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Varieties of Citizenship and the Moral Foundations of Politics

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The Ethics of Citizenship in the 21st Century

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Abstract

Debates about citizenship tend to confuse more than they illuminate political discourse because they trade on two different conceptions whose relationship is not immediately apparent. Citizenship has legal meaning, which concerns an individual’s relationship to a particular government. However, citizenship can also invoke deeper moral claims regarding identity and the common ethical commitments that define a community. Various rights, obligations, and benefits can be attached to citizenship conceived both in juridical and moral terms. However, attending to the varieties of citizenship is difficult given the primacy of the modern state as a political unit. Upon examination, what conventional political debates illustrate – whether they concern economic distribution, cultural identity, or cosmopolitan travel – is that questions of citizenship ultimately concern the bounds of communities and the moral convictions that constitute them.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a useful overview of this question see Macedo 2009 and Garsten 2009.

  2. 2.

    For an introduction to this concept see Hittinger 2002.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

    William English

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  1. William English
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Correspondence to William English .

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  1. Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Navarra, Spain

    David Thunder

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English, W. (2017). Varieties of Citizenship and the Moral Foundations of Politics. In: Thunder, D. (eds) The Ethics of Citizenship in the 21st Century. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50415-5_2

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