The Changing Value and Meaning of Citizenship

Abstract

Chapter 1 shows how the value and meaning of citizenship have evolved within political thought, with particular attention to the intensification of debates in relation to the protection of modern human rights. With the creation of the United Nations and the adoption of rights norms, the international community made assumptions about identity and membership that effectively limited the inclusiveness of so-called universal rights. By privileging state sovereignty and legal nationality, the human rights regime created protection gaps for noncitizens and people at the margins. Scholars continue to debate whether globalization has eroded the importance of state citizenship and the nation-state, or whether it has in fact strengthened the state’s role in the world system. I argue that citizenship continues to have persistent power and appeal, and that this complex concept is often conversely viewed as a right, an identity, and a commodity.