A citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the responsibilities of membership. This broad definition of citizenship can be seen, with minor variations, in the works of authors ranging from Aristotle to Tacitus, Cicero and Machiavelli, as well as in the entry on “citizen” in Diderot’s and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedie of 1753. Discussions of citizenship usually center around two models: republican and liberal.
The republican model tends to rely on a picture of the active, engaged citizen. This ideal picture includes a wide range of activities and practices, from voting in elections to canvassing, participating in public deliberation and demonstrating against government policies or decisions. This picture is problematic, however, because it presupposes the capacity for rational, discursive agency that many individuals, in particular those with profound cognitive disability, lack.
More recently, scholars have suggested that there is a more complex picture of citizenship, one that encompasses multiple sites below and beyond the democratic nation-state, while also acknowledging the stubborn reality that democratic nations-states are the only form of political organization in existence. This multi-site conception of citizenship is sometimes called the “citizenship-as-practice” model.
It is also important to distinguish between different dimensions of citizenship. For example, children typically think in apolitical terms of citizenship and express loyalty through love for their country’s beauty, wildlife, and good people. Orit Ichilov notes that, in their early school years, children often perceive the government in the image of an ideal father who is benevolent and protective. As they get older, children begin referring to their country in more politically motivated ways, emphasizing the importance of political virtues and rights.
As adults, many Americans see good citizenship as primarily involving civic engagement and involvement in political institutions. This view of citizenship is reflected in the high percentage of American citizens who say that they believe it is very important to vote in elections and to pay taxes. It is also reflected in the large share of Americans who say it is very important to know the Pledge of Allegiance and to follow what happens in their government and politics. There are, however, sizable partisan differences in views of these and other characteristics of good citizenship.
It is a common assumption that the democratic nation-state is the only institution in which citizenship can thrive, and this assumption has driven debates about the appropriate nature of citizenship and the most suitable definition of it. For example, there are arguments about whether a person should be a citizen if she or he is born abroad and both parents are United States citizens or at least one of whom resided in the US for at least five years before the child’s birth. There is, furthermore, considerable debate about the extent to which persons who are involuntarily deprived of the enjoyment of a constitutional right should be considered as having lost their citizenship. The arguments for and against this position are complex, and are based on a variety of factors.