnic’ groups, but also
those made by the French-speaking minorities for a form of bilingualism. In contrast to
Australia, where the language and vehicle of multiculturalism have been frozen in a dia-
lect of universal citizenship and the territory of equal and identical rights, respectively,
Francophone claims for special rights have meant that multiculturalism in Canada has
been understood more expansively. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in
the so-called Meech Lake amendment to the Canadian constitution, which proposed
the recognition of Quebec as a ‘distinct society’, with possible variations in the interpre-
tation of the constitution in different parts of the country. While Australian multicultur-
alism has been delimited by a commitment to an existing political structure and culture,
Canadian multiculturalism has challenged the character of the existing Canadian politi-
cal system itself.
Multicultural Citizenship in India

Theoretically speaking, India can be considered a classic example of a multicultural
state. The constitution guarantees the protection of minority rights. In India, minor-
ity groups can be defined on the basis of religion, caste, ethnicity and language. Even
though the constitution protects these minorities through different provisions, there is
growing tension within the nation-state with regard to the problem of minority rights.
As we saw in the case of Canada and Australia, there is a huge gap between theory and
practice; the same is true of India. Theoretically, the Indian state is neutral. But there
have been many instances where the state has not functioned as a neutral player. While
secularism is a proclaimed policy in India, examples abound of instances where the state
has come out openly in favour of the majority. In Gujurat, the state openly supported
the majority religion. Similarly, different tribal groups have had their rights violated in
the name of development. And in most cases, the state has been party to the conflict.
The construction of big dams and mining displaces tribals from their territories and
livelihood, much against their wishes. This constitutes a violation of their fundamental
rights. Yet the state provides no adequate solution. Similarly, caste-based minorities
or Dalits face a similar situation. While the constitution protects their rights through
reservations, in many instances reservations have failed to guarantee their right. Dalits
continue to be marginalized. Many argue that reservation has divided the Dalits, with
the actual poor among them not receiving any benefits.
The state has failed to address the grievances of the minorities. The compulsions of
party politics has made political parties accountable to the majority. In the process, the
minority groups are discriminated against. So it is evident that a huge gap exists between
theory and practice. In India, the question of minority rights is being increasingly politi-
cized, and policy decisions depend on who comes to power. If the BJP comes to power,
there is Hindu dominance; if Congress comes to power, there is Muslim appeasement.
Each party has its own policy that dictates how the minorities should be viewed.
Conclusion
From the preceding discussion, we see that both liberal and radical attempts to define
multicultural citizenship have several problems. Radical theory’s attempt to ground mi-
nority rights in ‘oppression’ poses many difficulties, since the concept is very vague. On
the other hand, the more concise definition of social culture narrows down the range
of legitimate multicultural elements. Even though Kymlicka provides an exact elabora-
tion of who the minorities are, in most cases national minorities get precedence over
ethnic immigrants. It is significant to note that in practice, multicultural citizenship
has been exceedingly rare. Today, only Australia and Canada explicitly declare the use
of the doctrine. However, their multicultural citizenship differs significantly from what
we find in theory. The challenge of globalization has forced every society to have flex-
ible norms vis-à-vis their minorities. With the growth in communication technologies,
ethnic minorities have increasingly been asserting their rights. Even multiculturalism
is silent on the subject of intra-group inequality. Cultural differences cannot be a source
of discrimination and marginalization in the public arena. Multiculturalism therefore
needs to explore the ways through which the sense of alienation and disadvantage that
accompanies minority status are visibly diminished. It must therefore aspire towards a
form of citizenship that is marked neither by the universalism generated by complete
homogenization, nor by the particularism of closed communities having self-identities
of their own.
Summary
• Multiculturalism resists and challenges the fact and value of a single culture
society.
• It implies that several cultures can coexist within a particular nation-state.
• Cultural diversity is the essence of multiculturalism.
• Multiculturalism seeks primarily to address the question of minority rights.
• Due to globalization and international migration, the state is increasingly
becoming multi-ethnic.
• These new developments force the state to review the question of citizenship.
• There are primarily two theories of multicultural citizenship: radical and
liberal.
• Radical theory argues against universal citizenship. Instead, they propose the
concept of ‘differentiated citizenship’, which implies giving special rights to
oppressed groups.
• Radicals fail to provide an adequate definition of oppression. That is why their
theory is not accepted as a viable option.
• The liberal theory of multiculturalism was mainly proposed by Will Kymlicka.

He argued that minority rights must be protected in a multicultural nation-
state.
• Kymlicka argued that there are two kinds of minorities—national minorities and
ethnic minorities. Within a multination state are small cultures which are called
national minorities. Similarly, because of immigration, the nation-state acquires
the character of a multi-ethnic state.
• Kymlicka proposed three kinds of rights—self-government rights, poly-ethnic
rights and special representation rights.
• The problem with Kymlicka’s multiculturalism is that he analyses everything
from within the framework of liberalism. He has no solution for the cultural
communities that do not believe in the practice of liberalism.
• Apart from Kymlicka and Young, many others have spoken about multicultural-
ism. Prominent among them are Charles Taylor and Bikhu Parekh. While Charles
Taylor speaks of recognizing the difference between each culture, Bikhu Parekh
argues that only dialogue and conversation can build a true multicultural society.
• There is a huge gap between theory and practice in Australia and Canada with
regard to multicultural citizenship. In these contexts, multicultural rights have
not been limited to specific minorities, but have been framed in terms of the
entitlement of all citizens.
• Theoretically, India is a classic example of a multicultural state. But in some in-
stances minority rights are defined in the context of party politics.

1. What is ‘Multicultural Citizenship’? Examine the contemporary theories of multicultural
citizenship.
2. Discuss Kymlicka’s views on multicultural citizenship. Can we adopt his model in the
Indian context?
Suggested Readings
Carens, Joseph H., 2000, Culture, Citizenship and Community: A Contextual Exploration of Jus-
tice as Evenhandedness (New York: Oxford University Press).
Deb Kushal (ed.), 2002, Mapping Multiculturalism, (New Delhi: Rawat Publications).
Kukathas, Chandran, 1998, ‘Liberalism and Multiculturalism: The Politics of Indifference’,
Political Theory, 26 (5), pp. 686−99.
Kymlicka, Will, 1995, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press).
, 1998, Contemporary Political Theory (New Delhi: Oxford University Press).

Mahajan Gurpreet, 2002, The Multicultural Path (New Delhi: Sage Publications).
Miller, David, 1995, On Nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Parekh Bhikhu, 1997, ‘Dilemmas of a Multicultural Theory of Citizenship’, Constellations, 4 (1),
pp. 54−62
, 2000, Rethinking Multiculturalism (London: Macmillan).
Taylor, Charles, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Amy Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism: Examin-
ing the Politics of Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 25−74.
Young, Iris M., 1999, ‘Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the idea of Universal Citizen-
ship’, Ethics 99, pp. 250−74.
6
Republican Conception
of Citizenship
Swaha Das and Hari Nair
Every citizen holds office.

John F. Kennedy, 2003
Every year, we celebrate 26 January as our Republic Day. On this day, the national capi-
tal exhibits India’s military might and her cultural diversity with great aplomb. These
festivities commemorate the coming into force of the Constitution of Independent
India, the essence of which is enshrined in its preamble.
The preamble reads:
We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign, socialist,
secular, democratic republic, and to secure to all its citizens justice, social, economic and
political, liberty of thought, expression, belief and worship; equality of status and opportunity;
and to promote among them all, fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity
and integrity of the Nation; in our Constituent Assembly, this twenty-sixth day of November,
1949, do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this Constitution.
This preamble reflects the spirit of an active self-government, which means that the
people of India would act and represent themselves in accordance with the norms set
out by them, for themselves. Such a concept of governance makes our Constitution a
republican one. But what exactly does the idea of a republic entail, and how is it related
to the idea of citizenship?
In this chapter, we shall explore the significance of the concepts ‘republic’ and ‘citi-
zenship’ in the works of some of the most outstanding thinkers in the history of Western
Republican Conception of Citizenship 93
political thought. One important aim of such an exploration is to encourage the study of
the sources, especially the original writings of these thinkers.
From Words to Concepts

Let us begin with the etymology before moving on to the more complex task of con-
ceptualization. ‘Republic’, which is the first word in the title of this chapter, is derived
from the Latin term res publica. This term is comprised of the noun res-rei, which signi-
fies ‘thing’; and the adjective public-us-a-um, which means ‘public’. Therefore, the term
‘republic’ denotes ‘that thing which is in the public domain’. The other word in the title
is ‘citizen’. It is said to derive from a combination of the Latin noun civitas-civitatis, and
the German verb sein. While the former means ‘city understood as the State’, the latter
is equivalent to the English verb ‘to be’. So, ‘citizen’ may be interpreted as ‘one who is in
the city-state’ (Isin and Turner 2001: 5).
Let us now move towards conceptualizing the term ‘republicanism’. The concept of
republicanism entails the belief that governance is a public affair, which means that citi-
zens must actively participate in governing themselves (Dagger 2001: 145−58). How-
ever, staunch votaries of republican theories do not isolate the concept of republic from
that of citizenship because they believe that one does not exist without the other. For
them, republican citizenship involves a particular ethos.
This ethos envisages certain civic virtues for those who make up the republic. Civic
virtue is synonymous with the citizen’s duty of active political participation in public
affairs, which is necessary to ensure the republican’s most cherished value—freedom.
Although the elements of republican citizenship seem to belong to our age, it has a his-
tory that goes back at least two and a half millennia. A journey back in time in search of
the ‘origins’ of republican citizenship will take us to Classical Greece.
The Origins of a Political Vocabulary

Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. [...] It is
true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and
not of the few. […] There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our private business we
are neither suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbor if he does what he likes;
we do not put on sour looks at him which, though harmless, are not pleasant. While we are
thus unconstrained in our private business, a spirit of reverence pervades our public acts;
we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for the authorities and for the laws, having a
particular regard to those which are ordained for the protection of the injured as well as those
unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the general
sentiment.
This long passage is borrowed from the funeral declamation of Pericles. It has come
down to us through Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (2.37.1-2.37.3). Per-
icles’ oration reveals certain elements that are essential to the vocabulary of republican
citizenship, as revealed by the phrases ‘there is no exclusiveness in our public life’ and
‘we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for the authorities and for the laws’. The
Periclean declamation, which belonged to the ‘Golden Age’ of Athens, was inherited
by Plato’s Laws and the Aristotelian Politeiai. Let us now turn our attention to these
cardinal texts.
The Middle and Later Dialogues of Plato

Few books in Western history could make the same claims to greatness as Plato’s Repub-
lic. However, according to Leo Strauss, the Republic is about a city that Socrates founded
on ‘speech but not on deed’. Only metaphysical discussions on ‘justice’ and on ‘virtue
as knowledge of the good’ ever occurred there. The more practical elements of human
life—like laws and public opinion—were omitted, although these were no less signifi-
cant. This omission could be explained by locating Plato’s Republic within the context
of his entire oeuvre.
The Republic, which deals with the State ruled by the ideal ruler, belongs to the early
Platonic dialogues. However, with the passage of time, Plato doubted the possibility of
ever encountering an ideal ruler, or the philosopher-king. So he placed his trust in law,
which he described as the dispensation of human reason. Thus, Plato settled for what
he considered the second-best idea of the State, one that was governed by the rule of
law instead of the philosopher-king. Although this conception of the State founded on
laws appeared in the Statesman, which belonged to the middle period of the Platonic
dialogues, it became more evident in his last and longest dialogue, the Laws. Here, Plato
analysed the actual institutions of the State, and filled up the book with legal, constitu-
tional, administrative and socio-religious details.
We have these emotions in us, which act like cords or strings and tug us about; they work
in opposition, […] One of these dragging forces, according to our argument, demands our
constant obedience, and this […] cord, which is golden and holy, transmits the power of
‘calculation’, a power which in a state is called the public law; […]. The force exerted by law is
excellent, and one should always co-operate with it, because although ‘calculation’ is a noble
thing, it is gentle, not violent, and its efforts need assistants, so that the gold in us may prevail
over the other substances (Laws: 644d−645a).
Trevor Saunders, one of the finest scholars of Plato’s later political philosophy,
described the structure of Laws in great detail (Saunders 1978; Saunders 1992: 464−92).
This Platonic dialogue deals with the plans of an Athenian stranger, a Cretan and a
Spartan, to build a utopian State called ‘Magnesia’ in the south of Crete. This new colo-
ny would be constructed on the principles of moderation, compromise and the rule of
law. In fact, Plato expected unconditional obedience on the part of the citizens to the
laws of the State.
Magnesia would be a State where the law is interpreted in its spirit, and not merely in
letter. It would have a political constitution that lay midway between a monarchy and a
democracy. Political power was to be distributed amongst the more virtuous; however,
some amount of political influence would be guaranteed to the common citizen as well.
A complex political system was thus conceived of, whereby there would be an accom-
modation of different and opposing interests. The claims of propertied groups would
be reconciled with the democratic interests of the people. Besides, the radical elements
in Laws were also made evident when Plato urged the statesman to concern himself not
merely with the adult male citizen, but also with women, slaves and foreigners. Not only
were women to be educated, but they were to hold public office as well.
We are not going to withdraw our recommendation that so far as possible, in education
and everything else, the female sex should be on the same footing as the male. [...] If
women are not to follow absolutely the same way of life as men, then surely we shall
have to work out some other programme for them? [...] I am not going to change my
mind. A legislator should go the whole way and not stick at half-measures; he mustn’t
just regulate the men and allow women to live as they like and wallow in expensive
luxury. That would be to give the state only half the loaf of prosperity instead of the
whole of it (Laws: 805−806).
From Platonic Philosophy to Aristotelian Politics

Plato’s Laws and the Statesman became the points of departure for Aristotle when he
compiled his extensive empirical and historical evidence. This data aided Aristotle in
forming a consistent body of principles that would deal with both the actual and the
ideal forms of government. It is for this reason that he is considered the founder of the
discipline of politics. But so vast is the thematic content of the Aristotelian political
corpus that it is impossible to summarize it briefly.
Let us pose a few questions to Aristotle’s Politics and allow the text to speak to us
directly.
To the question ‘who is a citizen?’, Aristotle replied:
[…] a citizen is not a citizen because he inhabits a certain place […] But the citizen whom we
are seeking to define is a citizen in the strictest sense, against whom no such exception can be
taken, and his special characteristic is that he shares in the administration of justice, and in
office. [...] He who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration of
any state is said by us to be a citizen of that state; and, speaking generally, a state is a body of
citizens sufficing for the purposes of life (Politics: 1275a 5/22−1275b 20).
Again, if we were to prod him with the question ‘what is the virtue of the citizen?’,
Aristotle would answer after a prolonged analysis:
[…] one citizen differs from another, but the salvation of the community is the common
business of them all. […] It has been well said that he who has never learned to obey cannot
be a good commander. The excellence of the two is not the same, but the good citizen ought
to be capable of both; he should know how to govern like a freeman, and how to obey like a
freeman—these are the excellences of a citizen (Politics: 1276b 29−1277b 7-15).
Aristotle believed that the rule of law respected the dignity of the ruled, while a
despotic or personal regime did not. This was because a rule based on laws sought
to achieve the good of the whole community, rather than merely appeasing factional
interests. The good of the whole community became possible only when laws were leg-
islated by popular consent.
If we were to ask Aristotle, ‘what is the rule of law?’, he would comment:
[…] the rule of law is […] preferable to that of any individual. On the same principle,
even if it be better for certain individuals to govern, they should be made only guardians
and ministers of the law. For magistrates there must be authority—this is admitted; but
then men say that to give authority to any one man when all are equal is unjust. There
may indeed be cases which the law seems unable to determine, but such cases a man
could not determine either. […] Therefore he who bids the law rule may be deemed to
bid god and Reason alone rule, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast;
for desire is a wild beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are
the best of men. The law is reason unaffected by desire (Politics: 1287 a 20-30).
And again, if we were to nudge him into telling us ‘how are laws framed?’, he would
respond that ‘[…] customary laws have more weight, and relate to more important mat-
ters, than written laws, and a man may be a safer ruler than the written law, but not safer
than the customary law (Politics: 1287b 5).
However, if we were to insist on a definition of law, what would Aristotle say?
Now they agree in saying that whatever is decided by the majority of the citizens is to be
deemed law. Granted, but not without some reserve; since there are two classes out of which
a state is composed—the poor and the rich—that is to be deemed law, on which both or the
greater part of both agree; and if they disagree, that which is approved by the greater number,
and by those who have the higher qualification. […] the weaker are always asking for equality
and justice, but the stronger care for none of these things (Politics: 1318a 30-40/1318b 5).
We can see that definitions are not easy because one Aristotelian concept leads to an-
other, which in turn leads to yet another one. Thus, it is inappropriate to isolate a con-
cept merely for the sake of clarity or for purposes of establishing a definition, because
it is impossible to understand a part of the Aristotelian system without the knowledge
of the whole.
Nonetheless, despite having raced through Plato and Aristotle, it is time to put for-
ward a few general ideas on the nature of republican citizenship in ancient Greece.
We may conclude that it implied an obligation to participate in governance and in the
public affairs of the community. The ideal of citizenship was being a self-governing
member of a self-governing community, which was realized through holding politi-
cal and judicial functions. In order to lead the ‘good’ life, it was essential to fulfil these
political ideals. Shirking a political life was looked upon contemptuously as it betrayed
the public trust, and those who did so were described as idiots.
Politicking, Eloquently!
Certain principles of Greek politics were translated into Roman history through the
quill of Marcus Tullius Cicero (c.106−43 bc). As he himself said, he ‘taught philosophy
to speak Latin’. Before the time of Cicero, and even afterwards, Greek was the language
of the educated strata of Western society. With the rise of the Roman republic, but
especially since the ascendancy and expansion of the Roman Empire, Latin began to
compete with Greek as the language of the cultured elite. Soon, Latin became the lingua
franca for the West and remained so for many centuries after.
Cicero attempted to demonstrate that Roman political institutions embodied the
best of Greek political theory. Although Classical authors like Livy, Polybius, Tacitus
and Sallust also come to mind when one contemplates the republican tradition in An-
cient Rome, it is undoubtedly Cicero who epitomizes its climax, both in republican
theory and in its practice.
The work of Cicero is considered a landmark in Western political theory because he
was the first to provide a political theory in Latin accompanied by a structural analysis
of government. In his dialogues De oratore, De republica and De legibus, he championed
the value of political liberty, and the means to achieve it through rational debate in the
public forum.
Wherefore, despite its abuse by some in matters public and private, I think that the study
of eloquence must be cultivated with greater eagerness, in order to prevent wicked citizens
from dominating to the prejudice of the good citizens, and the common calamity of all;
especially because eloquence is an activity that concerns all affairs both public and private;
and as it is this that makes our life secure, dignified, illustrious and pleasant; which is always
accompanied by wisdom that moderates all human activity, thus providing greater benefits to
the state; from which is obtained that which possesses glory, honor and dignity; and which is
also the greatest and the most secure defense for friends (De inventione, Book I: 4).
Cicero was particularly concerned with preventing the abuse of power by anyone
holding public office. The avoidance of misuse was possible only through certain con-
straints, such as the rule of law, the distribution of power among many offices, limits on
the tenure in office, rotation of offices amongst citizens, etc.
And it certainly seems to me that no wisdom which was silent and destitute of skill in speaking
could have had such power as to turn men on a sudden from their previous customs, and to
lead them to the adoption of a different system of life. And, moreover, after cities had been
established how could men possibly have been induced to learn to cultivate integrity and to
maintain justice, and to be accustomed willingly to obey others, and to think it right not only
to encounter toil for the sake of the general advantage, but even to run the risk of losing their
lives, if men had not been able to persuade them by eloquence of the truth of those principles
which they had discovered by philosophy? Undoubtedly no one, if it had not been that he
was influenced by dignified and sweet eloquence, would ever have chosen to condescend to
appeal to law without violence, [....] (De inventione, Book I: 2).
However, Cicero’s lasting and most important contribution to the discourse of Clas-
sical Republicanism has been to bring together rhetoric and civic life, thus forming
what has been described as the ‘rhetorical republicanism of Cicero’ (Nederman 2000:
247−69). He highlighted the importance of language for the welfare of the republic:
‘The prudence of the [perfect orator] preserves the well-being of the audience (De ora-
tore, Book I: 8).
Eloquence which brims with wisdom was for Cicero the most prized asset for an
active public life. While rhetoric helped statesmen to persuade citizens, the audience
could, by employing their own rational and linguistic capacities, discern what was in-
deed best for the public good.
A New Beginning in Politics

The ideals of republican citizenship were obliterated with the rise of the authoritarian
rule that characterized the Roman Empire (first century bce–fifth century ce). The new
imperial legal system created various kinds of citizens, who were subjects of the emperor.
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century ce, Western Europe had no cen-
tralized authority for 1,000 years, during which local autonomy prevailed. This period is
known as the Middle Ages. Political authority was firmly re-established with the unifica-
tion of the Spanish kingdoms in ad 1492, thus giving birth to the modern nation-state.
In brief, the sixteenth century marked the dawn of a new age, when some of the fun-
damental institutions of the State as we know them today were being formed. A new
vocabulary of politics and new ways of thinking and writing about politics came into
being. We inherited the phrase ‘reason of state’ from Giovanni Botero; and since Jean
Bodin, the word ‘State’ became more commonly employed than before in political texts
(Skinner 1978). Above all, though, this period was the age of Nicholas Machiavelli.
In The Prince, Machiavelli idealized King Ferdinand of Aragon, who was largely re-
sponsible for the creation of the Spanish state. However, the Spanish invasion of Italy
in 1511 and the consequent collapse of the Florentine republic plunged the Italian pen-
insula into turmoil. These events awakened Machiavelli to political analysis, evident in
his Discourses on the first decade of Titus Livius—perhaps the ‘most original contribu-
tion to the theory of government’ (Skinner 2000: 56).
The originality of the book lies in the manner in which Machiavelli sought to resolve
a question that he poses at the beginning of the work. He wished to know how the Ro-
man republic had achieved greatness, and how it had become so dominant. Machiavelli
realized that a knowledge of the past was necessary if Florence was to imitate the success
of Ancient Roman republicanism. He concluded that freedom was the key to greatness—
freedom from tyranny and external enemies. Machiavelli believed that the most effective
way of maintaining freedom, or liberty, was through a mixed constitution, because mon-
archies, aristocracies and democracies were all inherently unstable. With the rule of law,
a mixed constitution was capable of balancing the opposing social forces. Along with law,
Machiavelli suggested the necessity of good education for instilling virtue in the people.
His works had such far-reaching influences that his age is often referred to as the ‘Machia-
vellian moment’, which is also the title of a ground-breaking work in Political Science.
In 1975, John Pocock published The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political
Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. This work showed that the active par-
ticipation of citizens in public life gave birth to the Florentine republican tradition.
Pocock affirmed that Florentine theory and Venetian practice bequeathed a paradig-
matic legacy to English and American political thought of the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries, through the works of Machiavelli and his contemporaries, especially
Francesco Guicciardini. This political legacy included concepts of balanced govern-
ment, dynamic virtue, and the role of arms and property in determining civic life.
Pocock also singled out James Harrington (1611−77) as the key figure in this tradition.
Let us now turn our attention towards this singular historical figure.
Anglo-Dutch Republicanism
It was during Harrington’s time that the terms ‘republic’ and ‘republicanism’ entered
the English language as appellations for ‘commonwealth men’. In his Commonwealth
of Oceana (1656), Harrington studied the fall of the English monarchy and suggested
institutions for a perfect commonwealth. He had proposed that representatives to all
public offices be elected through a secret ballot. Harrington also demonstrated that the
land tenure system determined who was governing and who wasn’t. In 1660, when the
monarchy in England was restored and Harrington was jailed, a current of Dutch Re-
publicanism had consolidated in Holland.
This can especially be seen in the works of the De la Court brothers (Haitsma Mulier
1987: 179−95). Dutch republicanism was based on the Venetian model, but with its
own original features. According to this model, sovereign power lay in an assembly of
citizens. Although the rich continued to rule, the distance between the ruling and the
rule was diminished because members of the ruling assembly lost their exclusive vot-
ing rights. Religion was made subordinate to the state. To be a citizen, one had to be of
independent means; otherwise, one was prone to corruption. Thus, business became
vital to liberty. The fame of the Dutch republican tradition spread to pre-revolutionary
France, where these ideas fascinated the brilliant political mind of Count Charles Louis
de Secondat Montesquieu (1689−1755).
Republican Citizenship During the Enlightenment

The issue that proved most worrisome for Montesquieu was despotism rather than re-
publicanism per se. He set the agenda on how republicanism would be discussed during
the eighteenth century. Montesquieu showed that any attempt to inculcate republican
virtues within a monarchy was fraudulent, because the ethos of one was not compat-
ible with that of the other. While monarchy glorified honour, it was virtue that guided
a republic. And the most important political virtue was equality.
Montesquieu moved away from the Machiavellian tradition of republicanism be-
cause he saw few similarities between the republics of the Ancient World and those of
contemporary Europe. He pointed out that Ancient republics were small in size, which
permitted the practice of civic virtue. However, the Europe of his time was constantly
expanding, and Montesquieu argued that republicanism would have to be creative to
face this challenge—a task that was taken up by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the repub-
licans of the American colonies (Shklar 1993: 265−79).
The citizen consents to all the laws, to those which are passed in spite of his opposition,
[…] The constant will of all the members of the State is the general will; it is by that they
are citizens and free. At Genoa, we see inscribed over the gates of their prisons and on
the chains affixed to their galley slaves the word ‘libertas’. This application of it is noble as
well as just. In fact it is only bad people in every State that hinder the citizens from being
free (Rousseau 1762, The Social Contract, Book IV, Continuing treats of political laws,
Chapter II, ‘Of Suffrage’).
Rousseau viewed liberty and the obedience of the individual to the law as essential
to any body politic. The citizen was conceived of as an autonomous agent capable of
laying down laws and obeying them to achieve public harmony and justice. The French
philosopher’s conception of the citizen was juridical, in tune with seventeenth and
eighteenth-century European political thought. However, did Rousseau contemplate
a place in the political sphere for women that corresponded to the role of men? If not,
then why didn’t he?
Transparency in Politics
Legend has it that the philosopher of Koenisberg, Immanuel Kant (1724−1804), had
only one picture in his study—that of Rousseau. The Prussian philosopher’s fascina-
tion with Rousseau might explain how some of the latter’s republican ideas spilled over
into Kant’s writings. Kant was faced with the problem of accommodating pragmatic
considerations with morality. He sought to resolve this issue through the ‘principle of
publicity’. The Kantian ‘principle of publicity’ could be translated into the language of
our times as the right to information.
Of late, legislatures around the world have enacted laws that allow their citizens easy
access to information regarding public affairs, thereby making governance more trans-
parent. India enacted the Right to Information Act in 2005. This is a truly republican
ideal which contrasts with the idea of empire. While imperial or colonial administra-
tion augmented the distinction between the governing and the governed, republican-
ism reduces the difference between the ruler and the ruled. The right to information
and laws of transparency reflect the Kantian ‘principle of publicity’, which he explained
thus:
If, like the teacher of law, I abstract from all the material of public law (i.e., abstract from
the various empirically given relationships of men in the state or of states to each other),
there remains only the form of publicity, the possibility of which is implied by every legal
claim, since without it there can be no justice (which can only be conceived as publicly
known) and thus no right, since it can be conferred only in accordance with justice. Every
legal claim must be capable of publicity. Since it is easy to judge whether it is so in a
particular case, i.e., whether it can be compatible with the principles of the agent, this
gives an easily applied criterion found a priori in reason, by which the falsity (opposition
to law) of the pretended claim (praetensio iuris) can, as it were, be immediately known
by an experiment of pure reason. Having set aside everything empirical in the concept
of civil or international law (such as the wickedness in human nature which necessitates
coercion), we can call the following proposition the transcendental formula of public law:
‘All actions relating to the right of other men are unjust if their maxim is not consistent
with publicity’. This principle is to be regarded not merely as ethical (as belonging to
the doctrine of virtue) but also as juridical (concerning the right of man) (Kant 1795,
Perpetual Peace, Appendix II, ‘Of the harmony which the transcendental concept of
public right establishes between morality and politics’).
For Kant, all political decisions had to pass public scrutiny if they were to be right and
just. Public scrutiny ensured that officers of the State acted in the interests of the entire
public, and not of a few. If a decision could not be made public, it meant that the agent
responsible for it was acting against the ethos of the republic; such a decision was therefore
immoral. Public approval meant that the consent of the people had been attained. Here,
Kant has attempted to balance rights with political morality (Maihofer 1993: 283−92).
The first half of this chapter highlighted certain elements of republican citizenship
in the West, from ancient times to circa 1500. We saw why Plato censured the idea of
the ‘philosopher-king’, and how he substituted ‘the ideal ruler’ with the principle of the
‘rule of law’. We then proceeded to the Aristotelian characterization of the citizen and
his virtues, the meaning of the rule of law, and how laws were framed. We concluded
this half by recognizing the importance of speech in the maintenance of a republic.
We must not ignore the fact that Aristotle excluded women, children and slaves from cit-
izenship. This sense of exclusion is present even today. Many contemporary States exclude
refugees and trans-gendered individuals from citizenship. However, we must note that the
Election Commission of India recently legitimized the identity of transsexual people.
In the second half of the chapter, we outlined various aspects of the European repub-
lican tradition. When dealing with the Siècle des lumières, we saw how Montesquieu
and Rousseau enshrined the values of equality and the rule of law. From the works of
Kant—the most representative philosopher of the Aufklärung—we highlighted the idea
of a public scrutiny of governmental decisions. Against this background, let us now
look at the leading issues in contemporary debates on republican citizenship.
Issues in Contemporary Debates on Republican Citizenship

Republican Citizenship and Liberalism
Today, many individuals view political participation as cumbersome, and prefer to con-
centrate on their work and families. Given the choice between an active participation in
public life and concentrating on one’s private life, many prefer the latter. This conflict of
choices arose out of the differences between the Liberal and republican concepts of citi-
zenship. The Liberal conception of citizenship is based on the idea that the liberty of the
individual citizen is secured when the State does not interfere in her/his private life. At
the same time, Liberals demand that the State protect the citizens’ rights and liberties.
Isaiah Berlin, a prominent twentieth-century Liberal, identified two conceptions of
liberty: (i) positive liberty, which is freedom as self-mastery, and (ii) negative liberty,
which is freedom as the absence of interference. Philip Petit, however, pointed out that
these two conceptions overlook another important dimension of freedom, which he
identified as the republican conception of freedom, or liberty as non-domination. It
signified that freedom is not the mere absence of interference from the State; rather, it
is the absence of arbitrary interference (Petit 1999: 51).
To avoid arbitrariness, republican citizens must subject themselves to laws they
themselves legislate. The rule of law creates a level ground for intra-communal rela-
tions. To sustain the freedom of the individual and the community as well as maintain
the rule of law, citizens must practice civic virtue. This means that citizens, in order to
be self-governing members of a self-governing community, must take active part in
the governance of the community. This idea was manifested in the dicta of Abraham
Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. In 1863, Lincoln enunciated the maxim of a ‘government
of the people, by the people and for the people’, while approximately one century later
Kennedy insisted that ‘every citizen holds office’.
Nonetheless, according to Michael Sandel, contemporary American political life is
dominated by liberalism, which elbowed out the rival political philosophy of republi-
can citizenship. The latter lost out because of the decline in the civic strands of Ameri-
can political discourse from the time of Thomas Jefferson. Sandel believes that despite
its faults, republican citizenship is a better alternative. He concedes that the republican
tradition in America coexisted with slavery, hostility towards immigrants, exclusion
of women from public life, and the imposition of wealth as a condition for exercising
suffrage. Notwithstanding these blemishes, republican citizenship, unlike liberalism,
does not merely lay emphasis on freedom. Instead, it requires citizens to deliberate with
one’s fellows to shape the destiny of the political community. For Michael Sandel, the
republican tradition is a viable antidote against an impoverished American civic life
(Sandel 1998: 4−6).
In short, there are several merits of republicanism over liberalism. Contemporary
republicans challenge the primacy attributed to private life over that of the public. They
argue that liberalism prioritizes individual rights, while insufficiently fostering the pub-
lic virtues of citizenship. Republicanism believes in the intrinsic value of political par-
ticipation as the highest form of human living. Republicans believe that the good life is
impossible without participating in public life. This belief, which is still in vogue within
the European tradition, is at least 2,500 years old. That was why we began this chapter
with Ancient Greece and Rome.
Differentiated Citizenship
Votaries of pluralism have argued that citizenship cannot be confined to rights or duties.
This is because the citizen of a State could simultaneously be a member of various other
communities. This view, which is often labelled ‘differentiated citizenship’, challenges

the prevailing conception of universal citizenship, which calls for equal rights for all
citizens under the law (Young 1990). The claim for group rights, or differentiated citi-
zenship, not only demands a greater inclusion of marginalized groups into the main-
stream of the political community, but could also be a call to respect the sentiments of
certain groups, who would govern themselves within their territories while celebrating
their own history, language and customs.
Gendering the Body Politic

We will conclude this chapter with a reference to the gendering of republics. This question
has been posed by many a feminist scholar. Luce Irigaray, a Belgian scholar, analysed the
ancient Greek character of Antigone, who had opposed the male regal power reposing
in governors and the government. Irigaray interpreted Antigone as one who said a firm
‘no’ to not only men’s power struggles over who would reign, but also to those struggles
involving Cupid, because all such quarrels led to never-ending wars. Apparently, for Iriga-
ray, amorous relationships between men and women were fraught with the potential for
violence. She criticized the existing gender bias in civic organizations, saying:
Men have been running society for centuries. They have therefore defined the laws according
to their own conceptions—conscious or unconscious, clear or obscure—of the state. They
have organized all human groups according to their needs or desires. […] Men’s lack of
civility begins with this key nodal point: men, and men alone, are capable of running the
city, of decreeing its civil and religious standards. According to them, these standards are
the truth, and no other is possible. These standards have existed for all eternity, or, at least,
throughout what they call History, their History. […] I am a woman and only a woman. As
such, I belong to one of the two genders of humankind, and I am related to the other. […]
Nature is thus never simple, in that it is always marked by gender. Any movement from
nature to culture is necessarily mediated through gender. […] Put more simply, if I respect
my own gender and that of the other sex, I am already in culture. It is of course true that these
two genders must be cultivated and freed from the alienation of their historic enslavement
or mastery. […] Obviously, this requires us to move to another era of history, another truth,
another philosophy. It also requires us to define another logic of politics and culture, a logic
based on two subjects, two genders, instead of one subject with differing characteristics, a
subject supposed to be universal and to which all men and all women could, indeed should,
equate themselves. […] If our species, our planet, if human History have a future, [sic] it is
desirable that every man and woman should fully take on this governing of society whatever
their function or their place within the polis (Irigaray 2004: 204, 208, 220−22).
Like Irigaray, Melissa Matthes re-interpreted the story of Lucretia—an aristocratic Ro-
man lady. There are different versions of this story, but briefly, the narrative goes that Sextus
Tarquinis, the son of the king, entered the bedroom of

Lucretia and made sexual advances on her in the absence of
the male members of her family. This dishonour led Lucre-
tia to ask her father and husband for a solemn pledge that
they would avenge the violation of her dignity, after which
she committed suicide.
Matthes re-read the way in which the legend of the
rape of Lucretia was used by both Machiavelli and
Rousseau to explain the origin of the republic. She says
that although the ‘republicans do not themselves rape Figure 6.1 The rape of Lucretia
by Titian
Lucretia, they found their citizenry on the recollection
of the temptation that the spectacle of her violations recalls’. And what exactly does it
recall?
Lucretia’s raped body as well as her story remain taboo throughout the life of the republic
because her sexual violation reminds her male kin of their own failed masculinity (they could
not safeguard her) and of their own continued desires for sexual conquest (each would like to
have the sexual and political power of the tyrant/rapist) (Matthes 2000: 6).
Does the administration of political power in states, including those with republican
forms of government, suffer from a gender deficit? What are your thoughts on the efforts to
empower and augment the political representation of women in India through legislation?
Conclusion
We began this chapter by examining the term ‘republican citizenship’, both etymo-
logically and conceptually. That examination led us to an historical exploration of
the nature of republican citizenship, from the Ancient Greco-Roman world through
Early-Modern Europe to the Age of Reason. This historical exploration was compli-
mented by a thematic analysis of three major issues in contemporary debates on repub-
lican citizenship. Nonetheless, the exposition of republican citizenship in this chapter
relies almost exclusively on Western texts, traditions and debates.
Would this imply that the ideas of republican citizenship are derived entirely from
the West? Are the republican elements in the Indian Constitution drawn solely from the
West? According to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, republicanism was not alien to India.
Intervening in the Constituent Assembly debates of 20 January 1947, he said:
We cannot say that the republican tradition is foreign to the genius of this country. We have
had it from the beginning of our history. When a few merchants from the north went down to
the south, one of the princes of the Deccan asked the question, ‘Who is your king?’ The answer
was ‘Some of us are governed by assemblies, some of us by kings.’ Kecid deso ganadhina,
kecid rajadhina. Panini, Megasthenes and Kauthilya refer to the republics of Ancient India.
The Great Buddha belonged to the republic of Kapilavastu. Much has been said about the
sovereignty of the people. We have held that the ultimate sovereignty rests with the moral
law, with the conscience of humanity. People as well as kings are subordinate to that dharma,
righteousness is the king of kings. Dharmam kshatrasya kshatram. It is the ruler of both
the people and the rulers themselves. It is the sovereignty of the law which we have asserted
(Constituent Assembly Debates 1999, Vol. II: 272).
Questions for discussion

1. Many Platonic works are in the form of dialogues. Dialogic communication is also a central
feature of republican citizenship. Do you think dialogue could be as effective within the fam-
ily and other communities inside the republic, and just as well amongst republics?
2. If we look at a common world map, we see that Europe is located at the centre, with Africa
and America to her West, and Asia and Oceania to her East. Besides, we also note that
Europe is not geographically separated from the Asian landmass; yet it is considered a
different continent. What does this tell us about Europe, and the nature of the knowledge
produced in Europe?
3. Democracy is generally understood as the rule of the many and is often equated with elec-
toral democracy. The most common example of electoral democracy is the parliamentary
form of democracy. The elected parliamentarians claim to represent the will of the people
whom they represent. How far does this kind of representative democracy ensure the
participation of the people in matters of government? Does electoral democracy fulfil the
objectives of republican citizenship?
4. Nelson Mandela stated in his Long walk to freedom that participatory democracy had an
African home. Would you be able to think of similar non-European, non-Western traditions
of republicanism?
5. Given below is a painting by Ravi Varma. This
is a scenic representation of the disrobing of
Draupadi. Please compare this episode from the
Mahabharata with the ‘Rape of Lucretia’. Both
instances show how the honour of women pro-
vided a forum for men to engage in politics, vio-
lence and warfare. What do these two paintings
tell us about the gendering of political life? Figure 6.2 The disrobing of Draupadi
by Ravi Varma
Works Cited
Dagger, Richard, ‘Republican citizenship’, in Engin Isin and Bryan Turner (eds), Handbook of
citizenship studies (London: Sage Publications, 2001).
Irigaray, Luce (ed.), 2004, Luce Irigaray: Key Writings (London and New York: Continuum).
Kennedy, John F., 2003 [1956], Profiles in Courage (New York: Harper Collins Publishers), p. 224.
Maihofer, Werner, ‘The ethos of the republic and the reality of politics’, in Gisela Bock, Quentin
Skinner and Maurizio Viroli (eds), Machiavelli and republicanism (Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Matthes, Melissa M., 2000, The rape of Lucrecia and the founding of the republics, (Pennsyl-
vania: Penn State University Press).
Mulier, Eco Haitsma, ‘The language of seventeenth-century republicanism in the United Prov-
inces: Dutch or European?’ in Anthony Pagden (ed.), The languages of political theory in
early modern Europe (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
Nederman, Cary, ‘Rhetoric, Reason and Republic: Ancient, Medieval and Modern’, in James
Hankins (ed.), Renaissance Civic Humanism (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Petit, Philip, 1999, Republicanism: A theory of freedom and government (New York: Oxford
University Press).
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1947, The Social Contract, edited by Charles Frankel on the basis of an
eighteenth-century translation (New York: Hafner Publishing Company).
Sandel, Michael, 1998, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press).
Saunders, Trevor J., translated with an introduction, 1978, Plato: The Laws (Harmondsworth:
Penguin).
Shklar, Judith, ‘Montesquieu and the new republicanism’, in Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner and
Maurizio Viroli (eds), Machiavelli and republicanism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1993).
Skinner, Quentin, 1978, The foundations of modern political thought (Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2 vols).
, ‘Plato’s later political thought’, in Richard Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge companion to
Plato, (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 464−92.
, 2000, Machiavelli: A very short introduction (Oxford and New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press).
Young, Iris Marion, 1990, Justice and the politics of difference (Princeton: Princeton University
Press).
Suggested Readings
The works of most classical authors are available on the Internet. These are not only acces-
sible and affordable, but are also easy to use. The Internet Classics Archive is one such
source.
Aristotle, 1941, The Basic works of Aristotle, Richard McKeon (ed.) (New York: Random
House).
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 1976, De inventione, The Loeb Classical Library (Cam., Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, and London: Heinemann).
, 1942−48, De oratore, The Loeb Classical Library (Cam., Massachusetts: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, and London: Heinemann).
Constituent Assembly Debates: Official Report, Reprinted by the Lok Sabha Secretariat (New
Delhi: Jainco Art India), 3rd Reprint, 1999. The proceedings of the Constituent Assembly are
available online at http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/debates.htm.
Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison and John Jay, 1961, The federalist papers (New York: New
American Library).
Kant, 1795, Perpetual Peace: A philosophical sketch. See http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/
kant/kant1.htm.
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 1986, The Discourses, with an introduction by Bernard Crick (Suffolk, Brit-
ain: Penguin Classics).
For the works of Plato, see Benjamin Jowett’s translations available on the Internet.
Rousseau, 1947, The Social Contract, edited by Charles Frankel on the basis of an eighteenth-
century translation (New York: Hafner Publishing Company).
7
Feminist Conception
Bijayalaxmi Nanda and Hena Singh
Women constitute half the world’s population, perform nearly two third of its work
hour, receive one tenth of the world’s income, and own less than one hundredth of
the world’s property.
United Nations Report, 1980
Introduction
Kiran lived with her five siblings and parents in an urban slum in Delhi. Her parents
provided for their family by doing menial jobs. Kiran dropped out of school by Class 5 in
order to look after her younger siblings at home when her mother went out for work. By
the time she was 16 years old, Kiran was married off to a man much older than her, work-
ing as a contractual labourer in Haryana. She became pregnant soon after her marriage.
In the next five years Kiran had three living children and had to struggle against all odds
to provide for them. Her husband was an alcoholic and subjected Kiran to both physical
and mental violence. In one such incident Kiran was so brutally beaten up by him that she
lost the use of her limbs. Today, at 22 years of age, Kiran has been confined to her bed and
left to die. Kiran is a citizen of India.
What do we feel when we read about cases like this? Kiran’s life is a harsh and miserable
mess where she has very little control over her circumstances. There are many people
like Kiran in India. What they have in common is that they are disadvantaged in multi-
ple ways and their vulnerability is compounded by the overlapping discrimination they
face. Kiran’s vulnerability is due to the fact that she is poor and uneducated, with little
or no resources of her own. Her disadvantageous position is especially compounded by

the fact that she is a woman. Her status as a citizen of India has not been able to extend
to her the rights and genuine opportunities that she had good reason to want or have.
This gap between the formal extension of citizenship rights and the substantial exercise
of those rights needs to be examined in order to develop a broader consensus on the
notion of an egalitarian society.
Citizenship is commonly viewed as an egalitarian idea that extends rights to persons
and groups and reduces difference, discrimination and subordination. However, its ori-
gin and development has shown that citizenship as a concept has also been exclusion-
ary in its practice. Many sections of the population have been traditionally considered
inadequate for citizenship, and hence have been denied any rights. These include slaves,
workers, colonized people and women. Feminism considers both classical and modern
notions of citizenship as inimical to women. The modern understanding of citizenship
as a gradual unfolding and universalization of rights has ignored the status of women
and their disadvantageous position when it comes to being and acting as a citizen.
Feminism, both as an ideology and a movement in support of women’s rights, has taken
a different path to overcome women’s exclusion from the political community. This
exclusion can be best understood by looking at the historical evolution of the concept
of citizenship.
Feminism is both an intellectual commitment to and a political movement seeking
justice for women, combined with a commitment to eradicating sexist domination and
transforming society. It is an awareness of the oppression and exploitation women face
in society, at work and within the family, and deals with the conscious action taken
by women and men to change this situation. There are different strands of feminism
which differ on how best to pursue these commitments, for instance liberal feminism,
radical feminism, Marxist feminism, etc.
The Origin and Development of Citizenship and

the Exclusion of Women
The development of citizenship can be traced back to ancient Greece. The ancient
Greek city-states recognized citizenship as basically the right to participate in the life
of city-states. While this idea of citizenship seemed emancipatory, it excluded women,
children, slaves and resident aliens. It basically bestowed the rights of participation on
a small section of the population, that is, free native-born men. Even thinkers as great
as Aristotle thought that the ‘female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities,
we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness’ (Politics,
Book I). Although Aristotle was quick to realize that women did have deliberative fac-
ulties which made them better than slaves, he believed that the virtual absence of a
Feminist Conception 111
thinking capacity meant that they were to play a passive role as compared to men. So
citizenship in ancient Greece was a privilege not extended to women. With the estab-
lishment of the Roman Empire, the recognition of citizenship as a legal status did make
it possible to bring about a certain degree of inclusiveness. However, women and rural
classes were still not considered citizens.
This bias vis-à-vis women continued even in the medieval period. St. Thomas Aqui-
nas (1225−74) in particular pronounced woman an ‘imperfect man and an incidental
being’ (Summa Theologica, Book I). His ideas are a clear representation of a widely
supported notion regarding women: ‘The woman is subject to man on account of the
weakness of her nature . . .. Man is the beginning of woman and her end, just as God is
the beginning and end of every creature.’
In the early modern period, Niccolo Machiavelli depicted women as manipulative,
greedy and vain. He further said that women were unintelligent, annoying and depen-
dent on men. Machiavelli showed no indication of valuing women as smart, positive
humans who were deserving of respect.
These beliefs, which regard women as despised beings as illustrated in the Aquinian,
Aristotelian and Machiavellian ideas, is referred to as ‘misogyny’, which literally means
‘hatred for woman’.
Among Social Contractualists, Thomas Hobbes was quite vocal in extending equal
rights to women in the State of Nature on the ground that since ‘the birth follows the
belly’, the mother is in fact the original ‘lord’ of her children in the State of Nature.
However, in the course of his discussion, Hobbes says that the Commonwealths have
been erected by the fathers, and not by the mothers of families. He never explains why
it was fathers rather than mothers who came to be in a position to do so, given the
original equality between the sexes. Hobbes defines a family as ‘a man and his chil-
dren; or of a man and his servants; or a man, and his children, and servants together:
wherein the father or master is the sovereign’ (Leviathan: Ch. XX). Nowhere does he
explain or justify the unequal position of women in the family and political society of
his time.
John Locke did not share Hobbes’ view that the state of nature was a condition of
sexual equality. While agreeing that mothers have equal entitlements as fathers to power
over their minor children, he contradicts himself to justify the subordination of wives
to husbands with regard to matters of common interest and property. Locke argues
that since men are ‘abler and stronger’, they have rightfully earned the power of final
decision-making within the family.
Rousseau’s ideas about women are in complete contradiction with his general prin-
ciples of equality and democracy. He argues that women do not need equality either
within or outside their homes as their nature renders them incapable of any role out-
side the domestic sphere. According to him, the entire education of women should be
relative to that of men, and their goal in life should be to be pleasing to men. In fact, he
warned that if women did not make themselves pleasing to men, they would end up as
only their slaves. He concluded that only a man had the potential to be a natural indi-
vidual or citizen, while a woman could not be either. Her destiny is to lead a life within
a patriarchal family.
In Rousseau’s view, while women were to be denied citizenship rights, the idea of
citizenship was central to men. He believed that civic virtue and participation were the
necessary elements of citizenship. Montesquieu argued along similar lines, saying that
a state should be based on the principle of popular participation and its stability should
be dependent on the civic virtue of citizens.
The ideas of Rousseau and Montesquieu influenced the American and the French
Revolutions. The French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citi-
zens led to the notion of the citizen as a free and autonomous individual. Ironically,
women continued to be denied citizenship rights, even though they were active in the
French Revolution and had assumed that citizenship was theirs by right by virtue of
their active participation. In fact, Olymphe de Gouges, a French playwright and a fierce
Republican, founded several women’s organizations during this time. In 1791, she pub-
lished a pamphlet entitled ‘Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens’, which
was a response to the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens. Echoing
the sentiments of the declaration, her pamphlet asserted the need to extend it to women
as well. De Gouges asserted women’s capacity for reason and to make moral decisions
and pointed towards the feminine virtues of emotion and feeling. Woman was not sim-
ply the same as man, she was his equal partner. The titles of the French versions of the
two declarations makes this mirroring clear: in French, de Gouges’ manifesto was the
Déclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne—not just Woman contrasted
with Man, but Citoyenne contrasted with Citoyen.
As a revolutionary, she raised the issue that men were not just political and rational
citizens, but equal partners with women in the act of reproduction. Since men could be
seen to be sharing the task of reproduction, women should also be considered members
of the political and public aspects of society along with men. For asserting the equality of
women and for refusing to be silent on the issue of rights for women, Olympe de Gouges
was arrested in 1793 and sent to the guillotine for not behaving like a ‘virtuous’ woman.
As capitalism grew in importance and liberal ideas took wider root in the nineteenth
century, the demand for equal citizenship gained ascendancy. Citizenship now came to
be seen as full membership of a political community with all the necessary rights. Al-
though this idea of modern citizenship was based on egalitarian norms, women, along
with coloured and colonized people, still continued to be denied full citizenship rights.
Thus the conflict between citizenship rights and capitalism, along with the denial of
equal status to many (for example women, workers, black people, colonized people,
etc.), became the main ground for a criticism of liberal citizenship. Marxists, feminists
and communitarians have critiqued citizenship’s promise of equality, which does not
take into account the practical ability to exercise rights.
In almost every part of the world, women were given voting rights much after men.
The right to work, parity of income and right to property continue to be based on an
understanding of women as second-class citizens. Women thus continue to be regarded
as inadequate when it comes to achieving full citizenship rights.
BOX 7.1 THE RIGHT TO VOTE
The right to vote has been granted to women and revoked at various times in various
countries throughout the world. In many countries, women’s suffrage was granted in a
limited manner whereby women (and men) from certain races and social classes were
still unable to vote. The first unrestricted women’s suffrage in terms of voting rights in a
self-governing country was granted in New Zeland in 1893. The first state to grant uni-
versal suffrage and allow women to contest elections to the parliament was South Aus-
tralia, in 1894. The first European country to introduce women’s suffrage was Finland,
where women were granted the right both to vote (universal and equal suffrage) and
contest elections in 1906. The world’s first female members of parliament also came
from Finland, when in the 1907 parliamentary election 19 women were elected to the
Parliament of Finland. Similarly, in the years before World War I, Norway (1913) and
Denmark also gave women the vote, and it was extended throughout the remaining
Australian states. Canada granted women the right in 1917 (except in Quebec, where
it was postponed till 1940), as did the Soviet Union. British women over 30 and all
German and Polish women had the vote in 1918, and in America, states that had previ-
ously denied women suffrage allowed them the vote in 1920. Women in Turkey were
granted voting rights in 1926. In 1928, suffrage was extended to all British women.
With the growing trends of globalization, multiculturalism and universality of human

rights, citizenship itself has come to be redefined in present times. However, feminists
are sceptical of the extent to which these trends will contribute to the enhancement of
the citizenship rights of women.
Feminist Visions for Gendered Citizenship

A common starting point for all feminist ideas on citizenship is the belief that women
are disadvantaged in comparison to men in the exercise of full citizenship rights. The
nature of citizenship rights, which emerged over time and were formally established
with the French Revolution and the American Declaration of Independence, was in-
imical to women.
BOX 7.2 SENECA FALL
In the USA, the Women’s Rights movement led by Elizabeth C. Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony had its origins in the Anti-Slavery and Temperance Campaigns. The exclu-
sion of women delegates, including Stanton, from the World Anti-Slavery Conven-
tion held in London in 1840 resulted in the famous Seneca Falls Convention of 1848
and its Declaration of Sentiments, which sought to apply the principles of the US
Declaration of Independence to women.
The idea of ‘uniform’ citizenship was applied only in theory, and not in practice. The
conceptualization of citizenship as a status and a practice has been viewed by feminists
as excluding women. Any expansion of citizenship rights to women over a period of
time can be attributed to the struggles of women all over the world. The feminist alter-
native to the ‘gender blind’ idea of citizenship involves diverse approaches.
One of these is the liberal approach, which builds on the writings of Mary Woll-
stonecraft and John Stuart Mill. Writing in 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft recognized the
significance of equality in the household as a prerequisite for good citizenship, and
argued for the need to consider women as rational creatures and free citizens, which
would in turn enable them to become good wives and mothers.
Mary Wollstonecraft (27 April 1759–10 September 1797) was a British writer, phi-
losopher and feminist. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman, in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but only
appear to be because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women
should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.
Today, Wollstonecraft is considered a foundational thinker in feminist philosophy.
Her early advocacy of women’s equality and her attacks on conventional femininity
and the degradation of women presaged the later emergence of the feminist move-
ment. Feminist scholars and activists have cited both her philosophical ideas and her
personal struggles as important influences on their work.
John Stuart Mill (1806−73) is seen as the most sensitive of the liberal writers. His
1869 work, The Subjection of Women, is considered a classic statement of liberal fem-
inism. Its essential argument is that if freedom is good for men, it is so for women
too, and that every argument against this view, drawn from the supposedly different
‘natures’ of men and women, is erroneous. If women do have a different nature from
that of men, the only way to discover what that is is through experiment; and that
requires women to have access to everything that men have access to.
According to Wollstonecraft, women cannot perform their domestic duties prop-

erly without the protection of civil rights and rational education, and if they fail here,
then social decay must follow. Women, in her opinion, form an oppressed group. The
most oppressive element in women’s lives is their lack of control over themselves. Woll-
stonecraft was convinced that sexual inequality operates primarily on a psychologi-
cal level. She identified slavery as being first a state of mind, and it is this quality that
allows women to be simultaneously slave and tyrant. Wollstonecraft thus recognized
that women’s disabilities do not lie solely in their exclusion from rights, but also in a
patriarchal culture which creates obstacles in their path. Wollstonecraft’s agenda for
women’s emancipation is a typically liberal one: education, civil rights, an opportunity
to compete, access to occupations and political representation. Out of these, rational
education was most crucial to her. She felt that first, this is important to provide women
with an identity, and second, that it was a right. As rational beings, all persons deserve
the opportunity to develop their faculties in order to achieve self-determination, au-
tonomy and virtue. Also, a proper education is essential if orderly thought processes
are to emerge. These are necessary not only for women to achieve self-respect, but also
for their role as citizens. A sound education for both sexes thus not only serves public
utility, but it is also primarily associated with liberty for women.
Continuing in the same tradition, John Stuart Mill, one of the most significant liberal
thinkers, applied the premises of the liberal doctrine explicitly to women. Mill believed
in complete sexual equality in all legal, political, social and domestic relations. Indi-
viduals cannot develop their faculties in isolation. Liberty of expression was essential
and especially significant for women, whose expressive powers have been so effectively
stifled. Mill was convinced that women would fail to develop if they were excluded
from public involvement, and that society as a whole would be impoverished if their
contribution was denied. Mill argued that participation of women in public activities
opened doors to their emancipation. The family was the most important institution in
the inculcation of progressive social and political values, and the sphere in which moral
education could be imparted. Hence, if women were to use their potential in occupa-
tions of their choice, it would double the mental faculties available at the disposal of
humanity; and the additional competition would only stimulate men’s own intellect.
According to Mill, the exclusion of women from the public arena was a malaise, which
could be overcome only through encouraging the effective participation of women in
the public sphere. This, he argued, would result in societal levelling.
Mill’s ideas on women’s equality were far ahead of his times. Later liberals like John
Rawls, who contributed greatly to the notion of justice in society, ignored the issue of
women’s subordination. Liberal feminist Susan M. Okin offered a critique and a chal-
lenge to Rawls’ theory of justice. According to Okin, Rawls’ standards of justice in a
liberal democratic society are defined in terms of the male heads of families, who are
members of the paid workforce. Okin argues that this implicit uncritical acceptance of
male dominance and subsequent definitions of standards of justice within traditional
ideas of male-headed families leads to an ignoring of women, who exist primarily in
the private sphere. She further argues that when women’s domestic labour is ignored
in the private sphere, it leads to a denial of her assertion in the public sphere. Since
women are responsible for the time-consuming and exhausting household chores, they
have little time for involvement as full-time citizens in the public sphere. This renders
women’s work invisible, and silences their voices. Therefore Okin suggests that equality
within a household needs to first be ensured for women to be truly equal citizens in the
public sphere. This argument leads to a questioning of the public-private divide.
Private and Public Divide

In an attempt to oppose all forms of discrimination against women, feminists have
argued that the terms ‘political’ or ‘the public’ need to be redefined. The subordina-
tion and exclusion of women is due to their presence in and identification with the
domestic sphere, and the emphasis placed on their domestic role. This approach calls
for a sexual revolution, one that will restructure personal, family and domestic lives.
Feminist discourses reject the traditional public-private divide. Traditional notions of
what constitutes the political locate politics in the arena of the public rather than the
private life, which refers to social arrangements within the family. Politics is seen as
related to institutions of government, political parties, organized pressure groups, etc.
Family life and personal relations are normally thought to be part of a private sphere,
and hence non-political. Feminists reject such assertions, and hold that politics as an
activity takes place within all social groups and is not merely confined to the affairs of
the government or other public bodies. Politics exists whenever and wherever there is
social conflict. It is against this backdrop that Carole Hanisch coined the slogan ‘Per-
sonal is Political’. This slogan was later popularized by Kate Millett in the 1950s, and has
become the basis for the perspective held by radical feminism. Millett argues that in all
societies, the relationship between the sexes has been based on power, and is therefore
to be considered political. This power takes the form of male domination over women
in all areas of life. This domination is so pervasive and universal that it appears natu-
ral. It begins in the family and is reinforced by the state, religion, literature, the media,
education, and also through force (particularly sexual violence). This hinders women’s
ability to exercise their citizenship rights, formally granted to them in the public sphere.
A woman’s well-documented exclusion from citizenship rights can, therefore, be seen
both as a symptom and a cause of gender inequality.
Socialist feminists do not only recognize what radical feminists like Millett have
argued to challenge the public-private distinction, but also emphasize that the
formulations of an effective feminist politics must be based on an understanding of

the interrelationship between economic, political and personal life. Socialist Femi-
nists do this by combining the radical perspective with a Marxist class analysis, and
by exploring the interrelationship between capitalism and patriarchy.
BOX 7.4 THE SEX-GENDER DISTINCTION
‘Sex’ generally refers to biology and anatomy. People are said to be of the male sex
or the female sex, as determined by three sets of characteristics: external sex organs,
internal sex organs and secondary sexual development at puberty. The word ‘sex’ is
also used to mean sexual intercourse or activity. Gender refers to the social attri-
butes and opportunities associated with being male and female, and the relationships
between women and men and girls and boys, as well as the relations between women
and those between men. These attributes, opportunities and relationships are social-
ly constructed and are learned through the socialization processes. They are context/
time-specific and changeable. While sex can be considered biologically and naturally
determined, gender is not natural but is socially constructed.
In order to understand the exclusion of women from full citizenship, these interrela-
tions need to be studied. An important viewpoint here is that of Juliet Mitchell, who has
argued that women’s situation is determined by four structures—production, reproduc-
tion, sexuality and the socialization of children. According to Mitchell, women’s body
structure appears to render them less useful members of a workforce. In the early stages
of social development, man’s physical superiority gave him the means to conquer nature,
something that was denied to women. According to Mitchell, women were assigned un-
skilled work such as maintenance of the household, while men were entrusted with the
tasks of conquest and creation. This resulted in women becoming an extension of private
property. Similarly, women’s absence from the critical sector of production is not only
because of their assumed physical weakness, but also because of her role in reproduc-
tion. Maternity necessitates withdrawal from work, and leads to work such as bearing
children, bringing them up and maintaining the home, all of which is taken as the core of
woman’s natural vocation. This belief is further strengthened by the seeming universality
of the family as a human institution. As far as the sexuality factor is concerned, Mitchell
believes that historically women have been appropriated as sexual objects, as much as
progenitors or producers. On the issue of the socialization of children, Mitchell contends
that woman’s biological ‘destiny’ as mother becomes a cultural vocation in her role as
socializer of children. It is in bringing up children that woman achieves her main social
definition. Her suitability for the role of socialization springs from her physiological
condition: her ability to produce milk and the occasional relative inability to undertake
strenuous work. The Socialist approach thus argues that both women and men will gain
from the socialist transformation of society, that is, when the means of production are
socialized. This will also result in the elimination of all forms of oppression and make
women’s access to substantive citizenship rights possible.
Maternal feminism is yet another approach to have contributed significantly to the
feminist vision of citizenship by suggesting that the idea of citizenship be re-examined
by encompassing the ‘feminine’ values of ‘nurture, care and share’ in the public sphere.
Maternal feminists believe that a feminist political ethic may be derived from women’s
traditional culture, practice and experience. Carol Gilligan’s study, In a Different Voice
(1982), is based primarily on the moral views of women who were deciding whether
to have an abortion, and she discovered that these women had a conception of the
self that was different from that of most men. Women saw themselves as connected to
others rather than as autonomous and separate, which is how men tend to see them-
selves. Gilligan also argued that women tend to emphasize relationships with others,
and give these relationships priority over abstract rights. They are more mindful of
the consequences of an action instead of just the principle by which these actions may
be judged right or wrong. They tend to interpret moral choices in the particular con-
text in which they are made, rather than judging them hypothetically or in an abstract
manner. Women’s moral ‘voice’ has gone unheard so long because their way of mak-
ing moral judgements is deemed inferior to that of men, whose ‘voice’ is taken as the
norm. Gilligan talked about the feminist ethics of sentimental care, which takes into
account ‘feminine’ values of ‘nurture, care and share’, as well as women’s traditional
culture, practice and experience to replace a masculinist sense of justice that debars
women from occupying space in the public sphere. Seyla Benhabib, in her co-edited
work The Generalised and the Concrete Other (1988), supported Gilligan’s ideas because
they highlight the ways in which women have been left out and alienated by male ways
of posing moral dilemmas. She stressed the need to take into account the problems of
women when making moral judgements, and to that end demanded a more integrated
vision of women and their fellow human beings.
Nancy Chodorow in The Reproduction of Mothering (1978) says that the need to
mother is born out of psychosocial conditioning. It is because of this conditioning that
boys grow up with an inability to relate deeply to others, but with the single-minded
competitive values that are necessary in public life, whereas girls grow up to reproduce
their mothers’ capacity to relate to others, to nurture and to mother. These qualities
of mothering have been undervalued in the public sphere. However, Chodorow ar-
gues that if men and women were equal partners in mothering, girls and boys would
not grow up with these different qualities. Men would then be more loving and more
connected with others, and women would be more autonomous and competitive. Sara
Ruddick focuses upon the different but positive values that have emerged from women’s
domestic experience, in particular from their maternal role. She proposes that these
values should become the standard for the exercise of citizenship rights.
Civic feminists like Mary Dietz reclaimed active collective politics as the essence of
citizenship. She believed that women should actively engage as citizens in the public
world, and give importance to citizenship itself as a value. Only through this can a
truly liberatory politics be claimed by feminists. Iris Marion Young and Anne Philips
also emphasized active political citizenship as essential for full citizenship for women.
Young has made a significant contribution to the idea of feminism and citizenship with
her notion of differentiated citizenship. She is critical of the republican tradition of citi-
zenship, which undermines the differences between groups and considers citizenship
universal in nature. Young feels that different social groups have their unique needs and
identities. Certain groups are oppressed, while some are privileged. She puts forth the
idea of differentiated citizenship where group differences are not to be ignored, but rec-
ognized and respected. This can be done by making available special forums and forms
of representation for disadvantaged groups, and through the allocation of adequate re-
sources, in order to integrate them as full citizens.
Anne Philips emphasizes the value of political representation in the process of women
becoming full citizens. She believes that formal women political representatives may not
be formally accountable to women. However, she argues that women have some interests
in common, for instance childbearing, exposure to sexual harassment and violence, their
unequal position in the division of paid and unpaid labour, and their exclusion from most
arenas of economic and political power. They need to be represented in political institu-
tions and this, in Philips’ terms, is the ‘politics of presence’. She contrasts this politics of
presence with a ‘politics of ideas’. In the model of politics of ideas, what is important is the
responsiveness of representatives to their electorate in the policies they produce; as long as
this is the case, it does not matter who these representatives are, whether men or women:
‘The messages will vary, but it hardly matters if the messengers are the same’ (Jane 2002:
39). On the other hand, for a politics of presence, the identity of these ‘messengers’ is
vital—they must be representative of the electorate in the sense of shared identity and ex-
perience, and a vital part of this shared identity and experience is constituted by gender.
BOX 7.5 THE POLITICS OF PRESENCE IN INDIA
The demand for greater representation of women in political institutions in India

was first addressed through setting up the Committee on the Status of Women in
India (CSWI) in 1974. Before this, the focus of the growing women’s movement had
been solely on improving women’s socio-economic position. The CSWI report, ‘To-
wards Equality’, suggested that women’s representation in political institutions, espe-
cially at the grassroots level, needed to be increased through a policy of reservation
(Continued)
of seats for women. In 1988, the National Perspective Plan for Women suggested that
a 30 per cent quota for women be introduced at all levels of elective bodies. Women’s
groups insisted that reservation be restricted to the panchayat (village council) level
to encourage grassroots participation in politics. The consensus around this demand
resulted in the adoption of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Indian Consti-
tution in 1993. Providing reservation to women was indeed a revolutionary step,
but the desired outcome is yet to be achieved. A Constitutional amendment—The
Women’s Reservation Bill (WRB)—was introduced in parliament in 1996, and is still
pending and politically contentious. The Bill has been passed in the Rajya Sabha in
the 2010 Parliament session and is awaiting its passage in the Lok Sabha. This Bill,
which proposes a reservation of 33 per cent seats in parliament for women, is drawn
from arguments influenced by what Philips calls ‘the politics of presence’.
Chantal Mouffe argues that women will be extended full citizenship rights if they
go beyond the conception of citizenship proffered by both the liberal and civic repub-
lican traditions, albeit while building on their respective strengths. She suggests that
free and equal rights, as well as active political participation and civic engagements,
are essential for the attainment of full citizenship. Ruth Lister is of a similar opinion.
According to her, citizenship will be of immense value to women when it follows a
synthetic approach, that is, when it embraces both individual rights (in particular
social and reproductive rights) and political participation. She believes that at the
core of this conceptualization is the idea of human agency, that is, women can be both
agents and victims in their own lives, capable of exercising power to realize the goal
of self-actualization.
Amartya Sen has claimed that the issue of gender inequality can be understood
much better by comparing those things that matter intrinsically (such as functionings
and capabilities), rather than just the means to achieve them—like resources, for in-
stance. The capability approach that he forwarded advocates that we should focus on
people’s capabilities when making normative evaluations. Capabilities are people’s po-
tential functionings. Functionings are beings and doings in the sense that they signify
how capabilities are actualized. While literacy is a capability, reading is a functioning.
Together, all capabilities correspond to the overall freedom that enables a person to lead
a life s/he values. Martha Nussbaum has argued for a list of capabilities that will lead to
gender equality so women can participate as equal citizens. This list, which includes 10
capabilities, are: life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses; imagination and thought;
emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other species; play; control over one’s environ-
ment. These capabilities suggest that women’s well-being is dependent on their access to
healthcare, education, entertainment, and an overall environment which provides them
with mobility and dignity.
Third-world feminists like Chandra Talpade Mohanty believe that the ideas of femi-
nism and citizenship that emerge from the Western world ignore the complex situa-
tions governing the lives of women in developing countries. Being ethnocentric, they
do not take into account the specific problems faced by women in developing countries.
She states that the unique experiences of these women and the indigenous feminisms
emerging there should be taken into account to provide a holistic vision of the idea of
citizenship. This theory is also supported by proponents of black feminism and post-
colonial feminism. Contemporary feminism also offers alternatives to the existing idea
of citizenship.
Contemporary Feminist Alternatives

Debates within contemporary feminism enrich ideas of citizenship. Contemporary
feminists emphasize the need for a greater recognition of the differences of class, caste,
religion, ethnicity, sexuality, race, and their interconnections with women’s access to
full citizenship. They have been largely sceptical about the current ideas of multicul-
turalism, globalization, universality of human rights, and their advantages for women’s
access to full citizenship. They argue that on the contrary, these trends deprive women
of their rights and threaten to roll back all that feminism has gained so far. While there
have been widespread celebrations of the positive transformative abilities of globaliza-
tion for citizenship, contemporary feminists have viewed this with scepticism. They do
not see globalization as a uniform and unilinear process. According to them, the influ-
ence of neo-liberalization and global interests has resulted in a shrinking of the political
space for citizenship. With the rolling back of the frontiers of state from the social sector,
the domain of social citizenship has suffered huge losses. These changes have proved
particularly harmful to women’s citizenship.
The withdrawal of the state from the arena of social citizenship has resulted in set-
backs to women’s rights, especially for those belonging to marginalized sections. Re-
sources that were earlier spent on women’s emancipation, especially in the fields of
health, education and employment, have all been reduced following government poli-
cies supportive of global capitalism. This deprivation of resources affects marginalized
and vulnerable groups like workers and women in developing countries. Globalization
relies on exploiting and reinforcing the position of women as second-class citizens.
Women in underdeveloped countries are being driven out of education in even greater
numbers today in the hope of securing employment in informal sectors, which have
blossomed in a globalized economy.
These changes are part of the globalization of production and the market. Within
states, they represent a dramatic shift from public to private expenditure. First, cutbacks
in state services like health, education and social security particularly affect women’s
employment opportunities. Second, women everywhere are overwhelmingly respon-

sible for family and household maintenance, and must compensate through their own
time and labour (often inadequate) when state support is reduced or removed. Third,
the costs of globalization are not evenly spread, resulting in the growth of a feminiza-
tion of poverty. Fourth, transnational corporations prefer female labour. This prefer-
ence is a typical reflection of women’s acceptance of bad working conditions, and their
willingness to work under fragile casual contracts where they can be easily hired and
fired. The very process of such employment generation often plays a role in changing
the gender equations and relative power in society, and leading to a market-based eco-
nomic participation, which is seen as the most important means to women’s economic
empowerment. The picture of women’s employment under globalization is thus com-
plex, reflecting the apparent advantages that higher incomes and recognition of their
work bring to women, as well as the dangers and difficulties that arise out of contractual
employment conditions. The exploitative conditions of such employment cannot be
underestimated. For example, women are preferred for jobs in outsourcing agencies
like call centres, but they work under adverse circumstances and are paid far less than
men and their counterparts in developed countries. Their working hours, security is-
sues and lack of avenues for advancement all combine to curb their ability to realize
their rights and achieve their full potential as citizens and equal partners.
Contemporary feminism has been equally doubtful of the gains that multicul-
turalism has brought to women’s citizenship. Feminists do not consider locating the
individual within the community and prioritizing the community’s rights over the indi-
vidual as advantageous for women’s citizenship. They believe that the rights and claims
of women as citizens have always been denied by the community. Emphasizing the
embeddedness of the individual within the community and focusing on the needs of
the community and its notion of the common good would serve to marginalize women
further. When the Taliban captured state power in Afghanistan in 1994, one of its first
edicts removed girls from school, forbade women from employment outside the home,
and required women to wear garments that covered them totally when they appeared
in public. The ‘honour killing’1 of women in the northern parts of India and other
countries (which usually occur after women choose to go in for inter-caste and inter-
community marriages) is another example of how traditional patriarchal communities
make women their first victims of coercive decision-making. The alternative that con-
temporary feminists offer is the idea of an abstract global community, bound together
by complex interactive relationships. In this regard, they extend the idea of dialogical
citizenship.
1
In the name of upholding the honour of family, caste and community, traditional powers (like
caste khap panchayats) subject couples, mostly women, who marry by choice to murder.
The Idea of Dialogical Citizenship and Epistemic Community

Nira Uval-Davis and Pnina Werbner argue that citizenship is a set of intersecting and
multi-layered relationships. There are multiple and simultaneous memberships in political
communities, just as there are multiple and simultaneous sites of oppression, marginaliza-
tion and exclusion. Davis and Werbner forward the idea of feminist transversal practice. It
refers to a notion of resistance which counters all forces of domination. This is only possible
when there is dialogical citizenship. Dialogical citizenship refers to a political space based
on the core values of freedom, equality, and recognition of and respect for difference. This
space would enable women to resist the cultural community’s attempts to dominate them,
as well as to create trans-national linkages to counter their local and global marginalization
and oppression. It involves evolving extensive international networks, organizations and
alliances through conversations, campaigns and conferences.
In this context, Alison Assiter has put forward the idea of epistemic community, as
opposed to constitutive community. An epistemic community may be described as one
whose members share common interests, values and ends—all of which are emanci-
patory and which ultimately aim to contribute to the removal of marginalization and
oppression. According to Assiter, a person might be born in a particular community,
be it that of the family, nation or state. However, the person might not be naturally
predisposed towards or bound to the prescribed values of this constitutive community.
Individuals’ personalities may be determined to a certain degree by the community, but
the goals or ends they pursue may be radically different. Assiter thus argues that the
basis of citizenship should not be this constitutive community but the epistemic com-
munity, which can be groups supporting women’ rights, gay rights, ecological groups,
etc. The common factor uniting these groups is that they are all perceived as exploited
and marginalized sections of society, with no substantive rights or social recognition
of their worth. Individuals may have multiple memberships in groups, but the defin-
ing element of an ascriptive community is the group’s belief in emancipatory values.
Women’s rights to full citizenship would be enhanced if global thought and culture
extended the horizons of the epistemic community.
Anupama Roy has examined both the epistemic and the dialogic community. She
raises two very important questions—first, can women have access to substantive citi-
zenship with its emphasis on membership to dialogic and epistemic communities?
And second, will this reduce the negative impact that globalization and multicultur-
alism have on the gains of feminism? For Roy, these ideas have gradually become far
removed from the harsh reality facing the lives of the marginalized, and the manner
in which they experience globalization in their day-to-day lives. For example, the
MNCs grabbing land has resulted in the further marginalization of the tribal popu-
lation, particularly women, since women’s collective actions in the use of resources
and opportunities that enable them to have agency are severely hindered. However,
although women in tribal populations mobilize and express themselves through vi-
brant struggles to protect their interests, it is difficult for these struggles to achieve a
global form in the manner of either a dialogic or an epistemic community. The lack
of a common language and access to resources that could help them connect globally
undermines the power and influence of these women.
Conclusion
For citizenship to be truly extended to women’s lives, it should include within itself a
notion of citizenship both as a status and a practice. Women should not only be given
the formal status of citizen, they should also be able to exercise the rights, irrespec-
tive of class, caste, race, ethnicity, and such other interconnections. While emphasis
should be laid on a shared commitment to emancipatory values, there should also be
continuous dialogue and struggles by citizens to reclaim the political. It is through this
that democratic citizenship will be able to provide the marginalized (which includes
women) with full access to rights, and in the process will itself be enriched.

1. Do you think the formal guarantee of citizenship rights to all in the Constitution is enough
to be a citizen and act as a citizen?
2. Have certain sections of society been discriminated against when it comes to the exercise
of these rights?
3. Are women specifically discriminated against in society? Does this discrimination affect
their status as citizens?
4. Do you think the historical exclusion of women from citizenship rights still impacts their
position?
5. Do women actually constitute a homogenous category? Are they also to be seen from the
point of view of class, caste, race, and the ethnic categories they belong to?
6. Does globalization result in the improvement of women’s status and enable them to access
their rights as citizens?
7. Do you think it is important to end discrimination and bring about equality among men
and women in society so that they can be equal citizens?
Suggested Readings
Barbalet, J. M., 1997, Citizenship (New Delhi: World View Press).
Bhasin, Kamla and Nighat Said Khan, 1986, Some Questions on Feminism and its Relevance in
South Asia (New Delhi: Kali for Women).
Carter, April, 2001, The Political Theory of Global Citizenship (London: Routledge).
Freedman, Jane, 2002, Feminism (Buckingham: Open University Press).
Monk, H. I. and Catherine Mackinnon (eds), 2000, The Demands of Citizenship (London: Con-
tinuum).
Nussbaum, Martha, 1990, Women and Human Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Okin, Susan, 1989, Justice, Gender and the Family (New York: Basic Books).
Rian, Voet, 1998, Feminism and Citizenship (London: Sage Publications).
Roy, Anupama, 2006, Gendered Citizenship: Historical and Conceptual Explorations (New Delhi:
Orient Longman).
Sen, Amartya, 1992, Inequality Re-Examined (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Tickner, J. Ann, 2001, Gendering World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press).
8
Citizenship and Diversity
Chetna Sharma
A civilization can be judged by the way a society treats its minorities.

Mahatma Gandhi
Introduction
One day, while traveling in a Karol Bagh-Gurgaon D.T.C. (Delhi Transport Corpora-
tion) bus, I overheard two people talking about the status of Muslims in India. One
of them made a point about the privileged position Muslims enjoy in India, and how
despite that, they have made a demand for reservation. The other said that since we are
all citizens of the same country, we should all be treated equally by the state; why, then,
are they getting certain privileges? They have a special status when it comes to marriage
and divorce—they can have four wives, while Hindus can only have one. These point
raised by the common person are important. Citizenship means equality, but these ex-
ceptions lead one to think: does the state treat all of us equally? Do the policies of the
state discriminate against different communities? Do the diverse ethnic and national
communities receive equal and fair treatment in the public and political arenas? What
needs to be done in order to provide equal status to different communities?
Citizenship has always been associated with membership to a specifically defined
political community. From ancient Greece to the end of feudalism, and from the emer-
gence of modern nation-states to the dawn of the twenty-first century, citizenship has
been about the relationship of mutual support and solidarity that exists among members
of a political community, and the relationship between individuals and the state. The
Citizenship and Diversity 127
relationship between individuals and the state and among individuals in a state defines
the boundaries of citizenship. However, these boundaries of citizenship, their meaning
and their conceptual framework are changing in a world in which nation-states have
gone through fundamental changes. States are no longer based on a single homogenous
nationality; instead, they consist of multiple nationalities, ethnic groups, natives, refu-
gees, immigrants, etc. The demands of these different groups for better accommodation
of their interest within the polity, their demands for a greater voice in policy-making
and the decision-making process of the state, and recognition in the state challenge the
boundaries of political community and the conception of citizenship. The challenge
lies in the restructuring of institutions of the state to ensure inclusion and participation
for all who are members of a political community. Since individuals and groups with
fragmented identities need to live together politically, it means finding some common
basis from which their claims on the state can be judged. Citizenship is supposed to
provide this reference point. Starting from this position, my objective in this chapter is
to identify the various issues and debates currently taking place around the notion of
citizenship and the prevalent forms of diversity in the state, and to evaluate the current
restructuring of citizenship rights in various countries.
Dimensions of Citizenship
• Citizenship is understood as a relationship between the individual and the state,
as well as among individuals. It is based on the principle of equality among
members of a political community. Citizenship denotes a status; being a citizen
of a state implies that each and every member of a political community is to be
treated on an equal footing.
• This status has been identified with a second dimension of citizenship: a bundle
of rights and responsibilities that the state owes its citizens, citizens owe the state,
and citizens owe each other.
• The full exercise of these rights depends upon the existence of democratic insti-
tutions, which guarantee their continuity and provide its citizens with an oppor-
tunity to play a role in the definition and administration of the common good.
• Another important dimension of citizenship is that it denotes an identity. To be
a citizen is to identify to at least some degree with the political community to
which one belongs, and to be disposed to behave towards one’s fellow citizens in
ways that promote the stability and unity of the state.
All these dimensions indicate the foundation stone of the project of citizenship—the
notion of equality between all individuals within the political community. It was pos-
sible to ignore the existence of cultural attributes and related values because the borders
of the cultural community and the national community were considered to correspond;
T. H. Marshall took for granted the cultural uniformity of ‘the nation’ while describing
the expansion of citizenship rights in England. According to Marshall, national con-
sciousness as an essential component of citizenship is based on ‘a common loyalty to
a civilization which is a common possession of all’. Cultural differences were relegated
to the private sphere, which was less worthy of political attention. The idea of universal
citizenship recognizes only one membership, namely that of the state, and dismisses all
other affiliations and loyalties
However, in later years a culturally neutral and homogenous definition of the politi-
cal community, one that laid more emphasis on socio-economic equality, became hard
to sustain. Along with changing times and changing realities, debates emerged to alter,
expand and restrain these dimensions of citizenship as citizens contested, debated and
redesigned the boundaries of their relationship with political authorities.
Change in the Realities of the State and its Impact on the

Understanding of Citizenship
Apart from being a legal status bounded by certain rights and entitlements, citizenship
is also a political practice, and is hence not static but dynamic. By the 1960s, new de-
velopments had been pointing the nation-state in different directions, with far-reaching
implications for the concept of citizenship. An important development was ethnic re-
surgence within the nation-state. National minorities all around the world were framing
demands for a recognition of their interests, and to ensure that institutional arrange-
ments guaranteed their cultural differences.
During this period, there was mobilization for claims of equality from other ‘minori-
ty groups’, which were also expressed in terms of diversity. A range of social movements
led by women, gays, lesbians and religious minorities made claims for an inclusion of
their interests, and criticized the supposed equal treatment of social rights for being
discriminatory and representing the interests of dominant sections of society.
During this period, the socio-demographic reality of liberal democracies changed.
With the increased and intensified flow of people on a global scale and the resultant
large-scale immigration, the important issue was how to include immigrant pop-
ulations in the receiving state. The important concern was the extent to which im-
migrants would adapt to the changing realities of the new state and give up previous
allegiances.
Due to all these changes, what emerged was a multicultural society that consisted of
several well-organized cultural communities, each with a more or less distinct concep-
tion of the good life, and a different history, social structure, traditions, language, needs
and aspirations. In order to make it a stable and united society, it should find ways of
fostering a sense of belonging among the members of these communities, even in cases
where they wish to continue to remain attached to their community. Belonging to a po-
litical community is a two-way process: it involves reciprocity, and one cannot belong
to a community unless one is accepted as a valued member.
In multinational, multicultural societies, the routine assumption of universal equal-
ity often marginalizes the experiences and interests of minorities, because treating all
people equally usually means treating them in terms that refer and are in relation to
the values of the majority. Equal treatment will not be enough in circumstances where
different groups are unequally affected by the policies that are chosen. It results in mi-
nority groups considering themselves either fully or partially excluded from social, eco-
nomic, political or cultural systems.
It is very important that citizens be treated justly by the institutions of the state
(courts, police, administration, etc.). They should be able to participate in the political
process and take advantage of the educational, employment, welfare and health op-
portunities of their state. But the principle of universal and uniform citizenship has in
fact left many structures of discrimination untouched within the polity. The identity
of a person as a citizen is only one of many identities; individuals often carry their
cultural identities into the public domain as well. In the uniform citizenship model,
the chosen standards generally express the culture of the majority community within
the state, that is, what is prescribed as desirable is shaped by the preferences of the ma-
jority. As a result, the principle of universal rights discriminates against the minority
community.
The important question is: if some citizens are culturally and ethnically different,
should they be treated differently? If yes, what effect would such a policy have on the
principle of equality, which lies at the core of citizenship?
The challenge facing liberal societies is developing a conception of citizenship that
accommodates the linguistic and cultural realities by which different people may
choose to define themselves, without jeopardizing the unity of the political commu-
nity in a pluralist society or the concern for the rights of citizens. Citizenship is a mul-
tiple rather than a singular status, and the concept of citizenship should reflect this
complexity.
The Different Kinds of Minority Groups

In today’s world, most states are for a variety of reasons multicultural, multi-eth-
nic and multinational. Different groups face different challenges while finding their
place in the larger state, and demand special accommodations of different kinds. So
we first need to consider the sort of groups that exist within a state, although there
is no single unified way to define the prevalent ethno-cultural diversity in a state.
However, we may distinguish between different groups to understand their political

stakes in a multicultural state. Professor Will Kymlicka divides them into the following
groups.
National Minorities
Communities qualify as a nation when they are historical communities, are more or less
institutionally complete, occupy a given territory or homeland, share a distinct language
and mass culture, and think of themselves as a nation. There are many more nations
than there are states. National minorities are communities within a nation that share a
state with one or more larger (or more dominant) nations. They can be stateless nations
or nations without a state in which they are the majority. They find themselves shar-
ing a state with other nations for a variety of reasons, but seek to maintain or enhance
their political autonomy either through secession or through some form of regional
autonomy. The Québécoise in Canada, the Scots and Welsh in Britain, the Catalans and
Basques in Spain, the Flemish in Belgium, the Germans in South Tyrol in Italy, and
Puerto Ricans in the United States are examples of this type of minorities. Th ese are ex-
amples of regionally concentrated groups that conceive of themselves as a nation within
a larger state. They want to achieve recognition either in the form of an independent
state or through territorial autonomy within the larger state. In the Asian context, the
Karens and Shans in Burma, the Baluchis in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Sikhs and
Kashmiris in India, and the Tamils in Sri Lanka are examples of national minorities.
Similarly, indigenous people such as the Indians and Inuit in Canada, the Aborigines
of Australia, the Maori of New Zealand, the Sámi of Scandinavia, the Inuit of Green-
land and the Native Americans in the United States are also national minorities whose
traditional lands were overrun by settlers, and then forcibly and/or through treaties
incorporated into states run by outsiders. They seek to maintain their traditional way of
life while participating on their own terms in the modern world. They also want respect
and recognition from the larger society because for a long time, they have suffered as
second-class citizens or even as non-citizens.
Immigrants
A second important source of the prevalent diversity is immigration, that is, the deci-
sion taken by individuals and families to leave their original homeland and migrate to
another society. Kymlicka makes a distinction between two categories of immigrants—
those who have the right to citizenship because they have arrived in another country
under an immigrant policy that gives them the right to become citizens after some
time under some minimal conditions. The other category of immigrants, though, are
the people who are never given the opportunity to become citizens either because they
entered the country illegally, or because they entered as guest workers but overstayed
their initial visas (like many Turks in Germany, for instance). Michael Walzer define
these groups as metics, an ancient Greek term that means long-term residents who are
nonetheless excluded from the polis.
While the first category of immigrants demand some accommodation in the policy
of the state for the expression of some of their religious, linguistic and cultural differ-
ences—which Kymlicka defines as poly-ethnic rights—the second category faces enor-
mous obstacles to integration and so tends to exist on the margins of the larger society.
Thus, there is always a danger of creating a permanently disfranchised, alienated and
racially defined underclass.
Refugees, according to Kymlicka, are also migrants seeking asylum; however, the
migration is not voluntary, and accommodating these groups involves lots of problems
and policy changes.
Religious Groups
There are some small groups that voluntarily isolate themselves from the larger society.
These people belong to some religious sect whose theology requires them to avoid con-
tact with the modern world, such as the Amish in the United States, who want to with-
draw their children from schools to prevent their coming into contact with the modern
world. Spinner-Halev calls the members of such groups partial citizens, because they
voluntarily waive both the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship (Kym-
licka 2000: 23).
There are also groups whose members want to shield themselves or their children
from very specific aspects of mainstream culture that are at odds with their faith, and
so require exemption from certain general rules. A classic example is the case of Sikhs,
who seek exemption from certain military and police dress codes concerning appro-
priate headgear because they want to participate in the central institutions of the state
without compromising their religious beliefs.
Sui Generis Groups

There are some ethno-cultural groups that do not fit comfortably within any of the
discussed categories, like the African Americans. African Americans do not fit the vol-
untary immigrant pattern because they were brought to America as slaves. They do not
have a traditional homeland in America and so are not national minorities. They have
distinct demands of their own. They want respect and recognition from the larger soci-
ety and an equal say in the policies.
BOX 8.1 THE AMISH
The Amish is a community that began to emigrate to the US in the early eighteenth
century. Amish children learn at an early age that their self-will must be given up if
they want to become children of God. Devotion to God and to their community is
central to their lives. The Amish do not own cars (although they can ride in them as
passengers), they do not use electricity from conventional 110 volt sources (although
gas or hydraulic-powered generations are permissible), nor do they own televisions
or radios (Spinner 1994: 19) People who break the rules of the Amish community
are punished, and sometimes even expelled. However, anyone can leave the Amish
community at any time, as the Amish lay stress upon the voluntary nature of their
community.
Amish parents did send their children to elementary and junior high schools
to learn basic language, math and science skills. However, they do not want their
children to attend public high schools because they feel that the ‘worldly’ influence
of such schools would lead their children away from the traditional ‘other-worldly’
Amish lifestyles. In 1968 in the state of Wisconsin, three Amish men were arrested
for not sending their 14 and 15-year-old children to school, thereby violating the
law of compulsory school attendance through the age of 16. The state argued that it
had an interest in ensuring that each child received an adequate education over and
above that the Amish children received from their community, to live an Amish way
of life only. The state’s argument, however, failed to prevail in the Wisconsin v. Yoder
case because the Amish wanted to maintain their distinct identity as a separate com-
munity. Many of their values and practices are illiberal, as the liberal state encourages
its citizens to be self-reflective and promotes the ideal of equality and autonomy.
However, being tolerant, the liberal state can only encourage its citizens to be self-
reflective, and not force them into being so. This means that within certain limits,
people in the liberal state can reject liberalism.
Ways of Respecting Diversity in Society

In a multicultural society, different cultures articulate diverse conceptions of what com-
prises a good life. The idea is that there is something worthwhile in each culture, and it
is important that its members underscore the value accorded to cultural diversity. The
challenge lies in showing respect for diversity in a pluralistic society without damaging or
eroding the bonds and virtues of citizenship. Through an examination of these debates,
the idea is to learn whether there is a notion of citizenship for multicultural states that
accommodates ethno-cultural differences fairly, while at the same time maintaining and
promoting the virtues, practices and solidarity needed in a liberal democracy. To accom-
modate diverse groups within the state, the following responses have been suggested.
The Liberal Response to Diversity

One proposal suggested by left-leaning liberals is to ensure better inclusion and op-
portunities for participation through redistributive justice. Strengthening the welfare
state and social programmes is supposed to have a positive effect on minorities. This
response, however, does not address all the questions of cultural diversity; cultural mi-
norities may suffer socio-economic disadvantages, but they usually perceive the root
of the problem as lying in the discriminatory policies of the state. This approach treats
identity claims as only a channel through which to express socio-economic alienation.
Republican Response
Republicans lay emphasis on civic virtues and attachment to the institutions and values
associated with citizenship to create a sense of belonging that is not associated with cul-
tural identity, but with the capacity to participate in the polity. According to Republi-
cans, the state should foster a neutral public community where individuals from various
backgrounds could meet in search of a common ground. An emphasis on participation
by everyone and real access to political institutions will mediate cultural differences.
This response fails to acknowledge the cultural bias existing in institutional practice, as
the majority has already imposed its language, values and norms on the public sphere.
Communitarian Response
Communitarians laid emphasis on the individual as embedded in a cultural environ-
ment and in a specific historical setting. They emphasize communal identities and cul-
tural specificity to promote healthy citizenship, in particular its belonging dimensions.
According to communitarians, the cohesion of the political community is founded
on its members’ solidarity and sense of belonging to that community. Such solidarity
is only possible if individuals feel equal in all respects, including in terms of cultural
practices within the citizenship regime.
BOX 8.2
In an increasingly globalized world, people move across borders and nations fre-
quently for a variety of reasons. This definitely impacts on their personalities and
understandings of their own selves. A person might refuse to think of himself as de-
fined by his location, or his citizenship, or even his language or religion. He may live
(Continued)
in Bombay and be of Italian ancestry, learn Hindi, eat Indian cuisine, wear clothes
made in the USA, listen to rock music, follow Indian politics, work for an MNC, and
practice Art of Living mediation techniques. He is living in the twenty-first century,
where the world is now a global village. For this individual, and for many others
like him in this world, is there any human yearning or need to belong to his cul-
tural group? The reverse side of the picture raises further questions: in the process of
adapting and transforming his culture, would the same individual accept the pres-
sure to abandon his group life entirely and assimilate into the larger society? Would
he accept the discriminatory attitude of the agencies of the state because he belongs
to a minority group in society?
Cultural Recognition and Citizenship Rights

Acknowledging the communitarian understanding of the embedded self, certain lib-
eral scholars suggest including cultural rights in the definition of citizenship, while si-
multaneously emphasizing the rights of the individual. Prominent among them is Will
Kymlicka. According to Kymlicka, cultural diversity as a virtue enhances the freedom
and equality of individuals. Culture is the basis from which individuals select the val-
ues and references which they use to build their own individuality. Everyone should be
allowed to choose their own cultural reference. Society must include a diversity of cul-
tures, norms and values within it. The state has a responsibility not only to protect, but
to also allow for the growth of cultural diversity and of the diverse groups within it.
Different groups have different histories, needs, identities and aspirations, and thus
the claims made on the state vary from group to group. Cultural differences should be
taken into account in the formulation and enforcement of laws and public policies.
Groups within Liberal Democracy seek respect for their cultural differences, which
could be classified as cultural rights in the following ways:
1. Exemption from laws and assistance to disadvantaged groups: Exemption rights
are granted to members of a religious or cultural group whose practices are such that a
general or neutral law would be a burden on them.
Different sorts of assistance rights are defended on the grounds of both equality
and citizenship. In any society, the majority is always in a position to set its cultural
tone, and is able to affirm and express its cultural identity with virtually no effort. It is
therefore necessary that subject to limits, rights should be extended to the minority as
well. Exemptions have been demanded and often granted for the sake of minimizing a
majoritarian cultural bias, and group differences have been incorporated into the public
domain and minorities given an opportunity to continue with their customary religious
practices. Exemption also enables the religious and cultural norms of minority groups
related to worship, initiation ceremonies, dress codes, food habits, etc., to be accommo-
dated within the public arena. For example, special provisions have been made to allow
Sikhs to wear their turbans, Muslim girls to wear a chador to school, and Asian women
to wear their traditional dress to their workplaces. Likewise, many states have provided
special exemption for halal and kosher foods to accommodate the special needs of Mus-
lims and Jews, respectively. The Amish community has been granted exemption and
allowed to withdraw children from schools at the age of 14. In Western liberal democra-
cies, exemptions have been given to various communities on a wide variety of issues.
2. Self-government for national minorities and indigenous communities: Self-
government is in many ways the most important right demanded by minorities. In
its extreme form, the group may demand secession from the larger state. Indigenous
people demand self-government or some kind of autonomy in the areas where they
form a majority. This could be combined with other cultural rights to facilitate their
participation in the larger society.
3. External rules for non-members: Sometimes a cultural group within a democratic
state demands the right to limit the liberty of fellow citizens who are not members
of their group. These rights are demanded to protect potentially fragile elements in
minority cultures, for example, the demand made by the Francophone in the Quebec
province of Canada to restrict the rights of Anglophones.
4. Internal rules for members: There are usually some expectations from members of
a group regarding how they should behave, and one who does not behave in that man-
ner is subject to different sanctions from other members of the group. Certain rules are
clearly unjust and not imposed by the state. But a group may impose informal or formal
yet non-coercive sanctions. For example, a state cannot exclude women from decision-
making offices, yet the Catholic Church is allowed to and could even impose sanctions
against Catholics who challenge this principle. These sanctions, however, could have a
very significant impact on the freedom and well-being of group members. Therefore,
it may become necessary for the state to protect vulnerable members of groups from
oppressive internal rules.
5. Incorporation of traditional or religious legal codes within the dominant legal
system: One can find examples of two or more systems of law operating within a single
political jurisdiction. For example, in Canada and the USA, Quebec and Louisiana re-
spectively have retained the civil law tradition alongside the common law of the larger
state. In Israel and India there are different family laws (that cover inheritance, adop-
tion, succession, marriage and divorce) for different religious communities. However,
danger presents itself for the groups or for some of their members (especially women)
when traditional legal systems are incorporated within the state legal system in the
wrong way, or when dominant members of the group try to impose some norms on the
non-dominant members (women and children) to protect the values of the community
or its cohesiveness.
6. Special representation rights: Cultural or religious groups or women demand spe-
cial or guaranteed representation in the decision-making, policy-making bodies on is-
sues that affect them.
7. Symbolic recognition: Symbolic gestures granting recognition to minority groups
have a profound effect because on the one hand it gives the members a sense of self-
respect, and on the other increases their enthusiasm to participate in the political life of
the larger state. Matters like the name of the polity, its national anthem, its public holidays,
the name by which a cultural group will be known, or the way a group’s history is present-
ed in schools or textbooks could have a direct effect on granting or denying recognition.
8. State assistance for minority cultures: Minorities frequently seek state assistance to
promote their culture and give it some space within the public arena. At the very least,
they may request financial support or other related state resources to sustain their cultur-
al institutions such as the minority educational institutions, museums for arts and crafts,
community newspapers, and institutions devoted to learning their ethnic language.
Institutional Mode of Securing Diversity

Apart from cultural rights, federalism with its different manifestations provides an an-
swer to the accommodation of diverse groups.
• Multination Federalism is the answer to deal with the demands of national mi-
norities. It recognizes the existence of people and nations within the boundaries
of the state. This means creating a federal or quasi-federal sub-unit in which the
minority group forms a local majority, and so can exercise a meaningful form
of self-government. Even the group’s language is recognized as an official state
language within their federal sub-unit.
To accommodate the demands of indigenous people, their claims to land,
cultural rights (including recognition of their customary law), and right to self-
government are needed to sustain them as distinct societies.
• Asymmetrical Federalism, which provides separate territorial jurisdiction and
special status for cultural communities concentrated in a particular region,
could be another mode of securing diversity.
• Multilevel federation: There are examples of vast diversity and territorial solu-
tions are not adequate because culturally distinct groups/ minorities coexist in a
given region. In all such contexts multilevel federation is adopted, giving diverse
communities some degree of self-governance without bestowing upon them ex-
clusive rights over a territory.
• Consociationalism based on power sharing, as suggested by Arndt Lijphart, is
another way to accommodate diverse groups. These principles provide a broad
outline that can be implemented in a variety of ways.
Arendt Lijphart defines consociational democracy in terms of four basic principles:
two primary principles—grand coalition and segmental autonomy—and two supple-
mentary or secondary principles—proportionality and minority veto.
A grand coalition is an executive body in which the political leaders of all significant
segments participate.
Segmental autonomy means the delegation of as much decision-making as possible
to the separate segments. On all issues of common interest, the decision should be
made jointly by the segments; on all other issues, decision-making should be left to
each segment.
Proportionality is the basic standard of political representation, civil service ap-
pointments and allocation of public funds. It is important as a guarantee for the fair
representation of minority segments.
The minority veto is the ultimate weapon because it provides essential protection
when vital interests are at stake.
Case Study
India
India is a good example of enormous diversities in religion, language and culture. From
the very beginning, India acknowledged the rights of minorities and valued cultural
diversity, and so acknowledged persons as citizens of the state as well as members of
specific cultural communities. Religious communities were allowed the right to govern
their religion and associated social and cultural practices when the Constitution offi-
cially recognized the personal laws of four identified communities—Hindus, Muslims,
Christians and Parsees. It also gave religious communities an equal right to profess,
propagate and practice their religion.
Linguistic communities were acknowledged when the presence of different languages
was formally accepted along with the national language. Diversity was further accepted
through the linguistic reorganization of regional states, and the right of linguistic minor-
ities to protect and promote their language and culture. Within the multicultural struc-
ture, the cultural identity of tribal communities was also given a special right to survival
through different provisions: Article 370 gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir;
Article 371 provided the states of Nagaland and Mizoram with special rights to govern
themselves in accordance with their distinct social practices, customary laws and com-
munity control over the ownership and transfer of land and its resources. In India, recog-
nition of diversity took different forms. It is a combination of institutional arrangements
and cultural rights, and when the creation of separate territories was not possible because
of the coexistence of culturally distinct groups in a given region, multilevel federalism
was adopted to provide some degree of self-governance to diverse communities; for ex-
ample, autonomous and territorial councils provided some cultural and self-government
rights on specific issues without bestowing any exclusive rights over a territory.
The Indian example shows that recognition of the distinct identities of members of
groups through frameworks of asymmetrical and multilevel federalism and cultural
rights have helped to overcome alienation, thereby inculcating a sense of belonging to
the state and also the unity of the state.
Canada
Canada is a unique example of state promotion of the policy on multiculturalism. The
Multiculturalism Act’s coverage includes the recognition of cultural and racial diversity,
promotion of respect for diversity and a commitment to equality. Canada’s pattern of
social and cultural diversity includes indigenous people, two official languages, a large
and complex immigrant population, and global cities such as Toronto and Vancouver.
In this context, policies and practices relating to policing, education, health, and social
and child welfare are all subject to scrutiny on the grounds of their cultural sensitivity
and equality of treatment for different groups.
Challenges to Accommodate Diversity in the Conception

of Citizenship
The challenge before a state is balancing and reconciling cultural demands for differ-
entiation with the citizenship demand for integration and equality, while maintain-
ing its political integrity. Granting differentiated forms of citizenship to groups too
generously could fragment the unity of the state; yet refusing such concessions could
generate alienation, which would also fragment the state through rebellion or secession.
The following section deals with fears about unity and integrity in the face of minority
rights.
Worries about the Loss of Equal Citizen Status

Minority rights involve differentiated citizenship when we acknowledge the dif-
ference between citizens and grant rights not available to other groups or citizens.
However, according to some thinkers, when citizenship by definition means treating

people as individuals with equal rights, how can the basic rights of citizenship vary
among citizens? Minority rights are not in conflict with the concept of citizenship. As
Bhikhu Parekh puts it, citizenship is in fact a much more differentiated and far less
homogenous concept than has been presupposed by political theorists (cited in Kym-
licka 2000: 32). However, in some cases a particular policy concerning minority rights
could be incompatible with the norms of equal citizenship in a liberal democracy.
For example, Quebec’s language laws, which at one stage banned the use of English
on shopkeeper’s windows, restricted the rights of all citizens to free speech. Similarly,
some aspects of family laws pertaining to the rules for marriage, divorce, inheritance
and succession set by different religious communities could discriminate against
some members of those communities—women, for instance—and therefore be in-
compatible with the norms of equal citizenship. In such cases, the costs and benefits
of minority protection are unfairly distributed because some members of the group—
or non-members—are asked to bear the cost of cultural rights while others enjoy the
benefits. These examples are of major concern in the context of equal citizenship.
But there is no inherent conflict between equal status and minority rights claims; it
is the denial of minority rights that poses the greater threat to real equality. Minority
rights are needed to remedy the disadvantages minorities suffer in the larger society.
For example, the strengthening of official language rights for French Canadians along
with a substantial degree of autonomy accorded to the French-speaking province of
Quebec have played important roles in the transition of French Canadians from an
economically disadvantaged and politically under-represented group in the 1950s to
a position of social, economic and political equality with English-speaking Canadians
today. Far from eroding equal citizenship status, the accommodation of differences is
the ‘essence of true equality’ (this phrase is from the judgement of the Canadian S.C.,
explaining its interpretation of the provision of equality in the Canadian constitution;
cited in Kymlicka 2000: 33).
BOX 8.3
In a multicultural society, some community practices offend the values of the major-
ity. It cannot tolerate all practices indiscriminately because on the one hand it has to
raise its voice against morally outrageous practices, and on the other safeguard the
integrity of its own moral culture and the unity and stability of the polity.
• Muslim girls wearing the hijab or headscarves in schools: although it is al-
lowed in most Western countries, it continues to arouse varying degrees of
opposition in some of them.
(Continued)
• Sikhs refused to wear helmets instead of their traditional turbans when driv-
ing motorcycles or participating in dangerous work on building sites; to take
off their turbans when taking oaths in court or bowing before the speaker in
the House of Commons; and to shave off their beards when working in places
that involve handling food.
• Requests by Hindu to be allowed to cremate their deceased on a funeral pyre and
scatter the ashes, and in rare cases to drown rather than cremate their corpses.
• Female circumcision
• Polygamy
• Muslim and Jewish methods of slaughtering animals
Worries About the Fragmentation or Weakening

of Citizenship Identities
Citizenship binds the members of the political community by providing them with
an identity that they share amongst themselves. However, we have multiple identities,
and the identity of a citizen of a state coexists with numerous others. Under differ-
ent circumstances, different identities become important for different individuals. By
recognizing the other important aspects of identity, minority rights provide members
of alienated groups a chance to become full members of the larger society. Fears about
fragmentation are untenable.
Fears about the Erosion of Civic Virtues and Participation

It is difficult to make prior judgements about the correlation of minority rights and the
motivation and capacity to act as democratic citizens. Minority rights provide members
of diverse groups with an opportunity to participate as full members of mainstream
society. If minority groups are not provided such opportunities, individuals from these
groups are often stigmatized and treated in discriminatory ways by the majority (for
example, official harassment and intolerance of gay people in many countries, violent
attacks on Turks in Germany, the disproportionate attention paid by the police in many
predominantly white cities to black youth) (Kymlicka 2000: 39). Some minority rights
provide opportunities to participate as virtuous citizen.
Fears about Weakening the Bonds of Social Cohesion

and Political Unity
There is an apprehension that the provision of self-government rights or federal au-
tonomy would strengthen minority cultural identity at the expense of common state
wise citizenship identity. However, scholars like Coulombe, Reaume and Baubock
emphasize that the refusal to grant such groups autonomy is likely to provoke more
resentment from members of national minorities. It is important to balance recogni-
tion and autonomy with other federally guaranteed individual rights and non-terri-
torial group rights. According to Kymlicka, such a ‘cocktail’ of rights would reduce
opportunities for injustice and reinforce the sense of citizenship in the larger state
for members of national minorities. Like any other society, a multicultural society
also needs a shared culture, and in this shared culture society has a dual function:
to unite its diverse cultures around a common way of life and to respect and nurture
their diversity. The political communities evoke and receive different moral and emo-
tional allegiances from different groups of citizens, and their patriotism takes differ-
ent forms and has different bases. The state should appreciate this diversity and not
expect its citizens to conform to an officially defined model of a good citizen (Bhikhu
Parekh 2000: 459).
Summary
• Contemporary debates on citizenship incorporate the idea of the individual as a
member of distinct cultural communities.
• However, both sets of rights—civil, political and social, and cultural rights—
are important for the individual. If the absence of a recognition of difference
creates a sense of alienation, the inadequate protection of the basic rights of
citizens leaves members of minority communities vulnerable. Both sets of rights
complement each other.
• By giving members of minority communities the sense of security they need to
interact with the larger society, cultural rights facilitate their integration, pro-
mote harmony and earn their loyalty.

1. Where should the balance between accommodating diversity and the rights of the indi-
vidual lie?
2. To what extent has the recognition of group rights produced meaningful political
change?
3. Is there any conflict between human rights and cultural rights?
Suggested Readings
Bhargava, Rajeev and Reifeld, Helmut (eds), 2005, Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship:
Dialogues and Perception (New Delhi: Sage Publications).
Heater, Derek, 1999, What is Citizenship? (UK: Polity Press).

Hefner, Robert W. (ed.), 2001, The Politics of Multiculturalism, Pluralism and Citizenship in Ma-
laysia, Singapore and Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press).
Kymlicka, Will and He, Bsogang (eds), 2005, Multiculturalism in Asia (USA: Oxford University
Press).
Kymlicka, Will and Norman, Wayne (eds), 2000, Citizenship in Diverse Societies (USA: Oxford
University Press).
Miller, David, 2000, Citizenship and National Identity (UK: Polity Press).
Oommen, T. K., 1997, Citizenship. Nationality and Ethnicity: Reconciling Completing Identities
(UK: Polity Press).
Parekh, Bhiku, 2000, Rethinking Multiculturalism—Cultural Diversity and Political Theory (UK:
Macmillan Press Ltd.).
Spinner, Jeff, 1994, The Boundaries of Citizenship—Race, Ethnicity and Nationality (Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press).
9
Citizenship in Theory and Practice
in a Globalizing World
Ambuja Kumar Tripathy
If a person is born in India, has studied in the UK, is working in the US and
vacations all over the world …. just where does he belong, what is his nationality
and citizenship [emphasis mine]? As more and more Indians acquire this profile
and truly become citizens of the world, this is the question they are asking.
The Times of India, 11 December 2006
Introduction
A recent survey by an international media corporation found that India’s youth leads
the world in wishing to hop borders and seek a better future. In fact, the respondents
went further and stated that international territorial boundaries do not matter. In an
increasingly globalizing world, we witness how people move across borders and na-
tions very frequently. The growing interconnectedness and intensification of relations
between states and societies, brought on by globalization, has made it possible for many
people—especially the youth—to hop borders, pursue global opportunities and live in
the state of their choice. With the world being just a click away, individuality becomes
the catchword and national boundaries start to matter less. These significant develop-
ments in the extremely dynamic world of ours challenge traditional conceptions of
citizenship based on affiliation with a territorial nation-state. Today, contemporary glo-
balization is changing the way we think about membership to a nation-state. At this
critical juncture, several questions emerge:
Is citizenship still a useful concept in the age of globalization?
How are the new forces unleashed by globalization reshaping the meaning of
citizenship?
Can we conceive of citizenship beyond the nation-state—a kind of citizenship-
without-walls?
These issues will be teased out in the course of this chapter. This chapter attempts
to analyse the effects of globalization on the constitution of political communities
and their membership, that is, the question of citizenship. It shows in two sections
how transnational processes are significantly influencing conventional conceptions—
the nation-state as a bounded political community and, associated with it, the idea of
bounded citizenship. In the context of an increasingly globalizing world, this chapter
addresses the issue of national citizenship and explores key questions concerning
multiplicity, marginalization, inclusion and exclusion. It seeks to trace the emer-
gence of the new and expanded forms of citizenship that are evolving in response to
globalization.
Citizenship and the Nation-State

As we already know, modern citizenship is integrally associated with the nation-state,
the principal form of political organization across the globe. It emerged with and was
shaped by the development of political communities tied to a specific territory, and
subsequently formed into nation-states. The seventeenth century marked the begin-
ning of the modern nation-state system, which has been referred to as the Westphalian
model or system (named after the Peace of Westphalia of 1648). The fundamental basis
of this system is sovereign nation-states, claiming exclusive authority within their own
geographic boundaries or territories. The central principles of the Westphalian system
can be summarized thus (Held 2004: 132):
• Humankind is organized principally into discrete territorial, political communi-
ties, which are called nation-states (territoriality).
• Within their territory, nation-states claim supreme and exclusive authority over,
and allegiance from, their peoples (sovereignty).
• Nation-states are autonomous containers of political, social and economic activ-
ity in that fixed borders separate the domestic sphere from the world outside
(autonomy).
• Nation-states dominate the global political landscape since they control ac-
cess to territory and the economic, human and natural resources therein
(primacy).
• Nation-states have to look after themselves—it is a self-help world (anarchy).
The processes of law-making, the settlement of disputes and law enforcement
Citizenship in Theory and Practice in a Globalizing World 145
are largely in the hands of individual nation-states. Differences between nation-

states are often settled by force. One of the main functions of the state is to en-
sure the security and well-being of its citizens and protect them from outside
interference.
In this way, Westphalia engendered a system based on the idea of the state as a con-
tainer of national policy, national culture and national economy. The state was viewed
as having impermeable boundaries with internal and external sovereignty. Internal
sovereignty means that executive, legislative and judicial institutions of the state have
final authority over its own people. External sovereignty implies the independence of
the state in the global system. Citizens were defined as members of this shared politi-
cal community, with a common fate, a sense of nationality, and a commitment to the
nation. The idea of a national community of fate (Held 2004) for the citizenry was
facilitated by the creation of national military and administrative systems as well as a
mass education system; the emergence of new communication systems (printing and
telegraph) and the consequent emergence of a common public culture or national cul-
ture; shared legal rights and duties; and a national economy.
Modern citizenship was thus born of the territorial nation-state. The history of
citizenship is intrinsically associated with modern citizenship rights drawn from
the nation-state (see the earlier chapters in this volume). In the second half of the
twentieth century, the democratic nation-state became the principal unit of political
organization throughout the world. Within its boundaries, individuals were defined as
citizens with rights and obligations laid down by constitutions and laws. Citizenship
as a political category and citizen activity became possible only within the boundaries
of the state. Modern citizenship is linked to the territory of the nation-state, and like
the nation-state, it is geographically bounded. The exclusive link between citizenship
and territory or state boundaries created the language of inclusion and exclusion—the
duality—insiders/citizens/members/‘us’ versus ‘Self ’ and outsiders/non-citizens/non-
members/‘them’/ ‘Other’. Consequently, membership in a state becomes essential for
such territorial citizenship or to be a constituent of the Self. It also becomes a necessary
and sufficient cause for that state to distribute social or public goods, such as security
and welfare, to that member, and for the member to render the duty of exclusive loyalty
to that state.
It is against this background that we must try to discern and assess the impact of glo-
balization on citizenship. In the last two decades of the twentieth century, globalization
coupled with post-modernization challenged the nation-state as the only source of au-
thority over citizenship and democracy. Globalization has systematically interrogated
the themes surrounding modern citizenship—territoriality, identity, belonging and al-
legiance. The challenge thrown up by globalization is so potent that questions arise as
to whether the world is witnessing another political transformation, which might be as

important as the creation of the nation-state. Are the forces of globalization breaking
the exclusive link between territory and citizenship? In order to find answers to these
questions, let us first try to get the hang of globalization.
Advent of Globalization
Globalization is the greatest buzzword of our times; one comes across it in different
contexts, whether they are colloquial conversations or academic literature. Although
globalization has become the leitmotif of our times, it is an extremely contested con-
cept. There is no single universally agreed-upon definition of globalization. Theodore
Levitt is usually credited with the first use of the concept in an economic context. The
Encyclopedia Britannica defines globalization as the ‘process by which the experience
of everyday life ... is becoming standardised around the world’. The International Mon-
etary Fund defines it as ‘the growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide
through increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions, free international
capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology’. Many scholars
speak of globalization in terms of the ‘local-global nexus’, or ‘glocalisation’. Geoff Mul-
gan states that globalization is leading to the ‘Age of Connexity’ based on connectedness.
Thomas Friedman, analysing globalization in the early twenty-first century, stated that
‘The World is Flat’, that is, the world was a level playing field in terms of commerce,
where all competitors have an equal opportunity. It also alludes to the perceptual shift
required for countries, companies and individuals to remain competitive in a global
market, where historical and geographical divisions are becoming increasingly irrel-
evant.
Many view globalization as Westernization or Americanization, given that they are
extremely concerned with what they perceive as the homogenizing and strait-jacket-
ing role of globalization, which gives infallible sanctity to the dominant values and
practices associated with the US or the West or the North. Anthony Giddens describes
this position in the phrase ‘Runaway World’, a world of winners and losers. This view
questions the relevance of the universal project of Western modernity extended to
the rest of the world, which judges diverse civilizations from the classical European
framework while ignoring the unique role of diverse historical trajectories or alter-
native models of development, for instance the Gandhian model of people-centric
development. In fact, we can clearly notice the critical aspect of this position in the
current development-displacement discourse across the world. Since the terrorist
attacks on 11 September 2001 in New York, there has been much writing on the ‘end
of globalization’, owing to intensified nationalism, ethnicity, the strong state and the
closing of borders.
David Held is a British political theorist and a prominent figure within the field of
international relations. Held is currently Graham Wallas Professor of Political Sci-
ence and co-director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London
School of Economics. He specializes in the fields of globalization, global governance
and democracy at transnational and international levels. Some of his major works
are: Models of Democracy (1987), Political Theory and the Modern State (1989), De-
mocracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance
(1995), Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order (1995), Global
Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (co-author, 1999), and Global Cov-
enant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus (2004).
Held uses globalization to denote the processes of change underway from the ‘age
of discovery’ to the new millennium, which have altered relations and connections
between people and communities. He suggests that globalization involves three inter-
linked processes: stretching (networks of interconnection have been stretched across
the globe), intensification (these networks are being used intensively by people), and
deepening (they indicate a deep relation between local and global sites).
A standard definition for our purpose could be, as Andrew Heywood suggests, that
globalization refers to the emergence of a complex web of interconnectedness, which
implies that events and decisions in one part of the world are increasingly affecting
people and societies located far away. Space and time lose their relevance in the sense
that day-to-day activities are increasingly influenced by events occurring on the other
side of the globe, and the decisions and practices of local groups or communities can
have important global reflections. Globalization does not imply that ‘the local’ and ‘the
national’ are subordinate to ‘the global’. Rather, it underlines the deepening as well as
the broadening of the political process in the sense that local, national and global events
constantly interact and result in systematic interdependencies that can be illustrated
diagrammatically as follows:
Global
National National
Local Local
Figure 9.1
Source: Heywood 2000: 140.
Globalization can be seen as a historical process that evolved over centuries. Some schol-
ars trace the origins of globalization to the pre-modern period—the extensive trade carried
out by the Indus and the Gupta civilizations, the Roman Empire, voyages of discovery, and
the slave trade. However, the rapid integration of the world economy resulted in what is
widely considered the ‘First Phase of Globalization’ (1870−1914). This phase ended when
World War I broke out in 1914, followed by the Great Depression of the 1930s and World
War II between 1938−45. As a response to the Great Depression, Keynesianism proposed
that the state should intervene in the economy to promote economic efficiency, political
freedom and social justice. Largely based on Keynesianism, the welfare state became the
predominant model in a large part of the globe in the mid-twentieth century.
However, the economic crisis and the disintegration of the Keynesian paradigm in
the late 1970s led to the adoption of free market policies guided by neo-liberalism. With
this, the ‘Second Phase of Globalization’ or ‘contemporary globalization’ began, which
has been continuing till date. The Washington consensus became the underlying frame-
work for contemporary (economic) globalization in the 1990s. The first phase is known
as the extensive or widening phase of globalization, in the sense that it brought the entire
planet under the sway of the market. Contemporary globalization is known as the in-
tensive or deepening phase, in the sense that there is an intensification of the integration
between different parts of the world. Scores of processes and developments in the second
half of the twentieth century facilitated the emergence of this global interdependence,
namely the Cold War; the spread of international trade and the transnational character
of modern business organizations; technological innovations, especially the information
and communication revolution; politico-ideological factors, such as the spread of West-
ern-liberal political values or liberal democracy due to the collapse of the socialist states;
the emergence of Islam as a transnational political creed; and common political and envi-
ronmental problems such as terrorism, acid rain, ozone depletion and global warming.
Globalization and the Nation-State

It would be pertinent at this point to stress that globalization cannot be understood as a
singular condition, or a linear process, or an event. It has to be understood as a multidi-
mensional phenomenon or as a process involving diverse areas of activity and interac-
tion—economic, political, cultural, technological and environmental—as reflected in its
different histories, processes and forms of interconnectedness. It involves a complex se-
ries of changes—economic, political, cultural, technological and environmental—leading
to greater integration, interconnection, interaction and interdependence across national
boundaries. Consequently, the world is being transformed from one of ‘discrete civiliza-
tions’ (civilizations standing largely for nation-states) to a fundamentally interconnected
global order, where transnational networks and relationships extend through virtually
all areas of human activity. Let us thrash out some of the most pivotal transformations
brought about by globalization that have had significant implications for the nation-state.
(1) Economic globalization stands for the historically unprecedented scale and mag-
nitude of contemporary global economic interaction. More specifically, it refers
to global economic processes, especially the rise in international trade, the inter-
national flow of capital, economic practices like outsourcing, and the increasing
number of and role played by multinational corporations (MNCs). There has
been an increase in the international interdependence of the world economic
system. In the emerging global economy, especially after the collapse of the so-
cialist bloc in 1989, capital has largely been liberated from territorial constraints
of the nation-state. Macroeconomic unification is taking place in the sense that
the world is now on its way to a single economy, with national economies be-
ing increasingly interlinked. Across the world, patterns of production and con-
sumption are becoming increasingly interdependent. A new global division of
labour has emerged whereby each nation-state or region now depends more
on others for its goods. The markets for goods and services, for capital and for
labour are marked by high levels of exchange. Central to this emerging single
worldwide economy is the nature of the functioning of MNCs. They are global
in the location of their assets, markets, personnel and management, and are thus
less rooted in any one nation-state. They also contribute to the new global divi-
sion of labour by locating different parts of their manufacturing processes in
different nation-states. Simultaneously, there has been a growth in the global in-
frastructure which regulates and controls the developments associated with eco-
nomic globalization. Organizations such as the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have emerged
as global governing bodies which make policies and rules that, to a greater or
lesser degree, condition the functioning of all states and businesses.
In this way, due to the vast increase in the extent and intensity of economic
interconnectedness, the economic fates of nation-states are becoming intimately
interconnected. Nation-states across the globe have been compelled to adopt
increasingly similar (neo-liberal) policies that promote liberalization, privatiza-
tion and deregulation, leading towards what Immanuel Wallerstein calls a ‘capi-
talist world economy’. However, according to critics, economic globalization is
ideological in the sense that it protects the values of ‘free market’ liberalism and
legitimizes the global domination of corporate capitalism. They draw attention
to a gross inequality of effects, particularly the threats to the poor in the South,
unskilled workers in the North, and women (and even humanity in general, as
the victim of pollution).
(2) Environmental globalization signifies the extent and intensity of the environ-
mental problems and challenges affecting the entire globe. While not all environ-
mental problems are global in scale, most grew significantly in the last quarter of
the twentieth century, and have continued to increase. And a growing number
of these problems have a global dimension involving the global commons, for
example global warming and ozone depletion. Others have been made global
by the transnational expansion in production, trade, communication and pol-
lution, for example acid rain and river pollution. By affecting human affairs in
general, these global environmental problems connect the long-term fates of all
nation-states. Further, there is an increasing risk of environmental refugees,
which presents the challenge of solidarity or exclusion on a planetary scale.
Globalization has led to an important conceptual change in the way we think
about the environment. Recognition of the fact that these threats to the entire
planet can be approached by global thinking and policy-making is contributing
to the emergence of a global consciousness. The environment is now considered
the ‘common heritage of mankind’ and environmental problems are increasing-
ly the subject of international efforts, both because of their cross-border effects
and the impossibility of just one or a few nations solving these problems on their
own. This idea is reflected in the title of the World Commission on Environ-
ment and Development (Brundtland) 1987 Report, Our Common Future. There
are increased signs of international collaboration and coordinated action as a
multitude of public international and private non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) seek solutions to environmental issues (the United Nations Environ-
mental Programme, Greenpeace, Worldwatch Institute, World Wide Fund for
Nature), and various treaties have been concluded to harmonize governmen-
tal policy on environmental protection (Bio-diversity Treaty, Agenda 21, Kyoto
Protocol, Basel Treaty). Some environmentalists and NGOs have even proposed
the creation of a ‘world environmental organization’ to coordinate international
environmental policies. In 2007, former French President Jacques Chirac pro-
posed the creation of such a body within the UN. But as we know, international
collaboration does not seem so simple in the larger context of international
politics in the light of the refusal of the USA, the biggest polluter in the world,
to sign the Kyoto Protocol; disagreements on how to proceed, particularly over
the trade-off between environmental protection and economic development
and the ‘polluter pays principle’ that underpins environmental treaties; and the
recent failure of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations.
(3) Cultural globalization refers to the greater international cultural exchange and
the intensification of global flows of cultural goods—food habits, printed matter,
visual arts, music, cinema and photography. Very simply, it signifies the global
recognition of prominent symbols and icons of popular culture—denim jeans,

McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, rock music, Hollywood, Madonna, Princess
Diana and Nelson Mandela. The distinctive scale, intensity and speed of global
cultural communications today can be attributed to many factors. First, a series
of new technological innovations in communications and transportation have
generated a global telecommunications infrastructure and greater transfer in
data flow, using such technologies as the Internet, communication satellites and
telephones (visualize the profound impact the Internet and e-mail have had on
everyday life!). Second, the English language provides a linguistic infrastructure
for the global transmission of ideas and cultures. It has become the dominant lan-
guage in politics, law, computing, business and science. Third, the driving forces
behind contemporary forms of cultural globalization are the mass media—both
print and visual. Global media organizations such as the CNN have been able
to spread powerful images, sounds and advertising to the remotest parts of the
globe. Fourth, there has been a great increase in international travel and tourism.
Fifth is the massive growth in cross-border movements of people. Migrations
across national boundaries are made up of several categories—emigrants, guest
workers, professionals, illegal immigrants and refugees (see Table 9.1). While
Table 9.1 Principles Underlying Post-national Citizenship
Model I Model II
Dimension National citizenship Post-national citizenship
Time period Nineteenth to the Post-war (After World War
mid-twentieth centuries II), especially since the 1980s
Territorial Nation-state bounded Fluid boundaries of
membership
Congruence between Identical Distinct (for example, dual
membership and territory citizenships)
Identity and allegiance Single and exclusive Multiple
Rights National/citizen rights (based Human rights (based on
on shared nationhood) universal personhood)
Duties National Global
Justice Domestic/national Global
Civil society and public sphere Domestic/national Global
Source of legitimacy Nation-state Transnational community
Organization of membership Nation-state Nation-state (still the main
organizational unit for
citizenship)
BOX 9.2 IMMIGRATION
Immigration, in the modern sense, stands for the movement of people from one nation-
state to another nation-state, of which they are not citizens. Immigration refers to the
long-term residence by migrants. The modern conception of immigration is associated
with the development (especially in the nineteenth century) of nation-states with clear
citizenship criteria, passports, nationality law and permanent border controls. While citi-
zenship of a nation-state provides an inalienable right of residence in that state, the resi-
dence of immigrants is subject to conditions set by immigration law. According to a UN
estimate, there were 190 million migrants in 2005, about 3 per cent of the global popula-
tion. Most international migrants are in the high-income developed countries (about 91
million). The absolute number of international migrants is highest in the US, about 39
million. The highest percentage of migrants in the labour force can be found in the Gulf
States (on the issue of migration, see Messina and Lahav 2006: Chs 6, 7, 12, 13, 14).
Emigrants People who move to a country and settle there permanently. The chief
destinations now are the US, Canada and Australia. Such migration is
estimated to be in the range of one million people per annum.
Guest workers People who move to a country on a temporary basis for a
specified purpose and a limited duration. Most of them are either
unskilled or semi-skilled workers. The highest number, more than
five million, is in West Asia.
Professionals People with high levels of education, experience and
qualifications, who can move from one country to another
temporarily or permanently as their skills are in high demand every-
where and immigration laws do not restrict them. Most of them are
employed in MNCs. The biggest destination is the US.
Illegal immigrants People who enter a country without a visa, take up employment on a
tourist visa, or stay on after their visa has expired. The highest num-
ber of such people is in the US, followed by Western Europe.
Refugees People who are forced to leave their homes due to famines, ethnic
strife, civil war or political persecution. They seek a home, refuge, or
asylum to order to take up permanent residence in other countries.
Hence they are known as asylum seekers. Such distress or involuntary
migration is estimated at about one million per annum. The leading
international agency coordinating refugee protection, the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), counted 8.4
million refugees worldwide at the beginning of 2006. June 20 is
celebrated as World Refugee Day. Important examples of refugees are
Palestinian refugees, Bengali refugees, and others.
during the last three decades international migration has been at relatively mod-
est levels as compared with the past, globalization has transformed its nature in
qualitative ways by involving a diversity of regions and people in the process.
New understandings and commonalties are developing between people with
or without direct contact (through migration or the media), which in turn are
leading to the formation of new identities. As immigrants mix cultures and in-
ternational media corporations make considerable inroads into national culture
and national identities, the nation-state no longer remains in a position to retain
effective supremacy over what occurs within its territory. Nevertheless, critics of
global culture call this cultural imperialism (also referred to as ‘McDonaldiza-
tion’ or the global sweep of consumerism), which denotes the global dissemina-
tion of American or Western culture. Taking a third position in this connection,
Arjun Appadurai argues that it is too simplistic to characterize global culture
as a shift towards Western homogeneity. He divides the globalized world into
five ‘scapes’—ethnoscapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, mediascapes and idea-
scapes—which bring to light the complexity, hybridity and disjuncture of global
flows, as against the reductionist view of a homogenous global culture. Thus, an
understanding of cultural globalization requires us to focus on the intersection
of the global and the local within different contexts.
BOX 9.3 CINEMATIC REPRESENTATION OF GLOBALIZATION
The cinematic imagination provides a fascinating account of the complex aspects

of contemporary globalization. One example is the award-winning musical drama
Dancer in the Dark (2000), the third film in Lars von Trier’s Golden Heart Trilogy,
which depicts the life of a Czechoslovakian immigrant. The Terminal (2004) is a
comedy-drama directed by Steven Spielberg. Inspired by the story of an Iranian refu-
gee who lived at the Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, from 1988 to 2006, it is about
a stateless person. The documentary Global Village or Global Pillage?, narrated by
Ed Asner, shows the constructive ways through which ordinary people around the
world address the impact of globalization on their communities, workplaces and
environments, through grassroots organizing combined with mutual support. The
award-winning The Last King of Scotland is, from its subject matter to its production,
an example of cultural globalization in action—it is about the former Ugandan dic-
tator Idi Amin, who was played by an American actor; the film was shot in Uganda,
internationally financed and distributed with a British director and a cast and crew
from several countries.
(4) Contemporary political globalization signifies a redefinition of politics in the

sense that political activity (traditionally undertaken within national political
systems) is increasingly transcending national borders and taking place at the

global level. The globalization of politics is occurring in several ways. First, there
has been a significant institutionalization of inter-governmental and transna-
tional networks of political interaction, for example the UN, G−8, IMF, WHO,
EU, APEC, ASEAN, ARF, MERCOSUR, etc. Second, there has been a great
increase in the emphasis on collective defence and cooperative security with
regard to national security and defence policy. We find an explosive increase
in the number of international security treaties in force due to global security
threats like terrorism. There has also been a globalization of military technol-
ogy, based on the transnationalization of defence production.
Third, a body of regional and international law and a number of international re-
gimes such as those of nuclear non-proliferation, refugees and human rights have de-
veloped. By spelling out the powers and limits of the nation-state, international law
has tried to qualify the principle of state sovereignty. Massive refugee flows have led to
the development of an international refugee regime. The international human rights
regime has played an important role in weakening the national grip on citizenship. It
has led to the strengthening of civil rights, which allow citizens to make claims against
their states. The human rights regime has been steadily applying pressure on states un-
der the rule of law since it deals directly with citizens inside the states. At the same time,
the integration of markets, the presence of MNCs, increased transnational flows such
as migration (especially the movement of refugees and undocumented labourers), the
spread of cultures of intolerance, global tourism, and transnational criminal networks
have resulted in new human rights problems. In the light of the issues facing all of
humanity, such as promoting human rights, protecting democratic freedom and elimi-
nating poverty and discrimination, many scholars now underline the need for a global
society or global governance, centred primarily on the UN. In this connection, David
Held offers the model of ‘cosmopolitan democracy’ (see Chapter 11, this volume).
Fourth, there have been developments in the infrastructure of a global civil society,
consisting of a plethora of transnational NGOs (from Greenpeace to Action Aid), orga-
nizations (from the International Chamber of Commerce to the Catholic Church), so-
cial movements (from the Women’s Movement to the Global Justice Movement, as well
as the massive worldwide protests against American hegemony) and citizens’ groups.
This has been facilitated by the information revolution, the growing awareness of com-
mon interests between people in different parts of the globe, and the post-Washington
consensus. Global civil society is playing an important role in mobilizing, organizing
and networking with people across national boundaries, thus facilitating globalization
from below. These transnational organizations, movements and networks have pre-
pared the ground for the transnationalization of political activity that connects people,
businesses and communities across national boundaries. In this way, there is emerg-
ing a kind of global public space, in which all could engage in participatory political
debates. In fact, the effectiveness of the UN Summits and the extensive network of
international women’s organizations have led many feminists to see in these the begin-
nings of a global feminist civil society.
However, many critics emphatically point out that the chief difficulty with global
society is that there can be no consensus on its underlying universal principles. Instead
of genuine global governance, we have hegemonic governance—a government by the
great powers. For instance, the ‘global war on terror’ declared by the USA in response
to 9/11 was used to justify unilateral action, human rights abuses, and other violations
of international law and the principles of just war. Further, there are major problematic
issues associated with a global civil society, for example, the inadequate space for actors
from the South and the internal democratic deficit.
On the basis of the above analysis, we can conclude this section with some observa-
tions. The deterritorialization and social interconnectedness across existing geographi-
cal and political boundaries associated with globalization pose a fundamental challenge
to the underpinnings of the Westphalian model. While boundaries and territory still re-
main important, the idea of a ‘political community of fate for all the essential purposes of
human life’ (Held 2004) can no longer be meaningfully located within the boundaries of
a single nation-state, because the most fundamental forces and processes that determine
the life chances of citizens in a political community have become transnational or, at least,
are now increasingly subject to transnational influence. Although there is ‘no end of the
state’ and the state does not lose significance, its autonomy is compromised as it finds itself
nested in webs of social relations whose scope extends beyond the confines of national
borders, and over which it has limited control. It can be said that while attempts to offer a
clear delineation of the ‘domestic’ from the ‘foreign’ possibly made sense earlier, the pos-
sibility of a clear division between domestic and foreign affairs now dissipates since they
have become deeply and irrevocably intermeshed. Consequently, the state is compelled to
engage in multilateral collaboration and cooperation to pursue its domestic agendas.
The primacy of the state has been eroded by the growth of new centres of public au-
thority above and below it, and by the emergence of private authorities, from MNCs to
NGOs. Although state sovereignty is not necessarily eroded, it is arguably redefined as a
shared exercise in public power and authority in a complex system of multilayered gov-
ernance. The authority of the nation-state is now significantly affected from below (local
authorities), from above (international and transnational organizations) and from across
(global civil society). In this way, the idea of the nation-state as a territorially exclusive
community of fate or a territorially bounded community or container appears suspect.
Instead, it has become a space of flows (Held 2004; see Figure 9.2) with the movement of
political, economic and cultural categories across national territorial boundaries.
Religion Trade Drugs

Terrorism
Migrants
Weapons
Pollution
Human rights
News
Money laundering
Investment
Knowledge
Microbes Jobs
Figure 9.2
Source: Held 2004: 149.
Globalization and Citizenship

In a similar manner, contemporary globalization has challenged modern understand-
ings of citizenship grounded in the nation-state. The ongoing processes—the emer-
gence of a global economy, revolutionary changes in communications technology, the
formation of regional economies and markets, the development of supranational bod-
ies and legal norms, the growing importance of human rights and democracy, the real-
ity of immigration and emigration, and the emergence of a global commitment to a
common set of values—have contributed to a rethinking of the meaning of citizenship.
In the context of the disintegration of the domestic-foreign divide, the traditional ten-
dency to picture the domestic arena as a privileged site for the realization of citizenship,
as a normative ideal and an empirical practice, becomes problematic. We are inevitably
confronted by several questions: is citizenship going the way of the nation-state in our
globalizing world? Does globalization mean that nation-state based citizenship has/will
become redundant? How relevant is the classic distinction between civil, political and
social rights/citizenship in an increasingly globalizing world?
Going Beyond the Marshallian Citizenship Trilogy

We find the Marshallian theory of citizenship highly inadequate in attending to the
new categories—immigrants, guest workers, refugees and other mobile groups—that
constitute a pivotal feature of the contemporary world. At the turn of the twenty-first
century, guided by the processes of globalization, theorists began exploring and ad-
dressing new forms of citizenship and the corresponding rights and duties in theory
and practice. These new forms go beyond the Marshallian citizenship trilogy of civil,
political and social rights, and entail mobility citizenship (which is concerned with
the rights and responsibilities of visitors to other places and cultures), minority citi-
zenship (concerning the right to enter a society and then to remain within that so-
ciety), cultural citizenship (involving the right to cultural participation), ecological
citizenship (involving the rights and responsibilities of the earth citizen), diasporic
citizenship (concerned with the rights and duties of diasporas), and cyber citizenship
(involving the rights and duties of netizens). These new conceptions of citizenship
highlight the limitations of the Marshallian citizenship trilogy, organized as it is around
membership to the nation-state. By contrast, these alternative conceptions could be
considered the ‘citizenship of flow’ (Urry 2000), which are concerned with the causes
and consequences of the flows of migrants, visitors, cultures and risks across national
boundaries.
Changing Relationship Between the Citizen and the State

Now let us see how globalization affects the relationship between the citizen and the
state. Neo-liberalism as a public philosophy is based on the claim that the market is bet-
ter than the state at distributing public services. As a result, it marks a shift in emphasis
from the public to the private and from the state to the market. Thus, it conceives of
citizenship in economic terms; citizens are transformed into consumers, looking for the
party or programme that promises to augment their market positions. As Michael Walz-
er says, they need the state but have no moral relation to it, or they simply do not develop
any attachment to it. As the neo-liberal model rejects the idea that citizenship confers a
status independent of economic standing in a society, protection of the rights of property
owners is given primacy over the participatory rights of citizens, both nationally and
globally. This leads to a major shift away from public citizenship, directly provided by the
nation-state and based on compulsory taxation, insurance and participation rights, to
some kind of consumer citizenship, provided by many diverse institutions, nation-states,
global organizations, NGOs, consumer organizations and the media.
As states adopt neo-liberal or market-friendly policies under pressure from the
dynamics of global capital, they go for post-Keynesian economic policies—privatiza-
tion and labour market deregulation, low public expenditure on social goods, and low
levels of taxation. This has two major consequences for citizenship. First, a state can-
not protect its citizens from the fluctuating effects of the global economy over which it
does not have effective control; see, for instance, the way people are facing hardships
across the world due to the current global economic crisis. Second, Marshallian social
rights are dismantled as the welfare state comes under increasing strain in the age of
neo-liberalism. The inability of the state to ensure the social rights of its citizens creates
new scales of inequality, and makes civil and political rights incapable of providing
meaning to citizens’ lives. These two factors have resulted in an erosion of state le-
gitimacy or erosion of the committed adherence to or allegiance of its citizens, and a
decline in social solidarity and citizenship. These are manifested in increasing voting
apathy, distrust of politicians, passivity and withdrawal into the private sphere, and the
decline of the public sphere. The general feeling of being disconnected or rootless on
the part of citizens produces a greater sensitivity to particularistic identities based on
nationalism, regionalism, tribalism, etc. As neo-liberal economic globalization leads to
an increase in inequality and insecurity within countries as well as between them, there
is an intensification of ‘globalisation from below,’—resistance and political movements
demanding ‘inclusive citizenship’ (Kabeer 2005) by challenging exclusionary practices
and the way the voices of people are silenced.
Moreover, cross-border cultural flows are transforming the politics of identity. As
people everywhere are exposed to the values of other cultures, geographically fixed
national identities get increasingly eroded. As a result, while there are some signs point-
ing towards the emergence of a global culture based on universal cultural symbols,
there is also an awareness of difference vis-à-vis the diversity in lifestyles and value
orientations. Thus cultural globalization has a pluralizing impact on identity formation,
creating and recreating a variety of new identities associated with gender, race, ecology,
and others.
These new identities find concrete expression in global civil society and cyberspace.
These two agents have emerged as alternative public spaces for citizen activity as the
official public space has shrunk. These new public spaces have led to participatory citi-
zenship spilling beyond state boundaries. Global civil society provides its citizens the
required space for collective action in various forms such as unions, NGOs, ethnic as-
sociations, demonstrations (like the anti-Iraq war demonstrations), social movements
(like the women’s movement or gay liberation movement), and people’s summits (like
the World Social Forum and parallel meetings to those of the IMF, G-8 and SAARC).
Global civil society and the Internet have contributed to the emergence of unbounded
notions of citizenship. The Internet has greatly influenced political consciousness, and
has created a specific-identity ‘netizen’ or a new discursive or interactive form of citi-
zenship—‘cyber-citizenship’. It is based on unmediated dialogue, information exchange
and networking around the world, and thus challenges the idea of a state-centric world.
It provides democratic space for the expression of alternative and contesting voices that
transcend national boundaries (for instance through blogs, or communities on websites
like Facebook where people post critical opinions), as well as representational space for
agencies to initiate debates on critical issues, form collectives and forge new solidarities
through online petitions, online signature campaigns and online mobilizations. An ex-
ample of the latter is the Bakul Foundation, a non-profit organization in Orissa, which
promotes volunteerism for community development. It has formed a common mind or

thinking and forged mutual solidarity among people across the globe by the extensive
use of such means. Blogs are reshaping the landscape of citizenship. New understandings,
commonalties, frames of meaning, and thereby identities are formed through virtual mi-
gration and virtual communities, that is, without direct contact between people. Through
the process of disintermediation, individuals and groups express themselves directly and
not through representatives or intermediaries. The Internet creates horizontal commu-
nication links between citizens, and thus challenges existing hierarchies. Control over
the means of communication is now in the hands of an increasing number of people,
and political disintermediation and declining respect for representative institutions (due
to their inability to deliver) are producing a ‘critical citizenship’, where citizens want to
engage directly in public discourse, national as well as global. Thus, a great challenge for
states is reconciling contemporary demands for direct participation and transparency
with traditional representative democracy, based on secrecy and control of information.
Inclusion of the ‘Other’

I turn now to the critical question of the inclusion of migrants in citizenship in the age
of globalization, at both theoretical and empirical levels. In the context of contempo-
rary mass immigration, when we witness large-scale migrations of people to all parts
of the globe, the traditional idea of national citizenship (and nationhood) has become
intensely contested. If the citizen is an individual who belongs both politically and cul-
turally to one nation-state, what about migrants who settle in one nation-state (host
society) without abandoning their cultural belonging to another (homeland)? Previ-
ous citizenships were based on difference and antagonism between those inside (‘us’)
and those outside (‘them’), on identifying the non-citizen, the Other, the enemy. The
migrant has always been regarded as the Other of the nation. National identity and
belonging are by and large based on the exclusion of the external Other. However, the
permanent presence of collective Others in present-day nation-states and the increas-
ing number of people with transnational identities marked by familial, social and eco-
nomic connections in more than one state demand a radical rethinking about what it
means, and what it ought to mean, to belong to a nation-state (Brubaker 1998).
In a globalizing world, where Self and Other have to coexist permanently in the
same society, new modes of inclusion have to be devised for the citizen who does not
belong (Castles 2005). Nevertheless, this process of inclusion is marked by several con-
tradictions and difficulties. While the principle of citizenship demands the inclusion
of new groups within states, the principle of national belonging demands their exclu-
sion. The principle of active citizenship calls for providing minorities with the social
and economic rights required for full participation; however, the current decline in the
welfare state makes it difficult to include new groups and provide them with full soci-
etal membership through social rights. Admitting the Other into the national commu-
nity through citizenship appears as a challenge to national cohesion and identity. This
problem gets aggravated since the Other is largely from former colonies (for example
India, Bangladesh), who has been regarded as both inferior and a danger to Western
civilization. Moreover, in a situation of economic recession and decreasing job oppor-
tunities, migrants are perceived as a threat to the local working class.
However, when we look at concrete practices, we find that as the Other becomes
a part of national populations and societies, it is followed by a steady and perceptible
expansion in citizenship and legal rights to more and more migrants in immigrant coun-
tries, especially in Western Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia. This breaks down
the sharp distinction between the citizen and the Other. States are taking recourse to
several new forms of citizenship to provide migrants with formal access to citizenship.
These new forms are multiple/dual citizenship, jus domicili, quasi citizenship and infor-
mal citizenship.
The last decade witnessed a proliferation of dual or multiple citizenship accords,
underpinned by the blurry notions of belonging and origin. States that have been
reluctant to recognize such status due to fears of divided loyalties, for instance the USA
and many South Asian states such as India and Bangladesh, have begun to permit dual
citizenship. The Indian Parliament introduced dual citizenship by passing the Citizen-
ship (Amendment) Act, 2003 on 23 December 2003. Initially restricted to developed
Western nations, on 7 January 2005 dual citizenship was extended to all Persons of
Indian Origin (PIOs) who migrated from India after 26 January 1950. Any person
who has been at any time a citizen of Pakistan, Bangladesh, or any other country that
the Central government may notify in the future is not entitled to dual citizenship.
Dual citizenship allows the person to live in India indefinitely and enables overseas
Indians to invest in agricultural property. Dual citizens do not have voting rights (on
8 January 2010, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh revived the debate on voting rights
for non-resident Indians by signalling that they would get a chance to cast their votes
in the next general election). Neither can they be elected to public office. As dual and
multiple citizenships become the norm, notions of exclusive national belonging and
allegiance get eroded.
The traditional principles of citizenship are jus soli (law of the soil) or citizenship
based on birth, and jus sanguinis (law of the blood) or citizenship based on descent. A
new principle of citizenship gaining significance in our time is jus domicili (law of resi-
dence) or citizenship based on residence; that is, people may gain access to citizenship
through residence in the territory of a state. In this context, Tomas Hammer suggests
that foreigners who are long-term residents of European states and who possess sub-
stantial rights and privileges should be accorded a new classification, and recommends
the term denizen. William Brubaker offers a model of ‘dual membership’ organized
as concentric circles: an inner circle of citizenship based on nationality, and an outer
circle of denizenship based on residency. Both Hammer and Brubaker argue that the
crucial determinant for the rights of immigrants is residence, not citizenship. Access to
citizenship in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia is now provided to the second and
subsequent generations through the extension of jus soli, or through various combina-
tions of jus soli, jus sanguinis and jus domicili.
Many states have adopted a system of quasi-citizenship, through which long-term resi-
dents are given some, but not all citizen rights. The rights granted are civil and social
rights, and even some political rights, for example local voting rights. However, such sys-
tems create a two-class system of citizenship—full citizenship and partial citizenship. An
expansion of citizen rights is taking place as the traditional legal rights of citizens are
being increasingly claimed and won by large groups of people who base their claims on
human rights and international rather than national law. Although many of these rights
of migrants and long-term illegal residents are not written into law, they are recognized.
These unauthorized but de facto rights create a new category—that of informal citizenship.
These rights include the protection of human rights, the right to be paid for work, etc.
So the clear definition of citizenship is getting eroded—rights and entitlements once
associated with citizens are becoming dispersed among non-citizens. Yet, the issue of for-
mal access to citizenship for the Other has not been completely resolved. While classical
countries of immigration such as the USA, Canada and Australia are adopting flexible
citizenship policies, European countries have been largely unable to change their access
criteria. Due to the lack of clear-cut policies, a large number of migrants still have legally
ambiguous and disadvantaged positions. Consequently, populations are being divided
into full citizens, denizens (people with limited citizenship right) and margizens (largely
undocumented immigrants with insecure legal status). Moreover, most states closely
regulate and restrict the cross-border movement of people. After 9/11, the gate-keeping
role of the state has intensified in most Western countries, especially the USA. We can
find such a tendency in India too, in the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks.
Furthermore, formal access to citizenship is not sufficient. Immigrants are demand-
ing a multicultural approach to their integration into mainstream society, which would
allow them to maintain various aspects of their ethnic heritage, such as old customs and
dominant symbols. They demand a citizenship anchored in the recognition of difference
and Otherness, or an accommodation of new identities in immigration societies. Another
important issue is providing substantial or full citizenship to immigrants so they can have
equal participation rights in society. This includes civil, political and, most importantly,
social rights, for the simple reason that poverty leads to de facto exclusion even where
formal inclusion is guaranteed. A large number of resident non-citizens are still denied
political rights, while others have been granted limited rights like the vote in local, but not
national, elections. Although civil rights are guaranteed by law for all (including non-citi-
zens) in a democratic state, the civil rights of several migrant groups are frequently violat-
ed in practice, particularly by the police, prisons and courts. Criminalization of migration
takes place through human trafficking, especially trafficking in women and children.
The situation with regard to social rights is highly complex. The decline of the wel-
fare state has resulted in a weakening of social rights for a large number of racial and
ethnic groups, especially the racial and ethnic minorities. As a result, these ethnic mi-
norities suffer social exclusion, whereby they are cut off from mainstream social and
economic frameworks. Their weak legal status, racial discrimination and abject poverty
places some ethnic minorities in a highly vulnerable position. These factors lead to an
ethnicization/racialization of poverty, and these ethnic minorities become the under-
class in the receiving societies. Minority women are doubly disadvantaged due to their
gender and racial discrimination. Several ethnic minorities have to face racial violence,
xenophobia and sometimes even ethnic cleansing/genocide in the receiving societies.
As a consequence, ethnic mobilization and ethnic movements are taking place, which
articulate gender and cultural rights in addition to the conventional rights, and call for
changes in the major institutions of society—constitutions, laws and political parties—
to adequately represent the cultural values of the ethnic minorities.
Towards Post-national Citizenship?

So in the age of globalization and migration, citizenship is becoming a transnational
matter. Immigration, the movement of refugees and stateless persons, the formation of
supranational and transnational bodies like the European Union, the codification of in-
ternational human rights norms, and the emergence of a global civil society are under-
mining the very basis of national citizenship and setting the conditions for a reformula-
tion of citizenship. Many scholars are increasingly being drawn to an exploration of a
conception of citizenship that would transcend national boundaries, or what they call
‘post-national citizenship’. Post-national citizenship highlights the emergence of loca-
tions for citizenship outside the boundaries of the nation-state. It aims at a democrati-
zation of citizenship—an expansion of individual rights and maximization of inclusion.
The major principles underlying post-national citizenship have been summarized in
Table 9.1, which is a modified form of Soysal’s model for post-national membership.
On the basis of this summary, could we say that we are moving towards post-nation-
al citizenship? We have to look at the following important ideas/developments in this
connection before we try to provide any conclusive answer.
First, a momentous effect of globalization has been the rise of global cities—New
York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Singapore (Mumbai and Delhi as well)—whose role
and stature pertaining to citizenship transcend the nation-state in which they happen
to be located. Being at the centre of global flows of capital, goods, services, labour, ideas
and images, global cities are emerging as spaces where the entire discourse of citizenship
is being constructed and reconstructed through the formation of various new groups
and movements, for example, the recent gay parade in Delhi or the demonstrations in
Mumbai after the recent terrorist attacks. Diverse groups such as immigrants, ethnic
groups, the poor, women, gays and lesbians, and others are fighting for their rights
largely in the global cities. In these cities, owing to the existence of large non-citizen
populations, one can participate in political activities without being a citizen. To many,
the emergence of global cities marks a ‘new Athens’, or a new domain for active citizen-
ship or a localization of citizenship.
Second, in recent times some inter-governmental organizations have extended the
practice of citizenship to the international level, which is referred to as transnational citi-
zenship. This is citizenship at the level of a regional organization or a group of nations,
above the national level. The European Union (EU) citizenship is the most important
manifestation of transnational citizenship. The concept of EU citizenship was introduced
by the Maastricht Treaty. Citizenship to the European Union flows from national citi-
zenship—if one holds the nationality of an EU member-state, one becomes a citizen of
the EU in addition. It offers certain rights and privileges within the EU, viz., freedom of
movement and the right of residence (including the right to apply to work) within the
territory of the member-states; the right to vote and contest in elections to the Euro-
pean Parliament and in municipal elections in the member-state of residence; the right
to diplomatic and consular protection; and others. The European Commission has stated
that EU citizenship should be the fundamental status of EU nationals, although many
member-states do not accept this. In this framework, while rights and duties are ensured
at the supranational level, participation, belonging and inclusion are ensured at national,
and especially local, levels. In addition, the concept of Commonwealth citizenship has
been there ever since the establishment of the Commonwealth of Nations. Common-
wealth citizenship also flows from national citizenship. It provides certain rights within
some Commonwealth countries, for example, some countries do not extend tourist visa
requirements for citizens of other Commonwealth countries and also provide certain
political rights to them. A citizen of a member country of the Commonwealth enjoys
the status of Commonwealth citizenship of India. As per the Indian Citizenship Act, the
Central government has the power to make provisions on the basis of reciprocity for the
extension of all or any of the rights of a citizen of India to the citizens of the Common-
wealth member nations. The potential for supranational citizenship can be seen in several
regional groupings such as SAARC, NAFTA or APEC. However, supranational citizen-
ship is a secondary concept, with a status weaker than national citizenship as of now.
Third, a globalizing world demands a system of global rights and duties. One emer-
gent category in this direction is ecological/earth citizenship. Ecological citizenship
makes us environmental citizens since we all have a common future with regard to the
natural environment. It includes rights (a reasonable quality of water and air) and duties
(not to consume CFCs). In addition to human rights, global rights might also include
the right to migrate from one state to another and to stay at least temporarily with com-
parable rights to the local population, to be able to return not as stateless and without
any significant loss of rights, and to be able to carry one’s own culture. As per the UDHR
(1948), ‘everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to
his country’. The idea of a ‘world passport’ emerged to address the problems of refugees
and stateless persons shortly after World War I, when Nansen suggested the idea of the
first non-national passport for refugees and stateless persons. This ‘Nansen Passport’
became the first international travel document. Global duties and responsibilities could
include demonstrating tolerance and trust towards other cultures and other peoples.
Fourth, contemporary economic globalization is associated with an accelerating gap
between rich and poor states, and between people in the global economy. Conceivably, a
deepening polarization of income and wealth, global inequality, poverty, social exclusion
and social conflict have become the most pressing and contentious issues on the global
agenda. So we require a system of global justice based on a just distribution of goods and
services in the international arena (for global justice, see Chapter 11, this volume).
Fifth, as we can see, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the nation-state model
cannot offer an adequate basis for citizenship, identity, rights and duties, and justice in
the globalizing age. Here we must address ourselves to an urgent question—how can a
new system, which would accommodate the emerging dominant practices and beliefs—
multiple and transnational identities and citizenships, global rights and duties, and glob-
al justice—be devised? The concept of cosmopolitan citizenship beyond the nation-state
attempts to provide an adequate response to this (see Chapter 11, this volume).
Conclusion
To sum up, we can say that contemporary citizenship is becoming post-modern (Urry
2000), in the sense that the nation-state is no longer the sole source that provides citi-
zenship and citizenship rights, and duties and identity. Although the nation-state re-
mains the most important site, it is no longer the exclusive site as far as citizenship
practices and experiences are concerned. There is a growing recognition of citizenship
practices in cities, in the workplace, the economy at large, the family, and in new social
movements. Individuals are acquiring multiple identities and allegiances. A complex
system of rights and duties is emerging—aboriginal rights, women’s rights, civil rights,
political rights, social rights, sexual rights, animal rights, language rights, disability
rights, cultural rights, minority rights, ecological rights, diasporic rights and cyber
rights—based on different groups and new technologies.
We can also observe another tendency—citizenship was initially attached to the

city (local citizenship) before it came to be linked with the nation-state (national
citizenship); and it then became closely linked with the European Union (transnation-
al citizenship). Therefore, many believe that there are good prospects for the linkage
between citizenship and the world at large (deterritorialized/cosmopolitan citizen-
ship) in the future. However, for the near future at least, nation-states will remain
the primary site for the exercise of democratic citizenship. Although the contours of
an emerging global civil society and global governance are slowly becoming discern-
ible, we cannot deny the centrality of Westphalian (or bounded) citizenship, which is
certainly being modified and complemented by new forms of citizenship. The need
for flexible boundaries has increased significantly over a couple of years, largely due
to study, work, tourism, medical reasons, or through marrying foreign citizens. The
world is getting over its innate fear of strangers, outsiders, or the Other, and the Oth-
er is gradually becoming intimate to the native. Many countries are opening their
doors to outsiders and providing access to higher education, employment prospects
and business opportunities. As more and more people move across national bound-
aries, multiple identities and citizenships are fast becoming a reality. As the former
President of the United States, Bill Clinton, aptly remarked, ‘You live in the age of
interdependence. Borders can’t count for much or stop much, good or bad anymore.’
A growing number of inter-governmental organizations and agreements are bring-
ing more transnational citizenships into being. Furthermore, citizenship is becoming
more dynamic and complex because of newer multiplying forms that have come into
existence, and their corresponding rights and duties. It is also becoming more inclu-
sive and democratic owing to the ongoing social movements across the world. Hence,
citizenship in a globalizing world has to be based on a recognition of (a) the increas-
ing interconnectedness of political communities or nation-states, although national
sovereignty is still important; and (b) the supposition to rethink the scope and content
of citizenship rights (the issues of inclusion and substance) both within and beyond
the nation-state.
Summary
• In the modern period, the firm link between nation-state, territory and citizen-
ship is clearly noticeable. Modern citizenship, it can be argued, developed and was
conceptualized within the boundaries of the nation-state. The idea of a citizen-
ship tied to the terrain and imagination of the nation-state has been called into
question in the age of globalization.
• Globalization is one of the most contested topics in the social sciences. Glo-
balization is not a monolithic phenomenon; it is a fragmented, discontinuous,
incomplete, contingent, and even contradictory process. The analysis and cri-
tique presented in this chapter indicate that globalization is certainly changing
the nature of the world. However, it is neither an invariably civilizing force nor
a destructive one. Its impact varies across countries, societal sectors and time.
One also needs to take into account the role that agency, interest and resistance
play in shaping it.
• A fundamental issue is whether globalization has undermined the authority of
the nation-state. At one end of the spectrum, it is maintained that the advance
of globalization ultimately depends on the power and approval of nation-states.
At the other end, globalization is viewed as a transformative epoch leading to a
reordering of the nation-state. Globalization needs to be understood as a complex
and multilayered process that, in multiple and varying ways, impinge upon nation-
state sovereignty and the capacities of nation-states to formulate national policies.
• The effects of globalization on citizenship are complex and uneven. A disar-
ticulation and rearticulation of citizenship elements are taking place in the age
of globalization. Cities, the global civil society and cyberspace are emerging
as new spaces for political mobilization, leading to the formulation of several
‘unbounded’ notions of citizenship—ecological citizenship, cyber citizenship,
transnational citizenship and cosmopolitan citizenship.
• Still, governance, accountability, rights and duties are well-defined only with
regard to boundedness. While national citizenship can no longer be viewed
without taking into account various forms of unbounded citizenship, the latter
also cannot be separated from national boundaries and the local contexts of
citizens.

1. What do you mean by globalization? What is the impact of globalization on citizenship in
theory and practice?
2. Do you think our everyday life has been affected by the diverse forces of globalization?
3. In what ways do you think globalization is transforming space, time and identity—the
three important categories of the modern period?
4. ‘Nation-state is in decline in the age of globalization.’ Comment.
5. Do you think citizenship is still important in the contemporary world? Explain your
position.
6. How can citizenship be reconciled with the international migrations of our time?
7. Do you think territorial boundaries still matter in the era of globalization?
8. Write short notes on the following: (a) global civil society, (b) the global village, (c) cul-
tural globalization, (d) citizenship and global cities, (e) supranational citizenship, (f) jus
domicili
Suggested Readings
Brodie, Janine, ‘Introduction: Globalisation and Citizenship Beyond the National State’, Citizen-
ship Studies, 8 (4), 2004.
Brubaker, Rogers, ‘Immigration, Citizenship, and the Nation-State in France and Germany: A
Comparative Historical Analysis’, in Gershon Shafir (ed.), The Citizenship Debates: A Reader
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).
Castles, Stephen, ‘Citizenship and the Other in the Age of Migration’, in Philip Spencer and
Howard Wollman (eds), Nations and Nationalism: A Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univer-
sity Press, 2005).
Falk, Richard, ‘An Emergent Matrix of Citizenship: Complex, Uneven, and Fluid’, in Nigel Dow-
er and John Williams (eds), Global Citizenship: A Critical Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2002).
Held, David (ed.), 2004, Globalising World? Culture, Economics and Politics (London: Routledge
with The Open University).
Held, David and Anthony McGrew (eds), 2000, The Global Transformations Reader (Cambridge:
Polity Press).
Heywood, Andrew, 2000, Politics (London: Macmillan).
Kabeer, Naila, ‘Introduction: The Search for Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions in
an Interconnected World’, in Naila Kabeer (ed.), Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expres-
sions (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2005).
Messina, Anthony M. and Gallya Lahav (eds), 2006, The Migration Reader: Exploring Politics
and Policies (New Delhi: Viva Books with Lynne Rienner Publishers).
Sassen, Saskia, ‘Towards Post-National and Denationalized Citizenship’, in Engin F. Isin and
Bryan Turner (eds), Handbook of Citizenship Studies (London: Sage Publications, 2002).
Soysal, Yasemin Nuhoglu, ‘Toward a Postnational Model of Membership’, in Gershon Shafir (ed.),
The Citizenship Debates: A Reader (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).
Urry, John, ‘Global Flows and Global Citizenship’, in Engin F. Isin (ed.), Democracy, Citizenship
and the Global City (London: Routledge, 2000).
Internet Resources
http://www.polity.co.uk/global/ (last accessed 4 November 2010)
http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/index.html (last accessed 4 November 2010)
10
Citizenship and Global Justice
Chandrachur Singh
But among the traits characteristic of the human being is an impelling desire for
fellowship, that is for common life, not of just any kind, but a peaceful life, and
organized according to the measure of his intelligence, with those who are of his
kind .… Stated as a universal truth, therefore, the assertion that every animal is
impelled by nature to seek only its own good cannot be conceded.
Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace
Introduction
Twenty-first century politics is undisputedly a global affair. Even though globaliza-
tion as a concept remains contested and has been used to describe either positively or
negatively the highly complex and multidimensional processes in the economy, pol-
ity, culture and in everyday life, there is now a growing consensus that it refers to the
worldwide phenomenon of technological, economic and cultural exchanges, brought
about by modern communication, transportation and legal infrastructure, primarily
operating through international trade and finance. It is a term used to describe how
human beings are becoming more interactive with each other around the world, both
economically and culturally. It would be pertinent to start this chapter by asking certain
questions: are the people on the globe living under equitable conditions? If the answer
is in the negative, then logically one should ask why and how such conditions could be
created. Who has the responsibility of creating a just global system? How can poverty be
globally eradicated? What obligations do the rich and prosperous nations have vis-à-vis
Citizenship and Global Justice 169
the states facing problems of hunger, famines and ethnic hatred? What should be the
basis of the transfer of resources to the poor nations, also referred to as ‘the Wretched
of the Earth’ by Franz Fanon? Can states tackle the global problems unilaterally? These
answers in turn constitute the theoretical foundations of Global Justice. It is from these
principles that the characteristics of the contemporary Global Polity can be discerned.
This chapter attempts first to outline the effects of these interactions on human lives.
Through an examination of the widespread disparities amongst societies, it attempts
to bring in the idea of Justice on a global scale. In doing so, it not only examines how
adequate various approaches to understanding global diversity are, but also stresses the
need to build a value-based approach to deal with such issues.
Although societies have been interacting amongst themselves right from the Greco-
Roman period, these interactions became more formalized after the Treaty of West-
phalia (1648). However, what makes contemporary interactions different from the
traditional ones is the fact that they not only involve states, but also supra-, sub- and
even non-state actors. Further, the formation of new networks through the Internet
and the media and the simultaneous expansion in business and economic networks
catalysed through scientific and technological innovations not only bridge geographi-
cal space—what O’ Brian has called the ‘End of Geography’—but also question the
role of the state as the authoritative allocator of values. Globalization has led not only
to a rise in global regulations, but to a simultaneous increase in the sites of decision-
making, both at the level of international organizations and that of private and non-
state actors. The diffusion of state sovereignty brings new actors within the arena of
politics, and also paves the way for new organizational means of practising social,
political and civic rights.
Globalization has also resulted in growing community attachments, which appear
to be developing beyond the confines of the state. This attachment results in the
growth of a new consciousness of the world as one single unit. There has been a
tendency to look at the world as an identifiable sense of place or space where dif-
ferent values and assertions developed in response to human problems can contest
each other and yet coexist. There is definitely a readiness to both accept and consider
appropriate a global discourse in the public space. The growing number of global
conferences and meets bears testimony to such an assertion. The opening of Social
Forums—chapters of the World Social Forum—in many countries and the recogni-
tion of problems related to gender, environment, or even the abuse of basic human
rights point towards the shared understanding among people living in different plac-
es. In fact, the acceptance of human rights as principles of governance provides cred-
ibility to the idea of rights beyond nation-states. Simultaneously, there is an enhanced
focus on ideas of democracy and justice, which are to take on more demanding roles
in the global context.
Global Disparities
That we do not live in a just world is the least controversial claim that one could make.
Many people are extremely poor, while others are extremely rich. Many live under ty-
rannical regimes. Many are vulnerable to violence, disease and starvation. Many die
prematurely. According to the Human Development Report 2006 released by the Unit-
ed Nations Development Programme:
Ours is a world of extremes. The poorest 40 percent of the world population—the 2.5
billion people who live on less than $2 a day—account for five percent of global income,
while the richest 10 percent account for 54 percent. More than 800 million people
suffer from hunger and malnutrition, 1.1 billion people do not have access to clean
drinking water and, every hour, and 1,200 children die from preventable diseases.
Despite a growing world economy and significant advances in medicine and tech-
nology, many people in developing countries are not reaping the potential benefits of
globalization. Global inequalities in income increased in the twentieth century, out of
proportion to anything experienced before. The distance between the incomes of the
richest and the poorest countries was about three to one in 1820, 35 to one in 1950, 44
to one in 1973, and 72 to one in 1992. Developing countries are home to more than
80 per cent of the world’s population, but command less than 20 per cent of its wealth.
According to Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UNO, ‘even these statistics
fail to capture the humiliation, powerlessness and brutal hardship that is the daily lot
of the world’s poor’. According to Singer and Wildavasky (1993), the developing coun-
tries are ‘Zones of Turmoil’, in contrast to the developed states where ‘peace wealth
and democracy’ prevail, in these societies. People in developing countries live amidst
‘poverty, war, tyranny and anarchy’. The second concern is related to the gruesome fact
of socio-economic inequality between the states, given the fact that roughly 20 per cent
of the world’s population lives on less than $1 a day, and more than 45 per cent live on
less than $2 a day, whereas the 15 per cent who live in the high-income economies have
an average per capita income of $75 a day. The concept of global justice has been devel-
oped in the wake of such facts.
How should we understand and respond to these facts? What do the inhabitants of
the world owe one another? What institutions and ethical standards should we recog-
nize and apply throughout the world? These questions are related to the social and mor-
al obligations of humanity and necessarily highlight the issues of fairness and rightness
or, put simply, the issue of justice at the international level. In present times, such ideas
can be seen in the writings of Charles Beitz and Onora O’ Neill, who have examined
obligations across borders and the possibilities of transnational justice. Charles Beitz
in particular has argued strenuously against limiting considerations of social justice to
considerations of domestic justice. The eminent theorist John Rawls has also published
his views on the issue in his famous work Laws of the People. Similarly, Derek Heater,
Richard Falk, Martha Nussbaum and Andrew Linklater have examined the issue in the
context of an ideal world citizenship.
Global Justice
Citizenship is related to the entitlement to rights; if we have reached a stage where the
nation-state can no longer be seen as the only agency wielding authority, then it brings
us to the possibility of realizing rights through various supra, sub and national actors.
In other words, the issue of individuals as cosmopolitan citizens becomes relevant.
Cosmopolitanism takes the individual as the ultimate unit of moral worth, entitled to
equal consideration regardless of his/her culture, nationality or citizenship. It rejects
the notion that national borders constrains moral obligations to others, and supports
the idea of World Citizenship. As Martha Nussbaum has put it, the cosmopolitan view
holds that, wherever s/he is, ‘each human being is human and counts as the moral equal
of every other’ (Nussbaum 1996: 133). It is based on Thomas Pogge’s belief ‘that every
human being has a global stature as the ultimate unit of moral concern’. Cosmopolitans
argue that some form of moral universalism is true, and therefore all humans, and not
merely compatriots or fellow-citizens, fall within the scope of justice. The behaviour
of individuals is seen as being based on some morally significant characteristics. Since
these characteristics are shared by all humans and not only by the members of some
nation, culture, society, or state, all humans have equal moral worth. Cosmopolitanism
is the idea of responsibility and appeals to the individual to think beyond local identi-
ties and allegiances. It stresses responsibilities that we have not only towards people
we know, but also towards those whom we do not. As a natural corollary, this blurs the
boundaries between nations, cultures, societies and states.
BOX 10.1 A HELPING HAND
Bitterness between states on political issues is a thing of the past. Let us take the
example of an Iraqi boy, Mustafa Ahmed Hanish, who was operated upon by an
Indian doctor on the request of an American soldier. Of course, the Internet was the
main source of communication. Jonathan Miles, an American who worked for nine
months with the US forces in Iraq, led a mission of multiple faiths. Miles wrote an
email to Dr Cherian, the 63-year-old Indian doctor who had earlier performed the
first infant heart transplant in the country and operated on a Pakistani boy when
India and Pakistan were locked in the Kargil war, seeking help for Iraqi children
suffering from congenital heart defects. On his part, Dr Cherian quickly accepted
(Continued)
the request. Scared and unsure of their fates, the Iraqi children arrived in India
with hope; however, that hope rested on the cost of the operation, which was about
$4,000−$5,000. For the families from Iraq, where chaotic sprees of looting and an-
archy have disrupted local medical supplies and services, the amount was unimagi-
nable, and the prospects of travelling abroad for surgical help remote. But to their
surprise, the Indian doctor waived the entire cost of surgery and hospitalization for
the children. Their round-trip fare was covered by CBN, the Christian Broadcasting
Network based in Virginia Beach, US.
The broader philosophical context of the global justice debate is the issue of impartial-
ity, which assumes normative orientations. It is related to dealing with questions of hu-
manity, for instance, should individuals’ duties extend only to family members, friends
and compatriots, or should they be extended even towards strangers and foreigners?
Some of the chief concerns of the global justice concept centres on the recognition of
the widespread poverty, hunger and homelessness, and alienation from government, as
well as the increasing wage gaps. Agreeing with Amartya Sen’s argument that globaliza-
tion must address the issues of interdependence to be genuinely and universally accept-
able, the concept of global justice seeks to address and correct social ills, not through
traditional governmental organizations, but through the organization of humanity in
order to advance the genuine empowerment of society and maintain the security and
self-determination of all peoples. It is this vision that allows the idea of global justice to
be encompassed by many different movements, such as environmentalist movements,
women’s rights movements and anti-capitalist movements.
The concept of global justice breaks down the traditional separation of intra-national
and inter-national relations and extends institutional moral analysis to the whole field.
The motive behind this dramatic reorientation is the realization that the traditional
conception of the world of international relations as inhabited only by states is unsat-
isfactory. The emergence and increasing stature of other agents on the international
stage, such as multinational corporations, international organizations and regional
associations, means that this conception is rapidly losing its explanatory capacity. In
the contemporary global justice debate, the general issue of impartiality centres on the
moral significance of borders and shared citizenship. Realists, particularists, nation-
alists, members of the society of states tradition, and cosmopolitans take contesting
positions in response to these problems. Three related questions, those concerning the
scope of justice, justice in the distribution of wealth and other goods, and the institu-
tions responsible for justice, are central to the problem of global justice.
Realists such as Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz are sceptical of the existence
of any universal moral principles. They believe that states should not sacrifice their
own self-interest in order to adhere to some indeterminate notion of ethical conduct.

The need for survival requires states to distance themselves from traditional morality,
which attaches importance to the greater good of humanity as a whole. Morality is
constructed as having dual standards, that is, one moral standard for citizens within the
nation and the other for states in external relations. Self-help is the principle of action
and there is nothing called a global government. Realism argues that there are no global
ethical standards, and that to imagine there is is a dangerous fantasy. States are the main
actors in an international anarchy, and they should always attempt to act rationally in
their own interests. There is no obligation to help the poor, unless doing so helps to
further a state’s strategic aims. And the state system is taken as the fundamental and
unchallengeable global institution.
Communitarians such as Michael Walzer and James Tully argue that ethical stan-
dards arise out of shared meanings and practices, which are created and sustained by
discrete cultures or societies. Individuals acquire their most fundamental rights and re-
sponsibilities as members of particular communities, and not as members of the human
race (Walzer 1995a). Although the communitarians do not deny that societies have ob-
ligations to one another, they insist that it is right that most human beings are usually
moved by attachments to their community rather than by arguments about what is good
for humanity. Walzer’s position on the idea of world citizenship is representative of the
communitarian position on global justice. He argues that citizenship refers to a web of
political rights and duties, which only exist when there is a strong sense of identification
with the nation-state. Communitarians believe that moral and social criticism is pos-
sible within the boundaries of groups, but not across them. If a society is egalitarian, for
instance, its citizens can meaningfully criticize each other if they do not live up to their
own egalitarian ideals; however, they cannot meaningfully criticize another, caste-based
society in the name of those ideals. ‘A given society is just if its substantive life is lived in
a certain way—that is, in a way faithful to the shared understandings of [its] members.’ If
not, it is unjust. Each society has its own, different standards, and only those within it are
bound by those standards and can properly criticize themselves. So moral universalism
is false, because objective ethical standards vary between cultures or societies. We should
not apply the same criteria of distributive justice to strangers as we would to compatriots.
And nation-states that express their peoples’ shared and distinctive ethical understand-
ings are the proper institutions to enable local and different justices.
BOX 10.2 THE COMMUNITARIAN PERSPECTIVE
For the Communitarians, boundaries are essential aspects of human existence, es-
pecially those that reflect cultural divisions and provide an essential framework
for community living, identity and values. Communitarian morality is therefore
(Continued)
context-bound. Still, they accept that community standards cannot be privileged

over and above humanitarian concerns to justify genocide, torture or human sac-
rifice. This naturally brings us to the issue of assigning responsibility for these in-
human acts. Should communities be solely assigned the responsibility for solving
these vexed problems, or should the responsibility be extended to the global as well?
One of the major issues on which these notions converge is the situation of refugees,
who have fled either from conflict, or when threatened by natural disaster, or simply
because they were unable to eke out a living in their homelands sufficient to feed,
clothe, house and educate their families. The issue is important as official estimates
put the number of refugees in the world at over 16 million. An inward Communitar-
ian standpoint would be disastrous for humanity; hence, in order to deal with it, one
must think in terms of the rights of individuals to a decent, dignified life, and that in
turn should lead to a relaxation of the tight controls that are maintained.
Nationalists such as David Miller and Yael Tamir believe in stronger commitments
and obligations to the members of their own nations, and argue that demands for mu-
tual obligations are created by a particular kind of valuable association, the nation. We
may have humanitarian duties towards the particularly badly-off worldwide, but these
are much less stringent and pressing than our duties to our fellow-citizens. National-
ism has traditionally included this assumption of differing moral obligations to those
within and those outside the nation, reflected for example in the fact that the benefits of
the welfare state are not available to citizens of other countries. So moral universalism
is too simple, because the ethical standards that apply between compatriots differ from
those that apply between strangers (although some nationalists argue for the universal
ethical standard that nations should have in their own states). Distributive justice is an
issue within nations, but not necessarily between them. And a world system of nation-
states is the appropriate organizer of justice for all, through their distinct associational
groups.
Charles Beitz and Global Distributive Justice

The inadequacy of political realism in explaining international collaboration in recent
years, coupled with the acceptance of the neo-Kantian idea of a ‘democratic peace’,
has once again placed the liberalist viewpoint of international relations on the front
seat. It is in this context that the need for a defensible form of liberalism, one that can
guide international conduct, has been once again articulated. According to Charles Be-
itz, any defensible form of international liberalism should have at least four elements:
(i) a conception of the moral foundations of the principles of international conduct;
(ii) an account of international political justice, including the prerogatives of the state,
the authority of international law and institutions, and the minimum requirements of
fair participation in international governance; and (iii) an account of distributive jus-
tice, including the distributive responsibilities of states and the extent, if any, to which
the institutional structure of international order should seek to influence the global
distribution of resources and wealth. Together, these elements should form the basis
of (iv) a doctrine of human rights, understood as the universal minimum standard of
legitimacy for social institutions.
According to Beitz, a conception of international distributive justice is needed, as the
decisions we make impact not only us, but also societies far across. These include, for
example, choices concerning individual conduct (such as whether to donate to Oxfam);
the policies of our own government (concerning, for example, foreign aid or immi-
gration); the policies of international institutions and regimes (rules of international
trade, international monetary policy, environmental controls, labour standards, condi-
tions on multilateral aid and structural assistance); the constitutions of international
institutions, as distinct from their policies; and the policies of non-governmental or-
ganizations (the Ford Foundation, the International Red Cross). Since these decisions
have potential consequences, it is natural to wonder what moral considerations should
guide our judgement. According to Beitz, a theory of international distributive justice is
concerned with the basic structure of international society, that is, the institutions that
determine the international distribution of advantages.
Beitz believes that it is possible to discern three views concerning international
distributive justice within the liberal framework. These views differ not only on their
grounds for concern over the distributive characteristics of the structure of internation-
al society, but also on the grounds they exclude from consideration. Beitz has labelled
them thus:
1. Social Liberalism
2. Laissez-faire Liberalism
3. Cosmopolitan Liberalism
Social Liberalism and Global Justice

According to Beitz, social liberalism focuses on a two-level conception of international
society, in which there is a division of moral labour between the domestic and the
international levels. While the state is seen to have primary responsibility for the well-
being of its own people, the international community serves mainly to establish and
maintain the background against which domestic societies can develop and flourish.
International or transnational actors as well as individuals are not seen as agents of
international justice, which is the primary responsibility of states. David Miller, John
Rawls and John Vincent are important proponents of this view. Social Liberalism gives
prime importance to human rights as conditions that apply to all cultures. It allows for
external help, but only under special circumstances. As Miller states, this occurs when
there are extreme levels of deprivation that the local government is in no position to re-
lieve, and when foreign governments or other international actors can do so effectively
without a morally significant sacrifice.
John Rawls is the most outspoken theorist of the social liberalism perspective. In
his work The Law of Peoples, Rawls extends the arguments of his earlier work, A Theory
of Justice, to the question of global justice. In his earlier work, Rawls had developed a
detailed moral assessment of the alternative ways in which a society’s social order might
be designed. The Laws of the People exemplifies an interactional moral analysis applied
to the international realm. Rawls believes that in this work, he is endorsing a realistic
utopia: it is realistic in the sense that it takes into account the many real conditions by
(for instance) assuming that a fair amount of diversity exists in the actual world, and
that as such, all cannot endorse liberal principles.
Rawls offers a proposal detailing what the rules governing state conduct should be.
He provides an extension of his theory of justice beyond the individual state and modi-
fied his hypothetical contract device so that the parties for choosing the law of peoples
are representatives of peoples, not individuals. He concludes that these parties would
choose these principles:
1. People are free and independent, and their freedom and independence are to be
respected by other people.
2. All people are to observe treaties and undertakings.
3. All people are equal, and parties to the agreements that bind them.
4. All people are to observe a duty of non-intervention.
5. People have the right to self-defence, but have no right to instigate war for reasons
other than self-defence.
6. All people are to honour human rights.
7. All people are to observe certain specified restrictions in the conduct of war.
8. People have a duty to assist others living under unfavourable conditions which
prevent their having a just or decent political and social regime.
He argues that we can justify a global regime by showing that it would be chosen by
representatives of peoples in an imagined original position. Rawls imagines a contract
between people to create a just international society, which would accord primacy to
the independence and equality of all people and to individual rights. Since the contract
is between people who do not know each other, this decision-in-ignorance is justice as
fairness as it excludes selfish bias. When Rawls applied this method to domestic justice,
with the parties in the original position representing individual members of a single
society, he argued that it supported a redistributive, egalitarian liberal politics. In con-

trast to this, Rawls argues that when his method is applied to global justice, it would
support an ethical standard whereby states would obey treaties that would in turn
strictly limit war. However, Rawls agrees that this would not result in a global redis-
tribution of wealth. So different forms of justice would be applied to the domestic and
international cases. Even if justice requires egalitarianism within states, it does not call
for the same between them.
Martha Naussbaum, however, disagrees with Rawls, and has argued that the prob-
lem of global justice cannot be solved by envisaging international cooperation as a con-
tract for mutual advantage among parties placed similarly in a state of nature. Instead,
it can be solved only by thinking of all that human beings require to live a richly human
life—a set of basic entitlements for all people—and by developing a conception of the
purpose of social cooperation that focuses on fellowship as well as self-interest. Allen
Buchanan sympathizes with critics of Rawls who have complained that Rawls’ Law of
Peoples is a betrayal of liberalism because it accords legitimacy to very inegalitarian
regimes, including those that deprive women of important rights—such as the right to
education and equal opportunity in employment—which are not included in Rawls’ ba-
sic human rights. This is because of Rawls’ key assumption that the parties who choose
the Law represent peoples, not individuals.
Laissez-faire Liberalism and Global Justice

Laissez-faire liberalism, championed by theorists such as Adam Smith, is once again
finding favour. Also at times identified with libertarianism, it believes that a distribu-
tion is just when it has been arrived at from a previous distribution that itself was just,
provided that the series of transactions in the process did not violate anyone’s rights. In
his work Anarchy State and Utopia, Robert Nozick defends such a view. Such theories
are opposed to intervention in the market, except when required to remedy the effects
of prior violations of liberty. According to Beitz, however, this theory applies to the
world at large. Its redistributive potential arises from the prospect that intervention in
markets might be required to rectify injustices in the prior global division of benefits of
the earth’s resources.
Laissez-faire liberals are divided over whether injustice in initial appropriation
justifies subsequent remedial intervention by the state. Status quo theorists hold that
whatever injustices may have occurred in the first appropriation will have been recti-
fied subsequently, perhaps as a result of many generations of economic growth and
innovation. There is therefore no argument for redistribution to rectify inequalities in
benefits derived from resources. Laissez-faire redistributivists, in contrast, argue that
it may be necessary for the state to intervene to rectify the effects of injustices in earlier
appropriations of un-owned things, either by redistributing control over resources or

by compensating those who have less with transfer payments from those who have
more. Charles Beitz in particular supports the redistributive variant, especially as it is
relevant to the questions of global environmental justice that have recently been before
the international community.
Cosmopolitan Liberalism and Global Justice

Cosmopolitanism stems from the philosopher Diogenes’ view. When asked where he
came from, he was reported to have replied, ‘I am a citizen of the world.’ The point of
view suggested by this remark seeks to regard the whole world as a single entity, and to
see each part of the whole in its true relative proportion. In the cosmopolitan tradition,
states are seen as individual entities that can mutually agree on common interests and
rules of interaction, including moral rules, in much the same way that human individu-
als can. Globalization is seen as a system that creates new opportunities for promoting
the idea that all human beings are equal. It is argued that efforts to solve global prob-
lems such as environmental damages should promote the welfare of the species as a
whole. Global institutional arrangements such as the International Criminal Court are
welcomed as important steps in law enforcement. Cosmopolitanism supports a sys-
tem of cooperating, but independent states as the basis for a just global institutional
arrangement.
It is difficult, though, to determine the preferred moral characteristics of humanity.
Theorists such as Peter Singer have argued that the proper standard of moral judge-
ment for actions, practices or institutions is their consequences, and that the measure
of consequences is the welfare of not only humans, but all sentient beings. The capac-
ity to experience welfare and suffering is therefore taken as the shared basis for moral
standing. This means that the fact that some people are suffering terrible deprivations
of welfare caused by poverty creates a moral demand for anyone able to help them to do
so. Neither the physical distance between the rich and the poor, nor the fact that they
are typically citizens of different countries, has any moral relevance. Human rights have
also been taken as the basis while defending cosmopolitanism. Writers such as Thomas
Pogge and Simon Caney argue that all humans have rights, perhaps those set out in the
UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It may be argued that these rights mean
that the rich have a positive duty to provide what they guarantee (security, a livelihood,
etc.). Overall, the Cosmopolitans believe that the contemporary world has failed badly
to live up to their standards, and that doing so would require considerable changes in
the actions of wealthy individuals and states. It might, for instance, require them to
transfer most of their wealth to the poor. It might require the building of international
institutions able to limit, or even replace, the self-interested actions of powerful states
and corporations. It might require each of us to do much more than most of us now
do. All cosmopolitans, however, believe that it is individuals, and not states, nations, or
other groups, who are the ultimate focus of universal moral standards.
BOX 10.3 THE COSMOPOLITAN APPROACH
The cosmopolitan approach can in fact be seen as welcoming some of the aspects
of globalization, especially in the context within which it is conceptualized, insofar
as it brings humanity closer together through dispensing with, or at least softening,
certain artificial boundaries that have proved their divisiveness in a number of ways.
Cosmopolitans are critical of state sovereignty, which they believe has been used to
shield gross human rights violations by the emphasis placed on non-intervention in
the internal affairs of the state. They are equally critical of communitarian thinking,
which states that morality depends primarily on viewpoints derived from culture,
and is hence not amenable to a univeralist project concerning the promotion of hu-
man rights and other goods. It cannot be said, though, that the cosmopolitans place
no value on community and its sense of identity, belonging and security; however,
this in no any way provides a justification for crimes against humanity. This natu-
rally raises the question of morality, which transcends all boundaries in its focus on
humanity. Environmental problems such as pollution, land management, the avail-
ability of water and other natural resources all around the world—all of which are
likely to worsen in the future—is a case in point, showing that cosmopolitans believe
that both the local and the global community must take responsibility and work to
remedy these problems as best they can.
According to Beitz, cosmopolitanism occurs in international thought in at least two

different senses—in the forms of institutional and moral cosmopolitanism. The first re-
fers to the way the world’s political institutions should be set up. It holds that the world’s
political structure should be reshaped so that states and other political units are brought
under the authority of supranational agencies of some kind—a ‘world government’, for
example, or perhaps a network of loosely associated regional bodies. The second kind of
cosmopolitanism concerns itself not with institutions themselves, but with the basis on
which institutions should be justified or criticized. As Thomas Pogge put it, moral cosmo-
politanism is the notion ‘that every human being has a global stature as the ultimate unit
of moral concern’. It applies to the whole world the maxim that choices concerning what
we should do and the institutions we should establish should be based on an impartial
consideration of the claims of each person who would be affected. Moral cosmopolitan-
ism is distinguished not by any particular view about world political organization, but
rather by a view about the moral basis on which this question should be decided.
Beitz states that there are many different cosmopolitan views about international dis-
tributive justice—human rights theories, globalized utilitarianism, various forms of glo-
bal egalitarianism, and pluralistic theories of global scope. He believes that if there is a
major axis of differentiation among these theories, it has to do with the extent to which
each treats the state or national (or other) community as an enclave of special distributive
responsibilities, which are distinct and justified separately from general or global respon-
sibilities. Some views treat special responsibilities, to the degree that they may be said to
exist at all, as merely ‘administrative device[s] for discharging our general duties more ef-
ficiently’. Such views hold that distributive justice at the domestic level is continuous with
distributive justice at the global level: once the requirements of international distributive
justice are settled, there is no further, separate question about domestic justice.
Other views hold that special responsibilities can arise from sources other than gen-
eral duties—for example, from relationships that have value for their participants (in-
cluding membership in social groups)—but that these responsibilities are constrained
by global distributive considerations. Such theories are discontinuous, meaning that
they allow for distributive requirements within sectional units which are different from,
and possibly more stringent than, those at the global level. For example, a theory might
establish a global distributive threshold, perhaps in terms of subsistence rights or basic
needs, and permit variations at the sectional level consistent with the threshold. Both
Henry Shue and Thomas Pogge have proposed theories of this kind. Pogge associates
himself with the institutional understanding, while an interactional understanding is
attributed to Shue.
Global Justice through Global Governance

Global governance is an attempt to create a better social order that cuts across national
boundaries, notwithstanding the fact that the idea of a global government is an impos-
sibility given that states are sovereign. Global governance aims to establish peace and
prosperity by taking into account the multiplicity of interests in areas such as trade,
economy, environment and health. It accepts that there is no one body in global affairs
that can claim the monopoly over the exercise of legitimate physical force; yet there can
be several mechanisms to encourage compliance and accountability, such as mecha-
nisms concerning consumer choices in the market, citizens’ decisions, NGO activities,
professional codes of conduct, self-regulation of industries, etc. (Gillian Brock, cited in
Mckinnon 2008: 301). Two arguments have been advanced in support of the idea of
global governance. First, it is argued that global problems—also referred to as Global
commons—require collective effort on a global scale, as no state is in a position or has
the competence required to tackle them. Second, global governance is required from the
standpoint of global justice, especially since globalization is a fact that cannot be ignored.
Both arguments rely on each other as there are many problems affecting all our lives, for
example the global warming that all of us are facing, or diseases such as AIDS, SARS, etc.,
which spread from one country to another and can be dealt with effectively only through
common efforts. These require global cooperation for an effective solution. The duty to
ensure global governance emanates from the fact that we are associated with everyone
else on the planet through a global economic order, and that we all benefit from such
arrangements. Morally, it is based on the argument that all humans are owed at least the
minimum simply because they are human beings. It arises from an acceptance of the fact
that global affairs at present are unjust, and that this injustice needs to be addressed.
Conclusion
The world contains inequalities that are morally alarming, and the gap between the rich
and poor nations is widening. Which nation a child is born in subsequently determines
her/his life chances. Any theory of justice that proposes political principles must there-
fore take into account basic human entitlements in order to confront these inequalities
and the challenges they pose, in a world in which the power of the global market and
multinational corporations has considerably eroded the power and autonomy of na-
tions. The dominant theory of justice in the Western tradition of political philosophy is
the social contract theory, which sees principles of justice as the outcome of a contract
people make to their mutual advantage, and which enables them to leave the state of
nature and govern themselves by law. John Rawls has tried to extend such theories, but
despite their great strengths when it comes to thinking about justice, they yield very
imperfect results when applied to the world stage, precisely because they presume the
contracting parties to be equal—and that is not the case in reality. The capabilities ap-
proach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Naussbaum suggests a set of basic hu-
man entitlements, similar to human rights, as a minimum of what justice requires for
all, and does seem to offer a prospect of thinking about the goals of development in this
increasingly interdependent and interconnected world.
Questions For Discussion

1. Examine the major features of the Global Polity.
2. What is meant by Global Justice? Analyse the various perspectives of the Global Justice
debate.
3. Would it be fair to say that Charles Beitz’s ideas on Global Justice are in essence a develop-
ment over John Rawls’ ideas in The Laws of the People?
4. Compare the Communitarian and Cosmopolitan perspectives on Global Justice.
5. To what extent does liberalism hold good in accommodating the debate on Global
Justice?
Suggested Readings
Caney, S., 2005, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University
Press).
Held, David, 2004, Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Con-
sensus (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Jones, C., 1999, Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Nussbaum, M., 2006, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge,
M. A.: Belknap Press).
Pogge, T., 2002, World Poverty and Human Rights (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Internet Resources
www.camdun-online.gn.apc.org
www.cceia.org
www.globalpolicy.org
11
Cosmopolitan Citizenship
Rajesh Kumar
I am not a citizen of the world ... I am not even aware that there is a world
such that one could be a citizen of it. No one has ever offered me citizenship, or
described the naturalisation process, or enlisted me in the world’s institutional
structures, or given me an account of the decision procedures ... or provided
me with a list of the benefits and obligations of citizenship, or shown me the
world’s calendar and the common celebrations and commemorations of its
citizens.
Michael Walzer, cited in Andrew Linklater 2002: 318
Introduction
If there is one noticeable way in which people in the world appear identical to one an-
other, it is the fact that everyone is a citizen of some country or the other. It may sound
unusual, but in present times we are unlikely to find anyone who does not come from
somewhere. Even the thought would be dismissed as bizarre! In the admission forms
you need to fill up, there is usually a column which requires you to declare your citizen-
ship. You are required to declare as well as submit proof of your citizenship to even get
a mobile connection or a driving license. One might recall that among the documents
normally accepted as proof of citizenship, the passport is considered the most valid
document. The passport certifies a person’s identity as one who is allowed to access
benefits such as banking and telecom services, etc. Someone visiting India from an-
other country would also have to produce her/his passport in order to prove who they
are and where they have come from. The same holds true for Indians going abroad as
well. We may thus understand citizenship as a sort of national identity denoted by the
possession of a national identity card called the ‘passport’.
Yet, the amusing thing is that it is precisely this characteristic of citizenship that di-
vides all the world’s people into various nationalities. We have seen that so far, everyone’s
status proclaims them to be citizens of different countries of the world. It is unlikely that
we would come across someone who is not a citizen of some country or the other; it is
equally unlikely that we would find someone who is a citizen of more than one country.
People are citizens of only one country at a time. A person has to surrender her/his pass-
port when s/he assumes citizenship of a country different from their country of birth.
Thus, in modern times one can be an Indian or a Canadian or an American, but no one
can be an Indian and a Canadian at the same time. Therefore, citizenship is also a status
that defines our relationship with the territorial nation-state we inhabit.
So it is necessary for us to ask: should citizenship be understood only in relation
with the nation-state? Does citizenship have different dimensions, or should it mean
only a legal or political status? Is it desirable to conceptualize an alternate form in terms
of cosmopolitan citizenship? If yes, what are the factors necessitating a revision of the
concept of citizenship? And how different would our lives and responsibilities become
if cosmopolitan citizenship is realized?
This chapter begins by discussing the concept of citizenship as an institution that is
essentially tied to the territorial nation-state. The emergence of a new context such as
globalization has transformed the way we organize our lives, and has therefore neces-
sitated an attempt to develop a concept of cosmopolitan citizenship. The later sections
examine this concept, and the limits of such a re-conceptualization.
The possibility of participating in affairs of humankind in many different ways, some
of which often spill over beyond national boundaries, has become all too noticeable. As
the practice of citizenship is clearly changing, I suggest that the theory of citizenship
should also reflect this changing practice. This will be possible when we free the concept
of citizenship from a status tied essentially to a nation-state, understanding it instead as
a bundle of rights. This would inculcate in people a sense of belonging to the world as a
whole, without any disruption in the responsibilities they have to fellow members of the
particular political community (that is, the nation-state) they belong to. We hope this
would enable citizens to participate in the affairs of their lives more effectively.
Citizenship: The Concept

In modern times, citizenship is a status bestowed on those who are considered full
members of a community. All those who possess this status are equal with respect to
the rights and duties with which the status is endowed (Marshall 1992: 18). The status
Cosmopolitan Citizenship 185
of citizenship formally expresses an individual’s membership to a political community.

The rights and responsibilities that flow from this membership shape the reciprocal
relationship between the individual and the political community. A citizen is thus dif-
ferent from a mere resident.
The rights enjoyed by citizens are normally of three types: civil, political and social.
Civil rights, such as freedom of speech and expression and the right to justice, form the
foundation of civil society by providing a legal framework for expression, association
and communication between citizens. Civil society is granted a degree of autonomy
from formal governmental institutions. Political rights bestow the right to vote and
participation in the polity, and therefore form the basis for popular sovereignty, which
is central to democratic governance. Citizens are also entitled to social rights, which
include publicly funded healthcare, social security and education. These rights facilitate
political participation and thus enrich democracy.
Apart from enjoying rights, citizens are required to undertake certain responsibili-
ties, such as the payment of taxes and jury or military service. As a whole, we can say
that citizenship involves both rights guaranteed by the state and responsibilities towards
the state. It is thus a status or an identity reinforced and maintained by the state.
Three basic points can be established (Heater, 1999: 80) with regard to citizenship.
First, international law recognizes that each state has the right to define who is or is not
permitted to be its citizen. Second, legal definitions conflate citizenship and nationality,
in the political sense. And third, there are two methods of defining nationality/citizen-
ship, namely jus sanguinis (meaning citizenship by inheritance: at birth, one acquires
the citizenship of one’s parents) and jus soli (meaning citizenship by state territory: at
birth, one acquires the citizenship of the land where one is born).
Citizenship in Modern Times: Evolution

In its narrowest definition, citizenship describes the legal relationship between the indi-
vidual and the polity. The form this relation takes is dependent on the definition of the
polity (Sassen 2002: 279−80). In Europe, this definition of the polity was originally the
city, both in ancient and medieval times. However, the configuration of polity attained
its most developed form in the national state, which eventually made it a dominant
form worldwide.
Citizenship therefore came to be understood as a relationship between the indi-
vidual and the nation-state, in which the two are bound together by reciprocal rights
and duties. The possession of these basic rights entitled citizens to full membership
to their political community, that is, the nation-state. It is important to note here that
the nation-state itself was conceived of as an idealized entity, that is, as an administra-
tively centralized and culturally homogenous form of political community. Citizenship
accordingly became an exclusive status, a privilege meant only for members of this
homogenous political community.
This shift of citizenship towards a national state institution and away from one cen-
tred in cities and the civil society was part of a larger dynamic or change. Key institu-
tional orders that were once organized at the village level now escalated to the national
level, be they warfare, industrial development, or educational and cultural institutions.
These lay at the heart of the formation of the national state as the key political com-
munity, strengthening it at the same time, and were crucial to the socialization of indi-
viduals into national citizenship. It is in this context that nationality becomes a central
constitutive element of the institution of citizenship.
Historically, nationality has been linked to the bond of allegiance tying the indi-
vidual to the sovereign. Traditionally, this bond was seen as insoluble or at least exclu-
sive. However, while the bond of insoluble allegiance was defensible in times of limited
individual mobility, it became difficult in the face of the large-scale migration accom-
panying the new forms of industrial development. Insoluble was gradually replaced by
an exclusive, and hence singular yet changeable, allegiance as the basis of nationality.
Nationality became the key component of citizenship in the political context in the
second half of the nineteenth century, when the absolute authority of the state over its
territory and its nationals came to be recognized. Modern citizenship was born of the
nation-state in which certain rights and obligations were allocated to individuals under
its authority.
The Problems of Modern Citizenship

As we have discussed, citizenship has been historically connected to nationalism and
the nation-state. Etymologically, a citizen was a person who, by living in the city-state,
participated in the process of cultivation or civilizational activities like art, theatre, etc.
While the pagans lived in the countryside, the man of the city acquired both rights and
culture. Citizenship was reinforced as an exclusionary category. Following the Treaty
of Westphalia and the creation of an international system of states, urban citizenship
further developed as a basic foundation for the emergence of powerful nation-states.
With the development of advanced administrative structures of national governance,
the state was able to mobilize citizenship as an aspect of nationalism. As a nation-state
was marked by a fixed territory, so citizenship too evolved as a concept ‘bounded’
(Miller 2000) to this form of political community.
The modern conception of citizenship as merely a status held under the authority
of a state has been contested and broadened to include various political struggles for
recognition and redistribution. As Isin and Turner point out, in the past few decades
we have experienced a major trend worldwide towards the formation of new claims for
inclusion and belonging. Interestingly, though, the articulation of rights accompany-

ing claims to recognition has necessarily invoked the ideal of citizenship. For instance,
major social issues such as the status of immigrants, aboriginal peoples, refugees and
diasporic groups, and environmental injustices and homelessness have increasingly
been expressed through the rights and obligations of citizenship. Moreover, it is not
only the rights and obligations of citizens that are being redefined, but also what it
means to be a citizen, and which individuals and groups are entitled to possess such
rights and obligations has become an issue of concern (Isin and Turner 2002: 2). In
other words, the three fundamental axes of citizenship—extent (rules and norms of
inclusion and exclusion), content (rights and responsibilities) and depth (thickness or
thinness)—are being redefined and reconfigured.
The transformation we witness today raises questions about the proposition con-
cerning a necessary connection between citizenship and a territorial nation-state, inso-
far as it significantly alters some of the conditions which in the past had fed that propo-
sition. The context in which this possible transformation is to take place is defined by
two partly interconnected conditions (Sassen 2002: 277)—first, the change in the posi-
tion and institutional features of national states since the 1980s, brought on by various
forms of globalization. These range from economic privatization and deregulation to
the increased prominence of the international human rights regime. The second condi-
tion is the emergence of multiple actors, groups and communities, partly strengthened
by these transformations in the state and increasingly unwilling to automatically iden-
tify with a nation as represented by the state. The growth of the Internet and various
technologies has facilitated and often enabled the formation of cross-border networks
among individuals and groups with shared interest, interests that may be highly spe-
cialized, as in professional networks, or involve particular political projects, for instance
human rights and environment struggles.
In the last two decades of the twentieth century, globalization challenged the con-
ception of the nation-state as the sole source of authority vis-à-vis citizenship and
democracy. Under these pressures, the blurred boundaries of citizenship rights and
obligations and the forms of democracy associated with them brought citizenship to
the political and intellectual agenda, broadening the ways in which citizenship is un-
derstood and debated. It is evident today that far from being unitary, the institution of
citizenship has multiple dimensions, only some of which might be inextricably linked
to the national state. This phenomenon has engendered and strengthened alternative
notions of the community of membership, that is, locations for citizenship that exceed
the boundaries of the territorial nation-state. Insofar as globalization has undermined
the sovereignty and cultural distinctiveness of the nation-state, it has weakened the
former uniqueness of state citizenship and opened up the possibility of a complimen-
tary world citizenship (Heater 2002: 3). In other words, a case for alternative forms of
citizenship, which might be world/cosmopolitan, may be advocated with much greater

interest. In the literature on cosmopolitan citizenship, the terms global/world/cosmo-
politan are used interchangeably. The idealized conception of the nation-state, now
discredited by the process of globalization, has thus engendered new space which has
enabled citizens to participate in the affairs of the political community in novel ways.
Consequently, a legitimate claim to expand the notion of citizenship from an ethno-
nationalistic conceptualization to the membership of a new order of a universal system
of ‘cosmo-political governance’ has now emerged. The urge to see ourselves as ‘citizens
of the world’ is growing stronger.
As a result, the understanding of citizenship has also undergone a change. Rather
than merely focusing on citizenship as legal rights, it has now been agreed that citi-
zenship must also be defined as a social process through which individuals and social
groups engage in claiming, expanding or taxing rights (Isin and Turner 2002: 4). From
about the 1990s, the concept of ‘multiple citizenship’ came to be recognized. If the state
citizen codes have to be adapted to accommodate multicultural needs, and if one can
simultaneously have a state citizenship, a regional citizenship in a federal state, dual
citizenship, citizenship of one’s city or town, and in some states of Europe, EU citizen-
ship, then the prospect of an added world or cosmopolitan citizenship does not seem so
extraordinary (Heater 2002: 3−4). Indeed, the formal creation of EU citizenship in 1993
gave heart to some advocates of world citizenship, who saw in it a model that could be
extended. However, the question remains—how can world citizenship be slotted into a
variegated pattern comprising multicultural citizenships?
Cosmopolitan Citizenship: A History of the Idea

Though often discussed as a single, homogeneous concept with the characteristics of
a unitary institution, citizenship actually describes a number of discrete but related
aspects in the relationship between the individual and the polity. The understanding of
citizenship depends on the way the political community has been imagined.
Current developments are bringing to light and accentuating the distinctiveness of
these various aspects, from formal rights to practices and psychological dimensions.
These developments also highlight the terrain between citizenship as a formal legal
status and citizenship as a normative project or aspiration. For instance, what would
the rights and obligations of a citizen in a re-imagined political community be? How
will they change from earlier rights and duties? Will they mark a new beginning and
provide a fresh definition, or will they be in continuity with our present understanding
of rights and responsibilities?
In the fourth century bc, when the polis and civic virtues associated with citizenship
were in obvious decline, the idea of a cosmopolitan or world citizenship appeared in
Ancient Greece (Linklater 2002: 318). Diogenes called himself a citizen of the world
because he believed that the polis (the city state) no longer had first claim upon the in-
dividual’s political allegiances. He used the idea to criticize the polis rather than develop
some vision of a universal community of humankind.
Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant used the concept of world citizenship more
positively to promote a stronger sense of moral obligation between members of sepa-
rate sovereign states. Kant was the first major political philosopher to use the idea of
cosmopolitan citizenship to challenge exclusionary sovereign states. Yet he provided an
idea of world citizenship which was curiously limited in scope: all the moral law gov-
erning ‘citizens of a universal state of humanity required was the duty of hospitality to
travellers and traders visiting their lands’ (Linklater 2002: 321). The ‘universal state of
humanity’ in question was not a form of world government, a condition Kant opposed
because it would be insensitive to cultural differences and so remote from everyday life
so as to create the possibility of despotism. Kant conceived of a form of world citizen-
ship which would affirm the existence of a universal community of humankind along-
side the system of states.
Immanuel Kant was an eighteenth-century German philosopher from the Prussian

city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). Kant was the last philosopher of mod-
ern Europe to influence the classic sequence of the theory of knowledge during the
Enlightenment period, beginning with thinkers like John Locke, George Berkeley
and David Hume.
Kant created a new perspective in philosophy which continued to influence the
discipline up to the twenty-first century. He published important works on epis-
temology, as well as works relevant to religion, law and history. One of his most
prominent works is the Critique of Pure Reason, an investigation into the lim-
itations and structure of reason itself. It comprises an attack on traditional meta-
physics and epistemology, and highlights Kant’s own contribution to these areas.
Other important works of his are the Critique of Practical Reason, which concen-
trates on ethics, and the Critique of Judgement, which investigates aesthetics and
teleology.
According to him, relations between the states of the world are not the same as
relations between the peoples (nations, Volk) of the world. Individuals can relate to
states which they are not members of, as well as to other individuals who are mem-
bers of other states. In this regard, they are considered ‘citizens of a universal state of
human beings’, with the corresponding ‘rights of citizens of the world’. Despite these
pronouncements, Kant’s particular discussion of cosmopolitan rights is restricted to

the right to hospitality. Since the Earth’s spherical shape means that all people have to
share a limited amount of living space, the totality of which they must have originally
shared in common, they must be understood to have a right to a possible interaction
with one another (see Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2008). This cosmopolitan
right is limited to a right to offer to engage in commerce, and is not a right to demand
actual commerce. A citizen of one state may try to establish links with other people; no
state is allowed to deny foreign citizens a right to travel on its land. Settlement, though,
is an entirely different matter.
The cosmopolitan right is an important component for perpetual peace. Kant notes
that interaction among the peoples of the world has increased in recent times. Now ‘a
violation of right on one place of the earth is felt in all’, as people depend on one an-
other and have come to know increasingly more about each other. Violations of the cos-
mopolitan right would make the trust and cooperation necessary for perpetual peace
among states more difficult (see Stanford Dictionary of Political Philosophy).
Cosmopolitan Citizenship: The Contemporary Debate

Since World War II, members of global social movements have resurrected the notion
of cosmopolitan citizenship to defend a strong sense of collective and individual re-
sponsibility for the world as a whole, and to support the development of effective glob-
al institutions for tackling global poverty and inequality, environmental degradation
and the violation of human rights. Several analysts of social movements maintain that
cosmopolitan citizenship is a key element in the quest for a new language of politics,
which challenges the belief that the individual’s central political obligations are to the
nation-state. They regard cosmopolitan citizenship as a key theme in the continuing
search for the universal rights and obligations which bind all people together in a just
world order.
Deepening global problems over the last century has encouraged many thinkers to
develop this broader conception of world citizenship while preserving Kant’s belief
that its objective is to strengthen the sense of belonging to a universal community of
humankind, rather than to prepare a way for world government. The emergence of
broader conditions defined as ‘globalization’, along with their concrete manifestation in
the reconfiguration of classes, the emergence of new international government regimes,
new rationalities of government, new regimes of accumulation of different forms of
capital, as well as new social movements and their struggles for recognition and redis-
tribution, have strengthened these endeavours. Scholars are now increasingly investi-
gating the transformation of the political community, and consequently establishing a
case for cosmopolitan citizenship.
For instance, Andrew Linklater opines that the combined universalism and social
fragmentation resulting from contemporary forces of globalization offer an unprec-
edented opportunity to transform the international order into a broader overarching
community capable of serving the full range of human interests. His argument is that
current challenges to the discrete boundary of state sovereignty provide a moment in
which social relations across the world may themselves become more universalistic,
less unequal, and more sensitive to cultural differences (Linklater 1998: 7).
He rejects the modern inter-state order, as well as the nation-state from which it is
built. He does not consider it sufficient ground from which to imagine or enact a truly
civil international society. He argues that the relative affinity and unity displayed in any
one state community can be afforded only through the systemic exclusion and suppres-
sion of actual or potential dissent and difference. Sovereign bounds are founded, he
points out, on securing a specific normative outlook and order inside, from challenges
left or cast to the outside.
In turn, globalization is facilitating the formation of worldwide dialogic communi-
ties. According to Linklater, these expanding cosmopolitan relations undermine the
traditional division between citizen and stranger. The point is to encourage these di-
alogues in every possible manner, thereby rendering the conventional exclusions of
citizenship themselves so multiple and ambiguous so as to indicate a diverse and ines-
capably inclusive universe of human interest and identity. Linklater’s strategy is thus to
replace the nation-state with cosmopolitan citizenship as the particular from which the
universe of human relations and differences may be resolved.
Others like Richard Falk have sought to identify the linkages between traditional con-
ceptions of citizenship based on affiliation with a territorial nation-state and the rise of
global market forces. The erosion of state autonomy and the emergence of arenas of de-
cision-making and power beyond the control of the state have been weakening the tradi-
tional bonds of identity between individuals and the state, argues Falk (Falk 2000: 5). He
considers the prospects of 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. The essence of post-
Westphalian citizenship is to be shaped by an allegiance to shared values and to the experi-
ence of community, a dynamic that will increasingly diminish the reductive association
of the citizen exclusively with a particular sovereign state. He suggests that a fundamental
shift in the aspirational side of citizenship involves a movement from an emphasis on space
to an emphasis on time (ibid.: 15−16). Such a shift corresponds to the decline of territorial-
ity as the foundation of political identity, and the seeming exhaustion of government as a
source of creative problem-solving with respect to fundamental social concerns.
It becomes necessary to look primarily to the future rather than to the existing ca-
pacities of regional and global institutions, or any other existing institutional setting,
in the search for a more compassionate politics. The challenge, according to him, is to
construct such a future through the engagement and impact of trans-national social
forces, thereby creating a new space called global civil society, where people of differ-
ent nationalities can interact freely, notwithstanding their being citizens of different
countries.
David Held and Anthony McGrew have also interrogated the prospects for a world
order in the era of globalization (Held and McGrew 1998: 219−43). According to them,
the contemporary world order is best understood as a highly complex, contested and
interconnected one, in which the inter-state system is increasingly embedded within
evolving regional and global political networks. Traditional forms of sovereign state-
hood and political community have been reconstituted by globalization, and so politi-
cal authority and mechanisms of governance are being articulated and re-articulated.
Globalization shapes the structures of political opportunity across multiple spheres of
public activity. Thus, the emergence of a global political arena which reshapes the condi-
tions and dynamics of both domestic and international politics, even without the corre-
sponding emergence of an international state, becomes a possibility (Held et al., 1999).
A globalized political arena is likely to emerge where political power and political
activity extend across the boundaries of the modern nation-state. Hence, the articula-
tion of a cosmopolitan project is an attempt to specify the principles and institutional
arrangements for making accountable those sites and forms of power which presently
operate beyond the scope of democratic control. This is all the more necessary because
globalization has significantly undermined the core of national democratic govern-
ment and expanded the communities and sense of allegiance once bounded by nation-
states. Accordingly, there is a need for some form of effective cosmopolitan citizenship
in which individuals are empowered and authorized to participate in policy formation
at the international level.
Critics of Cosmopolitan Citizenship

Around 450 bc, Socrates claimed that his country of origin was ‘the world’. Since then
the notion of cosmopolitan citizenship has been with us. About 100 years later, Dio-
genes the Cynic made a similar declaration about himself as a ‘citizen of the world’. Such
sentiments were also echoed in the second century ad when Marcus Aurelius issued his
famous declaration, ‘my city and country so far as I am Antonius is Rome; but so, far as
I am a man, it is the world’. However, these claims were made much before nation-states
emerged in their present form, along with their intrinsic association with the institu-
tion of citizenship.
More recently, in a response to an article by Richard Rorty extolling the virtues of
‘national pride’ and a ‘sense of shared national unity’, Martha Nussbaum has likewise
declared herself a ‘citizen of the world’. As we can see, the debate over the desirability
(or not) of cosmopolitan citizenship has already taken shape.
The belief that global problems can be solved by establishing cosmopolitan rights and
duties has been challenged on two grounds—first, that cosmopolitan projects are likely
to promote particular political interests under the garb of the language of universality. It
may give rise to a new form of cultural imperialism. And second, that attempts to break
the link between the citizen and the state are destined to fail because there is no sense
of an international community that can support the sophisticated form of citizenship
which exists within democratic societies. A proper citizenship exists only within bound-
ed political communities, that is, the nation-state, and hence needs to be preserved.
Brett Bowden outlines these concerns (Bowden 2003: 349−62). According to Bowden,
the concept itself is fraught with problems. At one level, the ideal is inextricably linked
to the West’s long and tortuous history of engaging in over-zealous civilizing-cum-uni-
versalizing missions in the non-Western world, a relationship that is partly reflected in
the fact that the vast majority of the recent claims to global citizenship originate from
deep within Western academia. At another level is the notion of the global; an absence
of the guarantee of rights and security that are generally taken for granted by citizens
of stable sovereign states.
Michael Walzer (cited in Linklater 2002: 318) has provided a simple and eloquent chal-
lenge to the idea of cosmopolitan citizenship. According to him, national citizens have a
clear sense of belonging to a bounded political community; they enjoy common senti-
ments born from their shared historical experience, and they regard certain dates which
define their unique history as particularly worthy of celebration. This gives citizenship a real
meaning in the domain of the nation-state. Since no equivalent important historical points
of reference to the entire human race have been recorded even in the era of globalization,
citizenship is imbued with no obvious meaning in the domain of the world at large.
Second, national citizens are bound by a common culture, enabling them to agree on
the precise rights and duties that are constitutive of their membership to a distinctive
political community. There is no corresponding global political culture with regard to
cosmopolitan citizenship. Although the idea of cosmopolitan citizenship may well em-
body noble moral aspirations, and although it may have persuaded individuals to take
their global responsibilities seriously, it distorts the true meaning of citizenship. To be
a citizen in the true sense of the term is to possess rights and duties defined by law and
protected by the institutions of the state.
And third, citizenship refers to the right to participation and representation in politics.
To be a citizen of a state is to be a co-legislator, if not directly through the forms of active
political participation (as in the Greek polis), then indirectly through elected representa-
tives who decide for the entire political community within a democratic public sphere.
There is no equivalent form of joint rule within world society; nor is there a global public
sphere which brings cosmopolitan citizens together to legislate for humanity as a whole.
So what is most obviously missing from the idea of cosmopolitan citizenship is the no-
tion of participation in politics, which lies at the heart of the civic ideal.
Walzer’s case for bounded communities is linked with a powerful defence of duties
to other members of the human race; however, he rejects any suggestion that the idea
of cosmopolitan citizenship is essential to this. Since cosmopolitan citizenship does
not denote specific rights and duties of the kind that citizens have within nation-states,
conceptual precision would be lost.
On a different note, David Miller argues that invitations to conceive of the self as a
citizen of the world are distinct from the more pressing task of developing civic virtues
within existing national communities. The democratic civic virtues intrinsic to citizen-
ship have had to be nurtured within unusual, bounded political communities such as
the nation-state because they were unlikely to develop elsewhere. Nor is the survival of
these virtues guaranteed.
It is therefore reasonable to suppose that efforts to promote vague cosmopolitan ideals
in a world which lacks a basic moral consensus will weaken the only form of political as-
sociation capable of sustaining the civic ideal. Miller is acutely concerned with defending
the extended community of the nation-state against the claims of various forms of mul-
ticulturalism, the politics of difference, and pluralism and global civil society. According
to Miller, these virtues can only be cultivated within national borders. Therefore, trans-
national forms of citizenship such as cosmopolitan citizenship must either be parasitic
on national forms, or else not genuine forms of citizenship at all (Miller 2000: 5).
These arguments suggest that cosmopolitan citizenship would be a meaningful con-
cept only if humanity was governed by a world state, if the rights and duties of the world
citizens were specified in international law, if different peoples of the world had similar
cultural beliefs and historical memories, and if they were represented in global political
institutions which governed the human race (Linklater 2002: 319).
However, the term is vacuous in a world of multiple bounded political communities
with their different moves, their pronounced opposition to transferring sovereign pow-
ers to global economic and political institutions, and their warranted scepticism that
anything resembling democratic citizenship can be developed outside the nation-state.
Conclusion
The idea of cosmopolitan citizenship appears prominently in contemporary cosmopol-
itan political theory. However, does cosmopolitan thinking have a future? Derek Heater
argues in favour of it by reminding us that it certainly has a past (Heater 2000: 179).
Heater points out that the past, especially in its Stoic foundations, reveals a clear ethi-
cal purpose. The word ‘cosmopolitan’ derives from kosmpolities, citizen of the universe,
and polities. Citizen, notably in its Aristotelian definition, has a decidedly ethical con-
tent. Accordingly, if the citizen of a state (polis) can be possessed of civic virtue (arete),
by extension the citizen of the universe (Kosmpolis) should live a life of virtue, guided
by his perception and understanding of the divine, natural law.
The assumption, sometimes the assertion, of writers in the cosmopolitan tradition is
that all human beings are endowed with the moral capacity to be world citizens. But the
matter cannot be left there, for only possessing the moral capacity is not enough: the
essence of citizenship, one might suggest, is primarily the individual’s relation to a state.
Yet there is no world state. If, however, we can interpret the increasingly interdependent
condition of the planet as a global community or world society, then surely the term
‘world citizen’ or ‘cosmopolitan citizen’ is a legitimate one. Thus, the concept is signifi-
cant not only for our understanding of the nature of the state as a political-ethical unit
and of the individual as a political-ethical animal, but also for our understanding of the
nature of the world (Heater 2002: 6).
We may note that the principal exponents of this form of citizenship strive to revive
the ancient Stoic ideal that individuals should regard themselves as belonging to two
communities: their particular cities or states, and humanity. They regard cosmopolitan
citizenship as important in encouraging national citizens to take greater account of the
interests of the world as a whole. They advocate cosmopolitan citizenship because sov-
ereign nation-states, which assume that the interests of co-nationals must come first,
are improbable instruments for tackling the growing international economic inequali-
ties, rising levels of intrastate violence and violations of human rights, and continuing
environmental degradation. Citizenship, according to them, can also refer to disposi-
tions and practices which can be harnessed to transform the political community and
the global order, so that they conform to universalistic moral commitments.
Important shifts in the nature and conduct of world politics, such as growing expecta-
tions that global economic and political institutions should comply with democratic prin-
ciples of legitimacy, make a strong case for cosmopolitan citizenship. In contemporary
times, as the forces of globalization loosen the ties between the citizen and the state, there-
by transforming the practice of citizenship, the theory should reflect these changes too.
Summary
• Citizenship is mainly understood as a legal status defined by reciprocal rights
and responsibilities between an individual and the political community. A full
member of the political community is entitled to enjoy all the rights, in return
for fulfilling the responsibilities. In ancient and medieval Europe, the form of
political community taken to be the membership unit of citizenship was the city
(for example, in ancient Greece).
• In modern times, political community reached its most developed form in the
territorial nation-state, which eventually became a dominant form worldwide.
The scaling of processes like warfare, industrial development and cultural struc-
turing at the national level led to the formation and strengthening of the national
state as the key political community, and proved crucial for the socialization of
individuals into national citizenship. In the second half of the nineteenth centu-
ry, when the absolute authority of the nation-state over its territory and nation-
als came to be recognized, nationality became the central constitutive element
of the institution of citizenship. Thus, in modern times, citizenship becomes a
status and an identity that is tied essentially to the territorial nation-state.
• The transformation we witness today raises a question, as Sassen puts it, about
the necessary connection between citizenship and a territorial nation-state, in-
sofar as it significantly alters some of those conditions which in the past had fed
this proposition. The context of this possible transformation is defined by two
major, partly interconnected conditions, such as the change in the position and
institutional features of national states since the 1980s, resulting from various
forms of globalization; and the demands of multiple actors, groups and com-
munities who have partly been strengthened by these transformations in the
state, and are increasingly unwilling to identify automatically with a nation as
represented by the state.
• It is becoming evident today that far from being unitary, the institution of cit-
izenship has multiple dimensions, only some of which might be inextricably
linked to the national state. This phenomenon has engendered and strength-
ened alternative notions of the community of membership, that is, locations for
citizenship that exceed the boundaries of the territorial nation-state. Insofar as
globalization has undermined the sovereignty and cultural distinctiveness of the
nation-state, it has, according to Heater, weakened the former uniqueness of
state citizenship and opened up the possibility of a complimentary world or cos-
mopolitan citizenship.
• The idea of cosmopolitan or world citizenship appeared in ancient Greece. Dio-
genes called himself a citizen of the world because he believed that the polis (the
city state) no longer had first claim upon the individual’s political allegiance. He
used the idea to criticize the polis rather than develop some vision of a universal
community of humankind. Among the Enlightenment thinkers, Kant was the
first major political philosopher to use the idea of cosmopolitan citizenship to
challenge exclusionary sovereign states.
• Since World War II, members of global social movements have resurrected the
notion of cosmopolitan citizenship to defend a strong sense of collective and in-
dividual responsibility for the world as a whole, and to support the development
of effective global institutions for tackling global poverty and inequality, envi-
ronmental degradation, and the violation of human rights. The emergence of a
broader condition defined as ‘globalization’, along with its concrete manifestation
in the reconfiguration of classes, the emergence of new international govern-
ment regimes, new rationalities of government, new regimes of accumulation of
different forms of capital, as well as new social movements and their struggles
for recognition and redistribution have strengthened these endeavours. Scholars
like Andrew Linklater, Richard Falk, David Held, Anthony McGrew and Derek
Heater, to name a few, have argued in favour of cosmopolitan citizenship.
• However, the concept has been criticized on the grounds that it would lead to
cultural imperialism. There is also apprehension about the fact that there is no
sense of international community which can support the sophisticated form of
citizenship that exists within democratic societies. Michael Walzer eloquently
points out that national citizens have a clear sense of belonging to a bounded
political community, possess precise rights and duties that are defined by law
and protected by the national state, and participate as co-legislator in the affairs
of the community. According to him, these are missing from the concept of cos-
mopolitan citizenship. For David Miller, transnational forms of citizenship such
as cosmopolitan citizenship are either parasitic on national forms, or else not
genuine forms of citizenship at all.
• The principal exponents of this form of citizenship, however, strive to revive the
ancient Stoic ideal that individuals should regard themselves as belonging to two
communities: their particular cities or states, and that of humanity. They regard
cosmopolitan citizenship as important in encouraging national citizens to take
greater account of the interests of the world as a whole. They advocate cosmo-
politan citizenship because sovereign nation-states, which assume that the inter-
ests of co-nationals must come first, are improbable instruments for tackling the
growing international economic inequalities, rising levels of intrastate violence
and violations of human rights, and continuing environmental degradation.
Citizenship, according to them, can also refer to dispositions and practices which
can be harnessed to transform the political community and the global order so
that they conform to universalistic moral commitments.

1. Since citizenship is understood primarily as membership to a political community called
the nation-state, do you think cosmopolitan citizenship has a future?
2. What in your opinion are the obstacles in the way of institutionalizing the idea of cosmo-
politan citizenship?
3. Discuss how globalization has made a case for imagining citizenship in a cosmopolitan way.
4. If you were to choose between being a national citizen and becoming a cosmopolitan
citizen, what would you choose and why?
5. Do you think that a cosmopolitan citizen would be required to fulfil certain additional
responsibilities?
Suggested Readings
Beitz, Charles R., 1983, ‘Cosmopolitan ideals and national sentiment’, Journal of Philosophy, 80,
pp. 591−600.
Bowden, Brett, 2003, ‘The Perils of Global Citizenship’, Citizenship Studies, 7 (3), pp. 349−62.
Delanty, Gerard, 2000, Citizenship in a Global Age (Buckingham: Open University Press).
Falk, Richard, 2000, ‘The Decline of Citizenship in an Era of Globalization’, Citizenship Studies,
4 (1), pp. 5−17.
Heater, Derek, 1999, What is Citizenship? (Cambridge: Polity).
, 2000, ‘Does Cosmopolitan thinking have a future?’ Review of International Studies,
26, pp. 179−97.
, 2002, World Citizenship: Cosmopolitan Thinking and Its Opponents (London, New
York: Continuum).
Held, David and Anthony McGrew, 1998, ‘The End of the Old Order? Globalization and the
Prospects for World Order’, Review of International Studies, 24 (3), pp. 219−43.
Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton, 1999, Global Transfor-
mations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press).
Hutchings, Kimberlay and Roland Dannreuther (eds), 1999, Cosmopolitan Citizenship (Basing-
stoke: Macmillan).
Isin, E. F. and B. S. Turner (eds), 2002, Handbook of Citizenship Studies (London: Sage Publications).
Isin, Engin F. and Bryan S. Turner, 2002, ‘Citizenship Studies: An Introduction’, in E. F. Isin and
B. S. Turner (eds), Handbook of Citizenship Studies (London: Sage Publications), pp. 1−10.
Linklater, Andrew, 1998, The Transformation of Political Community (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press).
, 2002, ‘Cosmopolitan Citizenship’, in E.F. Isin and B.S. Turner (eds), Handbook of Citi-
zenship Studies (London: Sage Publications), pp. 317−32.
Marshall, T. H., 1992, ‘Citizenship and Social Class’, in T. H. Marshall and T. Bottomore (eds),
Citizenship and Social Class (London: Pluto Press).
Miller, David, 2000, Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge, MA: Polity Press).
Pogge, Thomas W., 1992, ‘Cosmopolitanism and sovereignty’, Ethics, 103, pp. 48−75.
Sassen, Saskia, 2002, ‘Towards Post-National and Denationalized Citizenship’, in E. F. Isin and
B. S. Turner (eds), Handbook of Citizenship Studies (London: Sage Publications), pp. 277−91.
About the Editor and Contributors
Ashok Acharya is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi.

He is also a Fellow and Joint Director of the Developing Countries Research Centre, University
of Delhi. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto and is co-editor
of Political Theory: An Introduction (Pearson, 2008). His areas of interest are in contemporary
political theory, including thematic issues of justice and rights in democracies, comparative po-
litical philosophy, and ethics and politics.
Swaha Das teaches at the Department of Political Science, Indraprastha College,

University of Delhi.
Rajesh Kumar is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Delhi College

of Arts and Commerce, University of Delhi. He is also an Affiliated Fellow and Dep-
uty Director of the Developing Countries Research Centre (DCRC), an interdisciplin-
ary research centre at the University of Delhi. His research interests are in the areas of
political theory, political economy, Indian politics and human rights.
Sanjeev Kumar teaches political science at Zakir Husain College, University of Delhi. He has
also worked as Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. His
areas of interest are contemporary political theory, citizenship studies and disaster manage-
ment. He has edited the special issue on ‘Gender’ published by Samvad: A Forum for the Study
of Social Sciences (January–June 2007) and has contributed several articles in referred journals
and books.
Hari Nair has a Ph.D. from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He has worked on
the Republican traditions in early Spanish America.
Bijayalaxmi Nanda teaches political science at Miranda House, University of Delhi. She has
been engaged with teaching and researching in the areas of political theory and gender. She is
200 About the Editor and Contributors
involved both as an academic and activist in women’s issues and coordinates a campaign against
sex selection in India. Her publications include the co-authored books Human Rights, Gender
and Environment (2006), Understanding Social Inequality: Concerns of Human Rights, Gender
and Environment (2010), and research papers on sex selection and sex selective abortion in
India.
Suparna Priyadarshini is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science, Uni-

versity of Delhi. She is a recipient of the Junior Research Fellowship, granted by the UGC. Her
current research is on ‘Wellbeing, Poverty and Food Security: An Evaluation Of The Capabilities
Approach’.
Kumar Rahul is Senior Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Ramjas College,
University of Delhi, and Affiliated Fellow, Developing Countries Research Centre (DRDC), Uni-
versity of Delhi. Currently, his research involves exploring Gandhi in discourses of freedom and
autonomy.
Chetna Sharma teaches Political Science at Kamala Nehru College, Delhi University. She spe-
cializes in political theory, multiculturalism and minority rights.
Chandrachur Singh is Senior Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Hindu College,
University of Delhi. His research interests are in political theory with particular emphasis on iden-
tity politics. Between 1996–99, he was Research Associate at the Department of Political Science,
University of Delhi. He has co-authored Human Rights in India: Acts, Statutes and Constitutional
Provisions (2003), and has been a part of the Government of India Project on the Writing of the
‘History of the UGC’, as well as a Centre for Policy Studies Project on the Internationalization of
Indian Higher Education.
Hena Singh is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Miranda House, University
of Delhi. Her interests are in Political Theory and Western Political Thought, with specific fo-
cus on inclusive feminism. She is actively associated with the Consumer Rights Movement and
teaches a paper on the same.
Gyanaranjan Swain is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, Ravenshaw

University, Cuttack. He has a Ph.D. degree from the University of Delhi. His areas of interest
are in Normative Political Theory, Politics of Inequality, and Development and Gender and the
Environment.
Ambuja Kumar Tripathy teaches Political Science at Lakshmibai College, University of Delhi.
He is also a Fellow, Developing Countries Research Centre (DRDC), University of Delhi. His
areas of interest are political and social theory (particularly state, civil society and the public
sphere) and development studies.
Index
A ascriptive community, 123

absolutist power, 7 Assembly (Ekklesia), 21
active citizenship, 63, 159 Assiter, Alison, 123
African Americans, 131 asymmetrical Federalism, 136
Ahad Ha’Am, declaration of, 30 Athenian citizenry, 21
Al-ummah, 33 Aufklärung, 102
American Declaration of Independence, 113 Australian multiculturalism, 87
American War of Independence, 6 autonomy, 67–68
Amish group, 131–32
amorous relationships, 104 B
ancestral heroism, 38 Bakul Foundation, 158
Anderson, Benedict, 38 Banal Nationalism, 34
Anthony, Susan B., 114 Beitz, Charles, 174–75
anthropocentric citizenship, 73 belongingness, sense of, 29
anti-colonial nationalism, 41 Berg, Pierre Van Den, 35
Anti-Slavery and Temperance Campaigns, 114 Berlin, Isaiah, 102
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 111 Bio-diversity Treaty, 150
Arab nationalism, 33 black feminism, 121
Arendt, Hannah, 23 blogs, 159
Aristotle, views on citizenship, 4, 16–20 Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, 48
characterization of the citizen, 18, 102 boundaries of citizenship, 127
civic republicanism, 19 bourgeoisie, 37
exclusionary schema, 19 Bowden, Brett, 193
exclusion of women from citizenship, 102, 110–11 Britain, citizenship in, 8, 128
household (oikos), 19 Brueilly, John, 40
master-slave relationship, 18–19
polis, 17 C
Politeiai, 94 Canada
practice of sharing power, 18 diversity in, 138
principle of ‘ruling and being ruled in turn,’ 18–19 minority rights in, 139
speech and reason, 18 multiculturalism in, 87–88
telos, 17 national minority groups, 130
ties of friendship, 20 status of Québécoise in, 130
zoon politikon, 17 strengthening of official language rights for French
Armenians, 35 Canadians, 139
Armstrong, John, 35, 40 capitalism, 37
Art of Living mediation techniques, 134 and citizenship, 61–62
202 Index
Chatterjee, Partha, 39 and slaves, 102

Chodorow, Nancy, 118 social, 62–68
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 97–98 specific contexts, 9–10
citizen, idea of, 3 and state, 29, 127–29
citizenship supranational, 163
active, 159 teleological analysis, 65–66
Aristotle’s views, 17–20 and trans-gendered individuals, 102
on basis of socio-economic equality, 128 transnational, 163
boundaries of, 127 understanding, 27–28
and capitalism, 61–62 and women. see women and citizenship
classical, 17–20 citizenship rights, development of, 1–2
in classical liberalism, 60–61 city-state, 4, 28
Commonwealth, 163 civic friendship (philia), 20
conditions for granting, 48, 102 civic nationalism, 41
consequences for, 157–58 civic privatism, 63
consumer, 157 civic republicanism, 19, 47
in the context of domestic-foreign divide, 156 civic virtues, 6, 140
cosmopolitan, 164 civil rights, 8, 10, 28, 69, 162
cyber, 158 classical citizenship, 17–24
and de facto exclusion, 161 Aristotle, 17–20
dialectic advance of, 8–9 Athenian citizenry, 20–23
dilemmas of liberal (universal), 9–11 democratic polis, 21
dimensions of, 127–28 demos (people), 20
ecological/earth, 12, 163–64 in modern times, 23–24
economic dimension of, 70 poleis, 20
essential components, 60 in practice, 20–23
evolution of the liberal theory of, 7–8 principle of ‘ruling and being ruled in turn,’ 20–21
of flow, 157 classical liberalism, 12
forms of, 53 cohesive cultural traditions, 31
full, 161 collective identity, 44
gender blind idea of, 114 collective rights, 10–11
Gidden’s views, 65–66 Commonwealth citizenship, 163
global, 12 communitarianism, 57
globalization and challenges to, 11–12, 146–48, 156 communitarian response to diversity, 133
in Greek city-state, 4 community rights, 2
and identity with a political community, 127 computer and technological citizenship, 53
inclusive, 158 consociationalism, 137
informal, 161 consumer citizenship, 53, 157
issues, in India, 48–49 continuous perennialism, 35
in liberal societies, 128–29 corporate capitalism, 149
Marshall’s account, 8–9, 63–65, 156–57 cosmopolitan citizenship, 53, 164, 171
Marx’s views, 70 Bowden’s views, 193
multilayered conception of, 53 concept, 184–85
in multinational, multicultural societies, 129 contemporary debate, 190–92
multiple/dual, 160 critics of, 192–94
and national identity, 42, 45–47 historical evidence, 188–89
and nation-state, 144–46 in modern times, 185–86
neo-liberal model, 157 problems, 186–88
New Right conception of, 68–69 Walzer’s views, 193–94
origins, 3–5 cosmopolitan liberalism perspective, of distributive
partial, 161 justice, 178–80
psychological dimension of, 71 Council of 500, 21
quasi, 161 critical citizenship, 159
relational nature of, 11–12 cultural assimilation, 77
relationship among people, 3 cultural bias, 133
and rights, 8–9, 28 cultural citizenship, 157
Roman conceptions, 5–7 cultural communities, 3, 10
Index 203
cultural diversity, 76–77 cultural, 76–77, 132–36

cultural rights, 134–36 and erosion of civic virtues and participation,
ways to respect, 132–33 140
cultural embeddedness, 44 in India, case study, 137–38
cultural form of national identity, 43–44 institutional mode of securing, 136–37
cultural globalization, 150–51, 158 liberal response to, 133
cultural homogeneity, 76 republican response to, 133
cultural invasion, 36 ways of respecting, 132–33
cultural membership, 81 weakening of identity, 140
cultural pluralism, 28 weakening of social cohesion, 140–41
cultural–political identities, 37 dual citizenship, 48
cultural primordialism, 35 Dutch republicanism, 100
cultural rights
exemption from laws and assistance to E
disadvantaged groups, 134–35 ‘eco-centric’ approach, to ‘human-nature’ relationship,
external rules for non-members, 135 73
incorporation of traditional or religious legal codes ecological/earth citizenship, 12, 53, 157, 163–64
within the dominant legal system, 135–36 ecological groups, 123
internal rules for members, 135 economic globalization, 149
recognition to symbolic gestures, 136 educational system, 8, 47
self-government for national minorities and emigrants, 152
indigenous communities, 135 enlightenment philosophy, 9, 39
special representation rights, 136 environmental globalization, 150
state assistance for minority cultures, 136 environmental refugees, 150
cyber citizenship, 157–58 epistemic community, 123–24
equal citizenship, 2, 139
D equality and citizenship, 7
Dalit rights, 88 equality of cultures, 77
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens, 6, 112 ethnic cleansing/genocide, 162
Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens, 112 ethnic communities, 30
democracy ethnic identity, 29, 35, 40
in ancient Greece, 16 ethnicization/racialization of poverty, 162
citizens of contemporary, 16 ethnic language identities, 36
vs tyrant’s rule, 16 ethnic minorities, 82
democratic citizenship, 16 ethno-cultural groups, 131
democratic nation-state, 9 ethno-cultural nationalism, 41
democratic polis ethno-cultural symbols, 40
Assembly (or the Ekklesia), 21 ethno-symbolism, 39–40
Council of 500, 21–22 European Union (EU), 11, 154
juries, 22 citizenship, 163
obligations of citizenship, 22
participation in Assembly and Council, 21–22 F
People’s Court, 21–22 Facebook, 158
service in army as hoplites, 22 face-to-face society, 22
denizenship, 161 female labour, 122
derivative collective rights, 10–11 feminist transversal practice, idea of, 123
descriptive nationalism, 37–38 feudal notion of power, 7
dialogical citizenship, 123–24 Fishman, Joshua, 36, 40
diaspora nationalism, 41 Florentine republican tradition, 99
diasporic citizenship, 53, 157 Fraser, Nancy, 71–72
Dietz, Mary, 119 freedom, 16
difference feminism, 72 conditions of, 60
differentiated citizenship, 10, 79, 103–4, 138 free market liberalism, 149
dimensions of citizenship, 127–28 free markets, 70
diversity, 47 free nation, 60
in Canada, case study, 138 free native-born men, 110
challenges in the context of citizenship, 138–41 French Revolution (1789), 6, 9, 32, 113
communitarian response to, 133 full citizenship, 161
204 Index
G I
gay rights, 123 identity crisis, 36
gender inequality, issue of, 120. see also women and identity of a citizen, of a state, 140
citizenship illegal immigrants, 152
bias, in civic organizations, 104 imagined community, 39, 188
and citizenship, 114 immigrants, 82, 130–31
General Will, 6 cinematic imagination of, 153
German Romantic intelligentsia, 39 culture of, 153
Giddens, Anthony, 65–66 immigration, modern conception of, 152
Gilligan, Carol, 118 international, 152
global cities, 163 and poly-ethnic rights, 131
global citizenship, 12 types, 130–31
global civil society, 155, 158 imperial discrimination, 39
global commons, 150 inclusive citizenship, 158–62
global consciousness, 150 India, 49–52
global culture, 158 diversity, 137–38
global developments, impact of, 1 minority rights, 88
global feminist civil society, 155 multiculturism, 88
global inequalities, 170–71 Sikhs and Kashmiris, 130
globalization, 9, 57, 72 status of Muslims in, 126
cinematic imagination of, 153 indigenous people, 130
and citizenship, 146–48, 156 individual citizen and citizenship, 8
cultural, 150–51, 158 individual-community relationship, 57
economic, 149 individually exercised collective rights, 11
environmental, 150 informal citizenship, 161
and nation-state, 148–56 inter-governmental organizations, 163
political, 153–55 internalization, 82
and rise in global regulations, 169 international distributive justice
and women, 121–22 Beitz’s views, 174–75
global justice, 164, 171–74 cosmopolitan liberalism and, 178–80
Amartya Sen’s arguments, 172 laissez-faire liberalism and, 177–78
communitarian perspective, 173–74 social liberalism and, 175–77
distributive, 174–80 international law, 154
and international relations, 172 international liberalism, forms of, 174–75
nationalist perspective, 174 invented traditions, 39
philosophical context of, 172 Iran-Iraq war, 46
realist perspective, 172–73 irreplaceable cultural values, 30
through global governance, 180–81 Italian city republics, citizenship in, 6
global media organizations, 151
global public space, 155 J
grand coalition, 137 Jews, 30, 35, 83
Greek city-state, 4 jus domicili, 160–61
Greek philosophy, 23 jus sanguinis, 160–61
Greek Polis, 4 jus soli, 160–61
Greek politics, principles of, 4, 97–98 just war, principles of, 155
group-differentiated rights, 10, 87, 104
K
H Kant, Immanuel, 101–2, 189
Held, David, 66, 192 Kymlicka, Will, 10, 79–81, 130, 134, 141
Herodotus, 16 Kyoto Protocol, 150
hierarchical (unequal) privileges, 6
Hobbes, Thomas, 7, 111 L
Hobsbawm, Eric, 30, 38–39 laissez-faire liberalism perspective, of distributive
homeland, 29 justice, 177–78
horizontal (equal) rights, 6 Law of Return, 48
Hussain, M. F., 46 Lebanese nationalism, 33
hybridity, 153 left-leaning liberals, 133
Index 205
legal constitutional framework, 1 Montesquieu, 100

liberal feminism, 110 moral judgements and women, 118
liberalism, 9, 80 Morgenthau, Hans, 172
liberal theory of citizenship, 7–11 mortality, 173
citizenship in classical liberalism, 60–61 mothering, qualities of, 118
debates of, 69–72 Mouffe, Chantal, 120
and environmentalism, 73 multicultural citizenship
meaning of liberal citizen, 59–60 debates, 84–87
nature, 59 in India, 88
recognition/redistribution debate, 71–72 issues with, 139–40
response to diversity, 133 Kymlicka’s idea of, 79–81, 84–87
social movements, 72–73 ‘liberal’ version of, 79–80
Locke, John, 111 Marion Young’s idea of, 79
Lucretia, story of, 104–5 minority rights, 80
Parekh’s point, 84–87
M in practice, 87–88
Maastricht Treaty, 163 rationale for, 78–79
Machiavelli, 6, 99, 111 Taylor’s point, 84–87
macroeconomic unification, 149 theoretical perspective, 79–84
margizens, 161 multiculturalism, 1, 3, 9
market rights, 68–69 Australian experience, 87
Maronites, 33 Canadian experience, 87–88
Marshall, T. H., 8, 56, 62–64, 71, 128, 156–57 contemporary, 77
Marxist feminism, 110 definition, 77–78
maternal feminism, 118 and diversity, 77–78
McDonaldization, 153 elements of, 77–78
Meech Lake amendment, 88 and heterogeneous communities, 78
Meinecke, Fredrich, 30 multicultural societies and citizenship, 129
metics, 131 multilevel federation, 136–37
Mill, J. S., 23, 63, 114 multinational corporations (MNCs), 149
Miller, David, 45, 194 multinational socialist state, 46
minority citizenship, 157 multination federalism, 136
minority cultures, state assistance for, 136 multination state, 81
minority groups multiple citizenship, 48
Amish group, 132 multiple/dual citizenship, 160
aspects of family laws, 139 Muslim rights, 11
immigrants, 130–31 mutual recognition, 85
national, 130
religious groups, 131 N
sui generis groups, 131 Nansen Passport, 164
minority rights nation
in Canada, 139 abstract concept of, 29
and differentiated citizenship, 138–39 distinction from state, 29–30
in India, 88 as imagined community, 39
Kymlicka’s, 82–83 meaning, 29
liberal conception of, 80 modern, 31
and motivation and capacity to act as democratic national consciousness, 28–29
citizens, 140 national history, 37
minority veto, 137 national identity (ies), 26, 32, 36, 42, 159
Mitchell, Juliet, 117 and citizenship, 42, 45–47
mobility citizenship, 157 forms, 43–45
modern citizenship, 2–3 hegemonic pattern, 45
modern nation, 31 markers of, 42–43
modern nationalism, 38–39 phrase ‘I am,’ 42
modern societies, 1 pluralist pattern, 46
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, 121 as a social question, 42
monarchical system of government, 7 uniformity pattern, 45
206 Index
nationalism, 30 participatory rights of citizens, 157

across borderline, 36–37 particularism, 44
approach to, 34–40 passive citizenship, 6
Banal, 34 patriarchal communities and women, 122
and bourgeoisie, 37 patriotic movements, 34
descriptive, 37–38 patriotism, 29
ethno-symbolism, 39–40 People’s Court, 21
forms of, 40–41 perennialism
Indian freedom struggle, 33–34 continuous, 35
Lebanese, 33 recurrent, 35
modern, 38–39 Periclean declamation, 94
and nationalistic struggle, 33 Pericles, 5, 94
operational, 36–37 Persians, 35
organic, 34–36 Petit, Philip, 103
role of, 37 Philips, Anne, 119
and sovereignty, 32 Plato, 23, 94
as a state of mind, 32 pluralism, 103
nationalistic struggle, 33 Plutarch, 16
nationality, 26, 29 Pocock, John, 99
national minorities, 81–82 Pogge, Thomas, 171
groups, 130 political community, 128
and provision of self-government rights, 140–41 political form of national identity, 44–45
self-government for, 135 political globalization, 153–55
National Perspective Plan for Women, 120 political participation, 103
national pride, 192 political rights, 8, 10, 28
national self-determination, 39 polluter pays principle, 150
nations, as invented traditions, 30 poly-ethnic rights, 10, 81, 131
nation-state polygamy, 140
defined, 31 popular culture, 151
formation of, 31 post-colonial feminism, 121
past and modern concept of, 31–34 post-national citizenship, 151, 162–64
traditional boundaries of, 1 highlight of, 162
natural rights, 63 important ideas/developments, 162–64
Nazi Germany, 32 Soysal’s model, 151
neo-liberalism, 70 post-nationalism, 49
New Right conception of citizenship, 68–69 post-Washington consensus, 154
non-citizen labourers, 4 power, feudal notion of, 7
normative system, 1 prestige community, 29
North American Free Trade Agreement, 11 primary collective rights, 10–11
Nussbaum, Martha, 120, 171, 177, 192 primordialism, 35
principle of ‘ruling and being ruled in turn,’ 19–21
O print capitalism, 39
obedience, 101 private sphere, 158
obligations, 2 professionals, 152
Okin, Susan M., 115–16 property rights, 64
online mobilizations, 158 proportionality, 137
online petitions, 158 psychological dimension, of citizenship, 71
online signature campaigns, 158 public sphere, 158
operational nationalism, 36–37
oppression, concept of, 79 Q
organic nationalism, 34–36 quasi citizenship, 161
Ottoman Empire, 33
R
P racial and ethnic minorities, 162
Palestinian history, 30 radical feminism, 110
Parekh, Bikhu, 84–87, 139 Rawls, John, 57, 86, 176–77
partial citizens, 131, 161 reason of state, 99
Index 207
recognition, politics of, 85 rule of law, 95–97, 103

recognition/redistribution debate, of citizenship, 71–72 Rushdie, Salman, 85
recurrent perennialism, 35 Russian Revolution, 32
refugees, 131, 152, 154
religious groups, 131, 139 S
religious legal codes, 135–36 Sandel, Michael, 43
religious nationalism, 41 Schlesinger, Phillip, 39
religious sects, 131 sectarianism, 32
Renan, Ernest, 38 security dilemmas, associated with cross-border
republic threats, 11
Aristotle’s, 95–97 segmental autonomy, 137
etymology, 93 self-criticism, 83
organization of, 5 self-determination, 34
Plato’s, 94–95 self-governing political communities, 4
republican citizenship, 98–99, 103, 133 self-government rights, 10, 81
and differentiated citizenship, 103–4 self-help, 173
during the Enlightenment, 100–101 enterprises, 37
and liberalism, 102–3 self-reflection, 83
republicanism, 93 self-respect, 136
Ancient Roman, 99 Sen, Amartya, 120, 172
Anglo-Dutch, 99–100 sexual citizenship, 53
Florentine republican tradition, 99 ‘Shakti’ worship, 34
and political participation, 103 Siècle des lumières, 102
responsible citizens, 24 Sikh rights, 11, 85, 130–31, 140
Reynolds, Susan, 36 Singer, Peter, 178
rhetorical republicanism, of Cicero, 98 slaves, 5
right of a community, 11 Smith, Anthony D., 35, 40
rights, 2 social citizenship, 62–68
and citizenship, 8–9, 28 social cohesiveness, 44
civil, 8, 10, 69 social exclusion, 162
collective, 10–11 socialization of children, 117
of cultural communities, 3 social justice, 65
derivative collective, 10–11 social liberalism perspective, of distributive justive,
group-differentiated, 10 176–77
natural, 63 social movements and citizenships, 72–73
‘negative,’ 8 social rights, 8, 64, 162
political, 8, 10 social service, 28
polyethnic, 10 societal culture, 80
‘positive,’ 8 socio-economic alienation, 133
primary collective, 10 Socrates, 23
progressive expansion of, 8 Solon, 20, 22
property, 64 sovereignty and nationalism, 32
self-government, 10 Soviet Union, disintegration of, 34
social, 8, 64 space of flows, 156
special group representation, 10 special representation rights, 10, 81, 136
right to equality, 8 Stanton, Elizabeth C., 114
Right to Information Act, 101 state, 29, 78
right to national self-determination, 11 Aristotle’s view, 4
right to property, 8 changing relationship between citizen and, 157–59
right to vote, 113 and citizenship, 29, 102, 127–29
Roemer, John, 70 distinction from nation, 29–30
Roman conceptions of citizenship, 5–6 gate-keeping role of, 161
Roman Republics, 4 Jews and the formation of Israel, 30
Rorty, Richard, 192 nationalism, 41
Rousseau, 6, 100–101, 111–12 primacy of, 155
Roy, Anupama, 123 sovereignty, 155
Ruddick, Sara, 118 state-neutrality, 84
208 Index
status of ‘citizen,’ 2, 28, 127 Western modernization, 33

in polis, 5 Western philosophical theories, 4
in Roman republic, 6 Western societies, 83
worries about loss of, 138–39 Westphalian citizenship, 191
subject-citizenship relationship, 7 Wisconsin v. Yoder case, 132
sui generis groups, 131 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 114–15
Sunni Muslims, 33 women
Suppliant Women, 15 and exploitative conditions in employment, 122
supranational citizenship, 163 and globalization, 121–22
Swiss nation, 43 and ‘honour killing’ in India, 122
Sybel, Von, 38 as political representatives, 119–20
symbolic gestures, recognition of, 136 position as second-class citizens, 121
in Taliban captured Afghanistan, 122
T in underdeveloped countries, 121
Tarquinis, Sextus, 104 women and citizenship
Taylor, Charles, 43, 77 active political citizenship, 119
Terwilliger, Robert, 42 Aristotlean exclusion of women from citizenship,
Thatcher, Margaret, 69 110–11
Theban messenger, 15 Assiter’s concept, 123
Thucydides, 16, 94 capability approach, 120
Tibetans, 31 civic feminists’ views, 119–20
time-honoured ethnic communities, 30 contemporary feminism ideas, 121–24
Tocqueville, 23 epistemic and dialogic citizenship, 123–24
transnational citizenship, 163 exclusion of, 110–13
transnational identities, 159 feminist ideas of gendered citizenship, 113–21
Treaty of Westphalia, 169 feminist transversal practice, 123
Treitschke, Von, 38 forms of discrimination against women, 116–21
Tully, James, 173 Hobbes’ rights to women in the State of Nature, 111
Turner, Bryan, 72 liberal feminism, 114
Locke’s idea, 111
U Machiavelli’s depiction of women, 111
UK, granting citizenship in, 28, 128 maternal feminists’ views, 118
uneven capitalism, 39 Mill’s ideas on women’s equality, 115–16
uniform citizenship, 114, 129 Mitchell’s views, 117–18
United Nations Development Programme, 170 right to vote, 113
United Nations Environmental Programme, 150 Rousseau’s ideas, 111–12
universal citizenship, 9, 79, 104, 129 Roy’s views, 123
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 178 as second-class citizens, 113
urban citizenship, 53 Seneca Falls Convention, 114
US Declaration of Independence to women, 114 sex-gender distinction, 117
Uval-Davis, Nira, 123 third-world feminists’ views, 121
US Declaration of Independence to women, 114
V Wollstonecraft’s idea of women’s equality, 114–15
virtuous citizens, 23 women as political representatives, 119
Women’s Reservation Bill (WRB), 120
W world citizenship, 171, 173, 189
Wallerstein, Immanuel, 149 world passport, idea of, 164
Walter, Michael, 84
Waltz, Kenneth, 172 X
Walzer, Michael, 131, 173 xenophobia, 29, 162
Weber, Max, 29
welfare state, 8 Y
Werbner, Pnina, 123 Young, Iris Marion, 10, 79

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Citizenship

1. Historical Development of Citizenship 1

2. The Classical Conception of Citizenship 15

3. Citizenship and National Identity 26

4. Liberal Theories of Citizenship 56

5. Multicultural Conception of Citizenship 76

6. Republican Conception of Citizenship 92

7. Feminist Conception 109

8. Citizenship and Diversity 126

9. Citizenship in Theory and Practice in 143

10. Citizenship and Global Justice 168

11. Cosmopolitan Citizenship 183

About the Editor and Contributors 199

Citizenship essentially implies membership in a political community, which bestows

project that somewhat suffered my neglect at times. My heartfelt appreciation to all my

membership to the political community. These struggles have aimed to universalize

The Origins of Citizenship

BOX 1.1 KEY THINKERS

Roman Conceptions of Citizenship

Evolution of the Liberal Theory of Citizenship

Citizenship and Rights

Dilemmas of Liberal (Universal) Citizenship

Globalization and Challenges to Citizenship Theory Today

Questions for Discussion

Faulks, Keith, 2000, Citizenship (Routledge).

Classical Citizenship in Theory

This view is in contrast to the Platonic ideal in which ruling is a prerogative of a

It is important to notice that in building these relationships of inequality, he is making

Classical Citizenship in Practice

Classical Citizenship: A Model for the Future?

Questions for Discussion

Outlookindia.com, 8 March 2010, Dubai

The Birth of a Nation

Nation-State and its Formation

Nationalism: Then and Now

A nationalistic struggle often gets transformed into a natural community, which is

BOX 3.2 THE LEBANON CASE

nationalism. It is ‘crude’ because it (generally) lacks theoretical inputs; rather, it is in-

The second and most popular role of nationalism is promoting modernization

emphasis is more on the cultural antecedents of nations. Pioneered by Anthony D.

Table 3.1 Forms of Nationalism

Type In a nutshell Theoritical inputs Evidenced at/in

Markers of National Identity

Race Tribe Ethnicity Gender Culture

Figure 3.1 Markers of National Identity

Forms of National Identity

Correlation Between Citizenship and National Identity

Dual Citizenship to Multiple Citizenship: The concept of citizenship underwent a

India: A Case Study

Conclusion: The Changing Face of National Identity

forces such as religious fundamentalism, cultural exclusivity, and the preservation of

Questions for Discussion

Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous (persons) citizens, there can be no

One Liberalism or Many Liberalisms?

What Does it Mean to be a Liberal Citizen?

Citizenship in Classical Liberalism

Citizenship and Capitalism

Contesting Social Citizenship