Liberal Citizenship
Liberal citizenship dates back to the 17th century Roman Empire. Liberal citizenship meant that citizens in the Roman Empire had civil rights within the empire. T.H. Marshall documented the modern form of Liberal citizenship in the 1940s. Marshall’s concept was an attempt to bridge the differences in social classes by virtue of extending social, civil and political rights to all members of the society, hence assuming the status of citizenship. Liberal citizenship is hinged on rights Marshall (1950), Heater (1990), rights that are extended to citizens by the state. Adrian Oldfield (1990) coins the form as citizenship as a status based on the relationship between the state and the citizen.
Republican Citizenship
Contrary to Liberal citizenship, republican citizenship is an embedded notion of civic duty in this, and again the person is expected to be a productive part of the society. This would ultimately enable the person to claim rights in the political, social and civil domain. So this ends up as somewhat of a vicious circle, whereby the person contributes to attain the status of citizenship. In this respect, under the auspices of republicanism, citizenship is an activity-based concept in which citizens have obligations. As cited by Lister, neo conservatives i.e. Mead and Novak argued that social citizenship rights should be dependent on the duty to engage in paid work, which they should maintain hence this would reflect as a “badge of citizenship”. An example in the UK is the Jobseekers allowance that was implemented by the Conservative party. The conservative party had a republican inclination in that they believed that people could not just be paid unemployment benefits hence they introduced the Jobseekers Allowance in an effort to link the benefit and their obligations as citizens.
Marshall’s Model of Citizenship
According to Marshall, the tripartite includes extension of civil, political and social rights to the members of a society or to an individual hence assuming the status of citizenship. Civil rights included freedom of speech, expression, thoughts and faith, the right to own land, and the right to justice. Political rights meant the ability to take part in political activities including the right to vote/elect. Finally, social rights encompassed access to welfare and security, social heritage and the right to live in conformity with prevailing standards of civilized beings (Lister, R:1997). Based on these principles alone, it is difficult in modern day Britain to align Marshall’s approach to citizenship. For example in the UK, asylum seekers who have been granted either exceptional or indefinite leave to remain in the country have the right to access the rights that were outlined by Marshall without assuming the status of being a British citizen. Marshall’s concept has been deemed inadequate to draw up a universal definition on citizenship because it was based on the situation in Britain alone; hence it did not mirror “transnational events and structures” (Giddens, A: 1996). Moreover modern day understanding of citizenship has drastically shifted from Marshall’s perspective owing to modern day circumstances. In this respect it is vital to consider that Marshall wrote his paper soon after the Second World War when the welfare state had just been established as part of the post war welfare settlement, hence his proposal reflected the events of 1940s. (Dwyer, P: 2004).
According to Lister 1997, Marshall’s model on citizenship was gender insensitive because it did not fully apply to women, for example women in the United Kingdom “did not exist as individuals for taxation purposes up until the end of the 20th Century.” Marshall’s model was an effort to harness the class differences that existed during that time hence Marshall failed to address gender, disability and other models of citizenship.
Marshall (1950) has however been able to explain the concept of civil life and their roles in terms of morality. He emphasised the role of the welfare state, wherein the burden of onus would be on the government to provide for the people. Bulmer and Rees (1996) look at this notion of legalization of rights that Marshall talked about, as a notion of democracy in its own right.
Lister (1998) presents an interesting comparison on the fluid state in which the essence of citizenship finds itself. Two primary pillars on which the concept seems to be defined are the presence of a ‘rights-based’ and an ‘obligations based’ role of the person living in the society, and the presence of citizenship as both an exclusion and an inclusion phenomenon. While both may seem reasonable, it is important to note that the context of being a citizen changes its genre in either when put under scrutiny. Initially, the rights of the people were given primary importance in the context of their role as the citizen of the society. Especially in European countries, it was considered vital to give due importance to the privileges that a person might have. However, this gave rise to the speculation that people might start to take things for granted, and that they would demand more than they would deliver. This then gave rise to the notion of obligation-based roles for the people, where they were supposed to be productive members of the society.
A contested Concept
Citizenship is a heavily contested concept hence it is contested at every level starting from its meaning to its political application. Lister, R (1997). It is evident by the varied ways that even politicians envisage citizenship, which is usually defined, based on political traditions. Different countries implement different models of citizenship. Citizenship is a contested concept. Today, this more active definition of Citizenship tends to encompass three mutually dependent themes, political literacy, social and moral responsibility and community involvement (Institute of Citizenship). As discussed earlier, the Conservative government reconfigured the welfare system in the United Kingdom by replacing unemployment benefits with Jobseeker’s Allowance in an effort to marry their understanding of citizenship with the benefit system. Moreover, as cited by Lister (1997) Tony Blair’s highlights the essence of values obligations of citizens i.e. “…the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe”. A model of Zimbabwean citizenship mainly extends, the political rights, limited civil rights and absolutely no social rights. However the opposition party view citizenship from a republican point of view.
A Fluid concept
Despite all the millennia of civilization that mankind has witnessed, it is interesting that the concept of citizenship still seems to be quite volatile, and in search of its literal and practical meanings. This ever so evolving concept has also seen considerable shifts in the past decades, owing to varying versions of political policy capped in the flavour of social interest. But factually viewing the case, the stance for citizenship has never been too clear for the purposes of constructing social policy. It would also be important to note the contributions of T.H. Marshall, who considered citizenship as a gradual process from civil, then political and then social rights.
Citizenship is dynamic and the meaning of citizenship or the extent of the rights and obligations of citizens can be determined by the government in power or the status quo in a nation. In ancient Greece citizenship was limited to free men who participated in political debates due to their participation in military service Marshall, G (1998). Citizenship was only for male members of the society. In ancient Roman Empire, citizenship was fragmented into components and each mode of citizenship had an array of rights, e.g. a freed slave would acquire citizenship, but with limited rights. Moreover, women’s rights were limited; they were not allowed to vote or to hold office. As discussed above, Marshall defined citizenship with a different dimension that has been heavily criticised by feminists and other authors. As cited by Lister, Mouffe (1992) highlights that the way citizenship is defined in closely related to the kind of society as well as political community people want.
Conclusion
It is evident that drawing up to a comprehensive definition on citizenship is a difficult exercise as the meaning of the word is dynamic due to changing political, economic and social conditions. Marshall’s concept on citizenship has been subjected to an array of criticisms from various authors; however, citizenship tends to be defined based on political inclination of which Marshall’s concept had a liberal approach as it was written in an effort to address the social class differences of post war Britain. Citizenship is a contested and fluid concept that is dynamic and it is implemented differently based on political inclination in different countries or environments. From a feminist point of view, women have historically not been able to acquire similar citizenship rights compared to their male counterparts.
References
Bulmer, M. and Rees, A. (1996). Citizenship Today: the contemporary relevance of T. H. Marshall. Routledge.
Delanty, G. (2003). Citizenship as a learning process. [Online]
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Dwyer, P 2004. Understanding social citizenship: Themes and perspectives for policy and practice. Policy press
Ellison, N. and Pierson, C. (1998) Developments in British Social Policy, Basingstoke, Macmillan.
El- Tayeb, F. 2004. We are Germans, We are Whites, and We Want to Stay White!" African Germans and Citizenship in the early 20th Century. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik [Online] 22 September. 56 (21). pp 185 – 205
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Giddens, A 1996 The state and Democracy. Routledge. Oxford
Institute Of Citizenship (2005) Introduction to Citizenship: Democracy [Online]
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Lister, R (1997) Feminist Review: Citizenship: Towards a Feminist Synthesis [Online] Autumn 1997 (57) pp28 -48
Lister, R (1997) Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives. London. Macmillan Press
Marshall, T. H.(1950). Citizenship and social class and other essays. Cambridge: Pluto Classics
