Citizenship
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- For other uses, see citizen (disambiguation).
Citizenship is membership in a political community (originally a city but now usually a state) and carries with it rights to political participation; a person having such membership is a citizen. It is largely coterminous with nationality, although it is possible to have a nationality without being a citizen (i.e., be legally subject to a state and entitled to its protection without having rights of political participation in it); it is also possible to have political rights without being a national of a state; for example, a citizen of a Commonwealth country resident in the United Kingdom is entitled to full political rights.
See nationality for further discussion of the properties of national citizenship and how it can be acquired.
Citizenship often also implies working towards the betterment of one's community through participation, volunteer work, and efforts to improve life for all citizens. In this vein, schools in England provide lessons in citizenship; in Wales the model used is Personal and Social Education.
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Subnational citizenship
Citizenship most usually relates to membership of the nation state, but the term can also apply at subnational level. Subnational entities may impose requirements, of residency or otherwise, which permit citizens to participate in the political life of that entity, or to enjoy benefits provided by the government of that entity. But in such cases, those eligible are also sometimes seen as "citizens" of the relevant state, province, or region.
Citizenship as explained above is the political rights of an individual within a society. Thus, you can have a citizenship from one country and be a national of another country. One example might be as follows: A Cuban-American might be considered a national of Cuba due to his being born there, but he could also become an American citizen through naturalization. Some countries like Cuba and the United States of America forbid dual citizenship in the other country because of political tensions between the two nations. Nationality most often derives from place of birth (i.e. jus soli) and, in some cases, ethnicity (i.e. jus sanguinis). Citizenship derives from a legal relationship with a state. Nationality can be lost, as in denaturalization, and gained, as in naturalization.
Supranational citizenship
In recent years, some intergovernmental organisations have extended the concept and terminology associated with citizenship to the international level, where it is applied to the totality of the citizens of their constituent countries combined. Two examples are given below, of citizenship in the European Union, and also of citizenship within the Commonwealth of Nations. As of 2005, citizenship at this level is a secondary concept, with a weaker status than national citizenship.
The ultimate version of supranational citizenship would be some sort of global citizenship; the United Nations does not represent this concept directly, however, being more of an international forum than a structure for expressing individual rights and responsibilities.
European Union (EU) citizenship
The Maastricht Treaty introduced the concept of citizenship of the European Union. This citizenship flows from national citizenship — one holds the nationality of an EU member state and as a result becomes a "citizen of the Union" in addition.
EU citizenship offers certain rights and privileges within the EU; in many areas EU citizens have the same or similar rights as native citizens in member states. Such rights granted to EU citizens ([1]) include:
- freedom of movement and the right of residence within the territory of the Member States;
- right to vote and stand as a candidate at elections to the European Parliament and at municipal elections in the Member State of residence;
- right to diplomatic and consular protection;
- right of petition to the European Parliament; and
- right to refer to the Ombudsman.
The right of residence connotes not only the right of abode, but also the right to apply to work in any position (including national civil services with the exception of sensitive positions such as defence).
EU member states also use a common passport design, burgundy coloured, with the name of the member state, national seal, and the title "European Union" (or its translation), and most also use a common format for their driving licences in order to simplify their use within the whole EU.
Union citizenship continues to gain in status and the European Court of Justice has stated that Union citizenship will be the "fundamental status of nationals of Member States" (see Case C-184/99 Rudy Grzelczyk v Centre Public d'Aide Sociale d'Ottignes-Louvain-la-Neuve, [2001] ECR I-6193, para 31). The European Commission has affirmed that Union citizenship should be the fundamental status of EU nationals, but this is not accepted by many of the member states of the European Union.
Commonwealth citizenship
The concept of "Commonwealth Citizenship" has been in place ever since the establishment of the Commonwealth of Nations. As with the EU, one holds Commonwealth citizenship only by being a citizen of a Commonwealth member state. This form of citizenship offers certain privileges within some Commonwealth countries:
- Some such countries do not require tourist visas of citizens of other Commonwealth countries.
- In some Commonwealth countries resident citizens of other Commonwealth countries are entitled to political rights, e.g., the right to vote in local and national elections and in some cases even the right to stand for election.
- In some instances the right to work in any position (including the civil service) is granted, except for certain specific positions (e.g. defence, Governor-General or President, Prime Minister).
Whilst Commonwealth citizenship is sometimes enshrined in the written constitutions (where applicable) of Commonwealth states and is considered by some to be a form of dual citizenship, there have never been, nor are there any plans for a common passport.
Although the Republic of Ireland left the Commonwealth in 1949, it is often treated as if it were a member, with references being made in legal documents to 'the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland', and its citizens are not classified as foreign nationals, particularly in the United Kingdom.
Canada departed from the principle of nationality being defined in terms of allegiance in 1921 (Nationals Act 1921 (Canada)), in an attempt to prevent non-Canadians (especially of Asian origin) from entering Canada. In 1935 the Irish Free State was the first to introduce its own citizenship (However, Irish citizens were still treated as subjects of the Crown, and they are still not regarded as foreign, even though Ireland is not a member of the Commonwealth; Murray v Parkes [1942] All ER 123).
In 1946 the Canadian Citizenship Act destroyed the common basis for citizenship. The concept of Commonwealth citizenship was introduced in 1948 in the British Nationality Act 1948. Other Dominions adopted this principle, in New Zealand, in the British Nationality and New Zealand Citizenship Act 1948. Citizenship has replaced allegiance, a more than symbolic change. Yet, at the same time, Canada continued to stress the continued allegiance of Canadians to a common Crown. It was just that practical requirements meant that national status had to be based on something other than allegiance, or peoples from throughout the Commonwealth might choose to settle in Canada.
Honorary citizenship
Some countries extend "honorary citizenship" to those whom they consider to be especially admirable or worthy of the distinction.
By Act of Congress and presidential assent, honorary United States citizenship has been awarded to only six individuals.
The only people to ever receive honorary Canadian citizenship are Raoul Wallenberg posthumously in 1985, and Nelson Mandela in 2001.
American actress Angelina Jolie received an honorary Cambodian citizenship in 2005 due to her humanitarian efforts.
Historical citizenship
Historically, many states limited citizenship to only a proportion of their nationals, thereby creating a citizen class with political rights superior to other classes, but equal with each other. The classical example of a limited citizenry was Athens where slaves, women, and metics were excluded from political rights, but the Roman Republic forms another example, and, more recently, the szlachta of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had some of the same characteristics.
Philosophy of citizenship
Image:Marx-citizenship.jpg The idea of citizenship, in the general sense of civic participation, is evolving as technology continues to shape the structure of our public sphere. With the advent of the microprocessor, the home PC, the Internet, and the world of always-on Internet connections, scholars, authors, and journalists alike debate the impact of these potentially democratizing technologies.
In his book Wealth of Networks, Yochai Benkler discusses how what he coins the “emerging networked information economy” offers vast improvements over the traditionally dominating mass media for fostering and furthering public discourse. Dan Gillmor, in his book We the Media, analyzes the impact of citizens at the edges of communication networks participating in gathering and disseminating news. Both works depict an evolving vision of politics in a networked world.
The Role of the Citizen in a World of Mass Media
Benkler depicts citizenship in the world of mass media as one where citizens may, at best, “try[] to inform themselves about what others have found so that they can vote intelligently.” He views mass media as a severely limiting force on a citizen’s ability to participate in the public sphere. Benkler’s trouble with mass media, in a nutshell, is the lack of bidirectional information flow inherent in the hub and spoke model of major media conglomerates. Furthermore, Benkler sees the media’s information uptake as too limited and argues that the advertising-supported model tends to produce “titillating” or “soothing” content of wide appeal rather than content that is “politically important, challenging, and engaging.”
Quite similarly, Gillmor describes citizenship in the corporate era of mass media as inevitably subject to and defined by overly simplified and generalized news – “if it bleeds it leads.” Gillmor compares corporate media to the tradition of personal journalism and muckraking media in the Gilded Age. The shift from personal to corporate journalism, Gillmor argues, has created a “shallow citizenry” whose “collective attention span has shortened” and whose “drive to question what we’re told” has become obsolete.
New Citizenship in the Networked Information Economy
Both Yochai Benkler and Dan Gillmor enumerate the technological tools shaping the emerging “modern citizen.” These include the world wide web, e-mail (personal and lists), blogs, wikis, SMS, mobile connected cameras, internet broadcasting, peer-to-peer, RSS, and countless others. With these tools, the communication network has expanded from the mass media’s hub-and spoke model to a truly networked communication infrastructure. Here, Benkler and Gillmor diverge subtly: They agree on the structure and basic benefits of the networked information economy but offer differing visions of the “citizen nodes” in the network.
Benkler and Gillmor strongly agree on the benefits of citizen participation in information production. Gillmor’s ideal citizen is a member of “the former audience” who is now “the heavy-duty blogger, web site creator, mailing list owner, or SMS gadfly… [and] who is becoming a key source of news for others, including professional journalists.” Similarly, Benkler revels in how easily citizens can become “participants in the conversation.”
Gillmor’s citizenship focus in We the Media is, quite naturally, the citizen’s participation in the journalistic process. Further, he limits his inquiry primarily to the ways in which the new citizen journalist can report stories overlooked by mass media. In effect, Gillmor sees the new citizen as yet another intake valve for mass media. The “citizen node” collects information which then “bubbles up” to mainstream channels. Small businessman Rex Hammock, for instance, met with President Bush in closed-to-press event. He subsequent blogged his experience, which was picked up by traditional media. Pamela Jones' work on Groklaw found its way to IBM and FSF. Citizen journalists, in Gillmor’s view, are an army of content producers that make better news available to more people and make traditional journalism more effective – but through mostly traditional channels.
Benkler’s vision of the role of the “citizen node” in the networked information economy is naturally broader than Gillmor’s journalistic vision, given the expansive focus of the Wealth of Nations. Benkler’s citizen not only functions as an uptake valve for traditional media, but also performs two additional crucial roles: filtering for accreditation and synthesizing public opinion. This citizen must not only gather information ignored by mass media, but listen to others’ findings, weigh the “relative quality and merits of those facts and alternative courses of action” and “bring [his or her] own concerns to the fore and have them evaluated by others.” Thus, Benkler’s “citizen node” participates actively in the public sphere, whether in conjunction with or entirely independent of traditional channels of information.
Bibliography
- Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Verso, 1991.
- Balibar, Ettienne- Race, Nation, Classe: Les identités ambiguës (with Immanuel Wallerstein)
- Barry, Brian. Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism. Harvard, 2001.
- Kymlicka, Will. Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford, 1995.
- Okin, Susan. Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Princeton, 1999.
- Taylor, Charles. Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Princeton, 1994.
- Armstrong, John A. Armstrong: Nations Before Nationalism (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1982)
- Smith, Rogers, Stories of Peoplehood, The Politics and Morals of Political Membership, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
See also
- Citizenship education
- Jus sanguinis
- Jus soli
- Multiple citizenship
- Nationality law
- Naturalization
- Permanent residency
- Second-class citizen
- Stateless person
- World citizen
Citizenship in specific countries
- Barbados nationality law
- British citizenship
- Canadian nationality law
- Chinese nationality law
- Indian nationality law
- Japanese, born overseas
- French nationality law
- Malaysian citizenship
- South African nationality law
- Swiss citizenship
- Naturalized TRNC citizens in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
- United States citizenship
Historical citizenship
External links
- EU Glossary: Citizenship of the Union
- The Concept of Citizenship in Education for Democracy
- The Law in Romania: The Romanian Citizenship
- Acquisition of Citizenship: Legal Basis, Naturalization, Dual Citizenship. 178 countries covered
- Wealth of Networks WikiNotesbg:Гражданство
cy:Dinasyddiaeth de:Staatsbürgerschaft es:Ciudadano fi:Kansalaisuus fr:Citoyen he:אזרחות id:Kewarganegaraan ja:市民 nl:Burger pl:Obywatelstwo pt:Cidadania simple:Citizenship sv:Medborgarskap simple:citizen tr:Vatandaşlık ru:Гражданин