Conclusion: Paths to Citizenship

Citizenship: Towards a Feminist Synthesis

“…Rather than jettison the concept of citizenship in the face of the pressures on the nation-state, citizenship theorists have tended to seek a more multilayered conception, operating on several frontiers (Heater, 1990;Parry, 1991) and to argue for the development of an analysis of citizenship at a global level (Turner, 1990;Held, 1995;Falk, 1994). This can incorporate notions of rights and responsibilities as well as democratic accountability and political action, through both formal and informal channels.…”

The Elusive Ideal of Equal Citizenship: Political Theory and Political Psychology in the United States and Great Britain

“…Culture cannot be deleted from conceptions of citizenship because, according to communitarians, citizens cannot psychologically abstract their conceptions of the political community from the real communities in which they live; indeed, their understandings of citizenship are learned through experience in these communities (Parry 1991). Furthermore, since identities are grounded in personal histories, which in turn are grounded in societies in which they have been learned (Plant 1991, 347), the self is not at all as autonomous as liberals suggest.…”

“…It does not exist in a cultural vacuum (Sandel 1996). Instead, citizens need and want to be psychological members of cultural communities, of “communities of character,” through which they can understand their identities and from which they can adopt moral principles (MacIntyre 1985; Parry 1991). To preserve these identities and moral bearings, they want to preserve their traditional cultural communities.…”

“…Equal citizenship is a unifying ideal in the United States and Great Britain (Gaffaney 2000; Karst 1989, ix). Indeed, the principle of equality is historically inherent in the concept of citizenship itself (Dahrendorf 1996; Heater 1999; Karst 1989; Marshall 1965; Parry 1991; Rawls 1993, 30). And yet, ensuring equal citizenship for minorities remains a contentious problem in these and other increasingly multicultural modern democracies (Gutmann 1992, 3).…”

“…As Martin Luther King argued, formal legal rights are necessary but not sufficient. To be equal citizens, individuals also need civic equality or equal standing in civil society (Dahrendorf 1996; Gutmann 2003, 35; Karst 1989, 42; Parry 1991, 167; Rawls 1993, 30; Spinner 1994, 39). Citizens who are routinely avoided, ignored, excluded, patronized, and not regarded as full members of the political community are not equal citizens (Spinner 1994, 39; Young 1995, 197).…”