Why citizenship?

Citizenship, which may be defined as equal membership of a political community from which enforceable rights and obligations, benefits and resources, participatory practices and a sense of identity flow, affects everyone. More than any other institution, it impacts upon our public and private life by shaping the way we behave, informing how we can live together and determining what we should expect from the state and other institutions. But citizenship is not confined to the realm of the real. It also encompasses a future-oriented, rather aspirational, dimension; namely, cognitive and normative ideas about what is possible and, perhaps, desirable for socio-political relations. Poised between the real and the ideational, citizenship can thus be both an instrument for maintaining the status quo and an invitation to social and political change.

This, perhaps, explains citizenship's appeal. There exist many volumes on it and scholars frequently engage in lively debates about its meaning and content. Politicians, too, often make it the focus of public debate about a wide range of issues, such as realising active citizenship, enhancing the accountability of public officials, providing education for citizenship, defending the European social model and so on. Following 9/11, arguments over the public space and recognition afforded to faiths, and in particular to Islam in western multicultural societies, complaints about competing loyalties and multiple identities, litigation over the wearing of the niqab and other symbols of faith, have raised the political stakes and highlighted the centrality of citizenship to contemporary politics.