1

CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN
THE THEORY OF CITIZENSHIP
Bryan S. Turner

The revival of the concept of citizenship

Various changes in the social structure of European societies have N
contributed to the revival in political and sociological theory of the
concept of citizenship (see Turner, 1986; Barbalet, 1988). Although
the notion of citizenship has been much debated in the postwar
period in relation to the development of the welfare state, it can be
argued that in general terms the notion of citizenship has not had a
continuous impact on thj^eygjojiment of the social scienc^sJii-
Europe. Contemporarylieveloprnents in EasteTn'EuTdpe and in the
former Soviet Union have, however, raised once more the corn^ ;
plicated relations^ b j ^ t w ^ a n d
citizenship participation. There is also a global refugee problem
which haYcreafed a new crisis of stateless persons in the contempor-
ary political system. Less dramatically, the institutional growth of )
the European Community has also raised important problems about /
citizenship status, not only loj^minoritjes^but also toTluTforrns ofj
transient and migrant Jabour. Of course, these problems of national-
ism and political identity are hardly modern; in many respects, the
contemporary issue of citizenship and nationality mirrors the earlier
problems of both the Habsburg empire and the Ottoman empire.
However, citizenship as an issue has become increasingly prbmi-7
nent, because the traditional boundaries of the nation-state in /
Europe and elsewhere have been profoundly challenged by global;
developments in the organization of modern societies. Thus, the
fijstjnajor issue in the revival of citizenship as a concejj^and^as
a political platform is the process which we may_call globalization^
(see Robertson, 1990, for an elaboration for thlTconcept of
'globalization').
While globalization raises problems about the relationship
 between the individual and macro societal structures, thjecond_set
of forces leading to a revival of the notion of^tizenship-concexns
tjigj^ationship between human bejings and nature. Rapid develop-
ments in the technical competence of modern medicine have raised
ethical questions around the ownership of the human body, the
position of women in society, and about the very forces which
produce life itself. In very broad terms, therefore, changes in the
nature of sexual politics, combined with rapid changes in the nature
of modern medicine, have problematized the relationship between
the human body and social membership. Following the arguments
of Michei Jhoucaiiff,1 thiTdlrnension of the citizenship question can
be generally described as the politics of the body.
To state these issues more precisely, the modern question of
citizenship is structured by two issues. The first concerns the nature
oi social memj)gsjiip-in highTylfiffeFentiated, societies, where the
authority of the nation-state appears to be under question. The
second range of issues concerns th^_jjr^]ejrn_oM^_efficientand
equal allocation of resources, which continue to be dominatedTrjy
various foxpTS^Tpiinculanitic inequality. These resources have
been typically analysed in terms ot_economic scarcity, but, in
developing a general theory of citizenship, we also need to consider
the question of scarcity in relation to cultural resources.

CJlfeenship and sociology

It should be already clear that I am using the concept of citizenship
in a broad and possibly innovative fashion. It is therefore necessary
to define citizenship in order to proceed with this argument.
Citizenship may be defined as that set of practices (juridical,
political economic and cultural) which define a~person as~ a
competent member of society, and which as a consequence ihape
the flow of rCTOureesto"persons and social groups. It is useful to
indicate the most important aspects of IKis definition. First, it seems
/to be important to emphasize the idea "f practices in order to avoid
! a stgjteand juridical definition of citizenship as merely a collection of
rights and obligations. The word 'practigesl should help us to
understand the dynamic social construction of citizenship which
changeSjUsf""^!^ of political stmggles7Thus.
the concept nf social practice is intended to pinpoint the idea of
citizenship as a genuinely sociological as distinct from a legal or
political notion. Secondly, this definition ofcitizenship. placesijhe
concept squarely in the debate abouHjie^uafity, power differences
and_socijd_ class, because citizensjurjjsinevitablv and necessanty
 pound up with the problem of the unequal distribution of resources
Jn so.ciety_^__
As a consequence of this definition, we can say that a general
theory of citizenship would have to address the following issues.
CJtrzenship is concerned with (a) the content of social rights and
obligations; (b) with the form or type of sucrTobligations and rights;
(c) with the social forces that produce such practices; and finally (d)
with the various social" arrangements whereby such benefits are
distributed, to different sectors of a society. TFe~ajntent of citizen-
ship refers to the exact nature of the rights and duties which define
citizenship. Most social scientists have been concerned to analyse
the content of citizenship over time in terms of the various legal,
political and social entitlements which define the privileges or
benefits of the citizen. The tvpe_of citizenship refers to whether
citizenship is passive or active: the form of citizenship participation
consequently defines the nature of thjejujbjie^jnjnodern politics.
^ T h e oondji^qns^fj:itizenshipi^formation take us jntq theTusfoncaT
~JKT sociology of modern democracies. Finally, thg_fjow oLtesources is
concerned with differences in the individual life-cyclejn relationship
to theenjoyment of citizenship privileges.2 In general, therefore,
citizenship is essentially about the nature of social membership
within modern political collectivities! ~~ *~
Citizenship_as socia|jnembership is central to the traditional
question of sociology (nameTy~the~pToblem of social order)7b5l ffis
interesting that citizenship has not been treated entirely successfully
by classical sociology. One traditional problem with the notion of
the citizen derives from a debate inside Marxism, in which Marxist
theory criticized the idea of bourgeois social rights and challenged
the liberal theory of the free and independent citizen enjoying
universal privileges. Marx was highly critical of the legacy of Hegel
but he was equally critical of the individualism of J.S. Mill and the
liberals. In the debate on the Jewish question, Marx objected to the
notion that social membership and social participation could be
defined merely in political or legal terms without a revolutionary
_&ansformation of the very basis of civil society.3 Thus in Marxism,!
while the notion of the citizen seemed to be the inadequate legacy ofl
liberal social theory, Marxists have developed an alternative)
perspective, namely a theory of civil society.4 Following the work of
the_Scottish Enlightenment, Hegel and Marx had devdojjgd_the
idga of civil society as a crucial problem or feature of contemporary
capitalism. The notion of civil societywas further elaborated by
'Antonio_Gjrainsci and in contemporary Marxism the notion of the
civil society continues txrpfovide a sociolo'gv of non : economic social
relations.5 Because sociology was influenced by this Marxist legacy,
 4 B R Y A N S. TURNER

in contemporary theoretical debates citizenship and civil society are

often set apaTtand contrasted as alternative, modes-oi analysis.
) Nfy intention itTdeveloping this particular perspective on citizen-
/ ship is to avoid this opposition be^wejm^Jhj; t w A J l ^
society and citizenshipr I have~already suggested one way in which
this hiatus coulcTbe avoided, namely by^djfjning^itizenship as a set
\f social practices which define the nature of social membership.
Furthermore,"v7hile citizenship was underdeveloped as ajrnicgptjn
classical sociology, it was nevertheless implicitly present in socio-
logical analysis which could not avoid considering the changing basis
of social membership in the process of modernization. For example,
Njax Weber in The City developed a clear notion of the origins of
citizenship in the formation of an infantry, in the development of an
urban militia a n d i n the final collapse of the feudal principle of
warfare. Weber of course also suggested that the Christian religion
6

was particularly important in developing the idea of the urban

commune as a political entity based upon a common faith rather
than common tribal or local membership. When these principles of
I urban autonomy and Christian political obligation were combined
' in a single institution in the autonomous boroughs of European
i society, then citizenship began to develop as an important part of
' the very social structure of modern capitalist civilization. These
I ideas of Weber were eventually developed by the historian Otto
' Hintze who attempted to locate the origins of citizenship in the
j immunities of early feudal society which he saw as the precursor of
modern constitutionalism (for a selection of Hintze's essays, see
/ Gilbert, 1975).
A theory of citizenship as urban social membersjupwas also
anticipated by Emile Durkheim in Professional Ethics and C i v i l
M o r a l s where he began to suggest that citizenship could function as
a basis of secular solidarity which might replace the religious
grounding of collective sentiments which had been characteristic of
traditional societies. In his discussion of civic morals, Durkheim
7

raised a problem to which we must return at some length towards

the end of this discussion. Durkheim perceived that the framework
of secular political commitment could either be set within the
context of a riationaT conreptTon^ofsociaj identity or_cjtizenship
niighideyj^op_asl^
such as humanity J ^ L ^ J b i s - 4 u x u i k m (citizenship as national
identity or c i t i z e n ^ h i r i ^ J m m m J d e n t i t v ) is_ceniraLto_Jhe_^d^
modern problem of global identities.
If we see citizenship as the essential problem of social member-
ship, then EenjinandToe^mies's distinction between community
(GemeinschafijUnd association (Gesellschaft) is in fact a discussion
 C O N T E M P O R A R Y P R O B L E M S IN THE T H E O R Y O F CITIZENSHIP 5

about the nature of social membership and hence a discussion about '
the character of citizenship identity. If the historical evolution of '
European societies had been from community to association, then ,
we can see citizenship as a secularized version of the more \
primordial bonds of tradition, religion and locality. The emergence
of citizenship is the emergen^ej^those forms of social participation" I
'^wTiicHjrea^ a society which" j s r o J ^ i ^ T r i ^ Q i i ^ ^ T n ^
Qemeinschaft relations!
Within this framework, it is possible to argue that Talcott
JEareonsIs-utilization of the idea of the pattern variables is in fact
central to the modern debate about the grounds of associational
participation (Chazel, 1974). In developing his views on the values
which are critical to contemporary society, Parsons provided a
synthesis of Weber, Durkheim and Toennies in his analysis of the
emergence of the modern system of societies (Parsons, 1971). 9

In locating the origins of modern society in Greek democracy,

Christian individualism and urban political culture, Parsons
followed W e b e f s view of the significance of autonomous urban
culture in the development of modern values and institutions. H e
also developed^Tbennies's idea of community and association to
produce the famous theory of the pattern variables i n which
mridernitylsjiefined in terms of^niversalisTnTlicTireveiment and
neutrality^against the traditional value patterns of particularism,
ascription and affectivity. In Parsons'si theory, m o d e n u t x i L A h e
duTeteTftlalioTrof^o^tyjnto autonomous sectors plus the evolution
o j f ^ a ^ i f f i g u r i n o n o r ^ u e s which permits a general commitment of
the in^rvlo^l^o^society" but on the basis of universalistic and
achievement criteria. W e should note, therefore, that the emerg-
ence of citizenship is in this sense the development of modernity',
namely a transition from status to contract. Citizenship is the set of"j
social practices which define social membership in a society which is /
Highly differentiated both in its culture a n d social iniitiitinns7~anHf
where social solidarity can only be based up^n_general and*
universalistic standards. If Parsons followed Weber and Toennies i n
defining modernization as a transition from status to contract, he
also follow^dJDurlcheini in arguing that piofessional altruism was a
characteristic value of the learned j r x i f c s i E n s but also that^prb-
fessionalism was an essential antidote to the egoistic values of the
marketplace. Just as professionalism stands in opposition to market/
interests, so citizenship stands in opposition to the particularistic/
forms of commitment to society which are characteristic of the 1

family, the village or the tribe.

We can see therefore that classical sociology developed an

implicit theory of citizenship as modernization, but the core of
 6 B R Y A N S. T U R N t R

contemporary views^on citizenship in the Anglo-Saxon world is to

be found in theSociology of TTHT Marshall?"

T . H . Marshall and the liberal theory of citizenship

Marshall's views on citizenship have, over the last decade, gener-

ated an important debate inside British sociology about the nature
of contemporary capitalism (Marshall, 1977, 1981; Mann, 1987;
Oldfield, 1990; Turner, 1990). However, placing Marshall within a
wider context, we can see his work as the legacy of the libejaL
political_response to the problem of the^rd^tionship between
j^jjemocracy and capitalism. ThusT^jjrsftairs m t i r p r n with cjtJTen-
sjup was addressed to allpecific problem in liberal theory: how to
\e the formal framework of political democracy with the
social consequence of capitalism as an economic system, that is how
to reconcile formal equality with the continuity of social class
divisions. In brief, the Marshallian answer to the problem of
capitalism versus democracy was the welfare state. A s we will see
shortly, Marshall's analysis of this relationship contained a number
of ambiguities, but basically Marshall argued that the welfare state
would limit the negative impact of class differences on individual
life-chances, thereby enhancing the individual's commitment to the
system. T o this abstract analysis of the nature of modern political
democracies, Marshall added a historical sketch of the development
of citizenship in Bjitain, which provided the historical settingTorTTis
specfficviews o n t h e problems of sociaTpolicy in a modern society."^
^Marshall's anafysbiflf^tizmw^^ known, and it is
not necessary here to analyse in great detail his account of the_
character of citizenship_ rights. Marshall divided citizenship into
tjhree~dTrnensions, namely the~civil, political and social aspects. Civil
or legal rights, (such as the rights of property) dey^lo^exLjn-the
se.vepteerLth..rp.ntnry in response to absolutism and were institution-
alized in the growth of law courts, habeas corpus and individual
legal rights to a fair trial. In the eighteenth and nineteenth
j centuries,political citizenship developed with the evolution of
' modern p"ariia2nen^ajgjJejiiocracy. These political rights included
t h e l l g i n o ^ o t e ^ r i g h t s of_associatin.and the right tojpjrticjpaterin
the central organs..of government. These political rights of citizen^""]
sKip were institutionalized in the parliamentary political system of
competing parties. Finally in the twentieth century, social rights
t

were further expanded to include social entitlements, such as

unemployment benefit and provision forTiealth and education.
TJTese^iocial formsof. citi7erisJijp_jyere insth^JtignalizeH in t h p

welfare states Thus, Marshall provided an evolutionary view of

 ( O N I f M I ' O R A R Y P R O M F M S IN IHf M I I O R Y OF CITIZENSHIP 7

citizenship, developing through various stages and levels to reach its

final embodiment in the principles of British welfare politics. This
set of relatively simple ideas proved to be very influential not only in
Britain but more generally in North American sociology. 10

This Marshallian legacy has in recent years been very severely

.criticized, producing a much monTeTegant anTim^jrtanyinajysis of
citizenship in relationtocapitalism. I shall briefly examine these
critical objections to MarshaflVsocialJy^rx^pf^ciUzejiship. The \
three sets of r i g h t g j c i y j i k ^ Marshall's theory ]
are nofby any means equivalent or equally signjficanL For example,/
it can be argued that bourgeois rights of civil and political member-
ship may not contradict or challenge capitalist property rights at a l l ;
indeed, they may be necessary for the support of capitalist relations.
By contrast, social welfare rights appear to bite into the dominance
of capitalist property, because they indicate or require some
redistribution of wealth and property in society. Ciyjl and political
rights do not require any new social hierarchy, whereas welfare
rights, because they involve some principle of redistribution,
may promote an egalitarian transformation of social hierarchies.
Marshall also neglected to discuss the idea of economic ngfils,
namely the idea of industrial democracy which would have made
further inroads into the autonomy of capitalist property. The notion
of workers' control of capitalist enterprises is far more radical from
the point of view of capitalism than the idea simply of a right to a
fair trial. It is this absence of any analysis of economic participation
by_Jhe mass of the population which has-been, from _a_Marxist
perspective, a fundamental problem in the liberal theorvof rights.
One could add many more new rights to Marshall's list. Jgarsons. in
his discussion of the university system, in fact proposed_ajigwJevei
of citizenship which W f > m a y cultural citizenship^ that is t h a _
r a l 1

social right to participate in the complex culture of a particular

sqciety through educational reform (see Parsons, 1966, 1 9 7 1 ^ .
Parsons and Piatt, 1973). If the welfare state corresponds to social
11

rights, then the university might be conceptualized as the institution-

alization of the right to participate in a society's culture.
Marshall has also been criticized for the teleologicalxhatactef-of
his' evolutionary__yie.w of citizenship,. There are a number of
problernT^vlththis evolutionism. First, it can be argued that the
universal Church in medieval times permitted a wider and more
universalistic degree of participation than was possible in the
nation-state. If modern forms of citizenship emerged with the
nation-state (wTftra nationarpolitical system; a national language^
and a national welfare system), then national citizenship could be
regarded as a particularistic type of secular social membership, very
 8 BRYAN S. TURNER

different from the more global notion of Christian Europe or the

f Islamic world. T h e r e may he an important tension between citizen-
- y s h i p in the context of the city, within the framework of the nation-
state or within the wider orbit of some social collectivity such as
Europe, the United Nations or in some notion of humanity. T h e
globalization of the world system has put new strains on the
institutions of citizenship insofar as traditional forms of citizenship
,are g r o u n d e d in the natjpn-state One final problem with Marshall's
/ evolutionary perspective is that it is not clear that ciyjLaj^_ political
/ rights have to come before social rights. For example, it could be
argued that whereas women have achieved a certain level of social
rights, many ofjheir civil a n Hpolitical right* h a f-'aiiw-ly
v p

underdeveloped in a number of modern societies. Thus, different

social groups may experience the rate of social change in v e i y ^
different ways and within a different sequential order. The real
/ i problem behind this criticism about teleology is that Marshall did,
I | not provide a causal explanation of how citizenship expands. H e .
\ merely provided a historical description of the evolution of social l&i
| j nghtsjn_J3ritajn, but he made little reference to the role of social
class, new social movements or social struggle in the promotion of ^
i! citizenship rights. Hjs evolutionary model suggests a peaceful or
j j gradual transition towards citizenship" ~
There are two further rather seriouj^problems with theMatshall
legacy which we must address! (FirsO theTeis an ambiguity in
Marshall's account which has been defected by many commentators
and this refers to the exact relationship between citizenship and
| capitalism. It is not precisely clear from Marshall's theory whether
i citizenship contradicts the market p r i n c i p l e ^ capitalism by requir-
i ing some redistribution of wealth on the basis of need, or whether
i citizenship merely stands in some'relation of tension with capitalism
by inhibiting the full impact of the market principle, or^whether
indeed citizenship actually supports capitalism ^^integrating the
working class into society by some complex means of welfare
^incorporation. We can express this "problem by suggesting that]
citizenship can either be regarded as a radical principle of equality,)
which tends to generate conflict by enshrining entitlement^ mtoA
legal procedures, or whether citizenship is a tundamentarBasis forf
Ssbcial solidarifyin acontemporary differentiated social systemfOf
course, these two perspectives on citizenship need not be*e5Srel
contradictory, since it could be both the case that citizenship creates" 1

sohdarity, arid generates political conflicts bv raising expectations

j>bout entitlement. Citizenship, fonowing Durkheim, is a secujar
c o n s c i e n c e c o l l e c t i v e which transcends class and gender divisions/
through the creation ot uruversalistic membership^~Citizensiiip~'is
 fjhil/<^~-COflTEMPORARY P R O B L E M S IN THE T H E O R Y O F CITIZENSHIP 9 ~fc

also the basis of social conflict, because it sustains expectations of

redistribution which cannot be fully satisfied.
This difficulty in Marshall's theory leads finally to thg.qiie.iHnn as ,
towhether there is a single version of citizenship, or whether there /
^guTq~6emany diverse^and different formulations of the citizenshjp_
^prfCciple in different social and cultural traditions. In a previous
article, I have suggested that v^canjdeMity.uxfiurope at least f o u r ,
rather different forms of citizenship by asking whether citizenship is
dgveToped trom below oFTrom above~(and therefore whether
citizenship is active or passive; ano~to wn"al^tentxitizaejtsMP_Js..
developed in a private 6 f ~ p ^ l i c _ s r j a i c e _ (Turner, 1990). 12 By \
'combining these two ajsgg,. (bek>W/abdve public/private), we can
identify four ideal typical forms of citizenship T h e background
assumption of this typology is thlatlfiflejsntiu^
give rise to radically different forms of citizenship participation,
iThat Is, where citizenship develops within a revolutionary struggle
for entitlements as in France or America, we can expect an active
and radical tradition of citizenship participation to be generated. B y f

^ contrast, where citizenship is merely handed down from aboyeZas in I

'"^ the various cases discussed by Michael M a n n (1987; see also j
Downing, 1988), then citizenship isjikely to take on a passive 4i a n

lo) rather negative, form. The public^private distinction is e q u a l l y ; ^

<$\f- important and indicates the cultural dimension^ o^dehnitions ofjf
j ^ r f i P ctfizerSHipTWhere the public arena is regarded with some degree o f
V * moral suspicion or where some emphasis is placed upon the moral
superiority of private spaces, then we might expect citizenship to
take a rather different development. When political space is limited,
^ citizenship is passive and private.
5$ These differences in the notion of citizenship_can be traced both
^ throughllieliaTlolTaTcuItures of different regions and nation-states,
^ but also through the very concept of citizenship itself. TJhe Western*
^ riofiorToTcitizenship is closely "associatedwith the Hp.a o f s t a t i n g o n
^ the one hand, and^membership of a city on the other. ThusTTfie"
4 French term citoven is derived from ate", which refers m^rely_to_an
^ assembly of citizens who enjoy certain limited rights within a city. In
English, equally the idea of citizen is closely associated with
denizen, and both indicate the idea of living in a city. A pity dweller
is historically a person with protection and entitlements which
j derive from the construction ot an autonomous city and therefore
jj the urbanization of p o p u l a t i o n s ic r ^ t e d to the idea of the c i v i l i z i n g ^
| process where.civility and- citizenship become combjned~ln~ the
) uerman and Dutch languages, the origins of the modern citizen are
necessarily associatedwith the idea of civil society ( d i e biirgefTwHe
ijiselhchafl). Within thisQerman tradition, a dtizen was simply an
*JJ>^L& - ^ ^ y Zfcjt^tJZ j i * ^ ( ^ L X A ^ a ^ c ^ - ^ - ^ f l L <*J-*A^t,
10 BRYAN S. TURNER

individual who had left the protective shell of the family in order to
enter the public arena, which was characterized by economic
struggle and competition. This civil society required the state as the
institution which would historically regulate and control the ten-
sions within civil society. In the German idea, the citizen-is the
Burger, and the origins of citizenship are therefore tied to the
emergence,pf a B u r g e r t u m ibourgeoisii?) which was a_special status
group (the B i l d u n g s b i i r g e r t u m ) which, in association wtth_the state
and Unchurch, attempted to develop a new type of personalitv,
nameTyTTperson wKose~emotions were regulated by the discipline
of education. Within the Dutch language, there are similar notions
of a special status enjoyed by a person who is a metnher~of the
bourgeois class and bourgeois society ( B u r g e r m a a t s c h a p p j ) . One
can also discover other variations such as Stadtsburgerschap. and
Staatsburgerschap. This notion of the staatsburger carried with it
the idea of a moral discipline which converted the body of citizens,
into a moral body. In both German and Dutch, there is the
option of regarding the citizen as a bourgeois member of the city
(Sladisburgerschap) or regarding the-citizen as a member of the,
state {Staatsburgerschap). The citizen as a member of the state isT
bound by the rules and regulations of the emerging nation-state^
bureaucracy which is committed to order and stability against both
dissent and external opposition! Irj Germany thefailure of a radical
bourgeois revolution in the 1840s. and the developjDnjt-ofa
capitalist economy from above by means of Bismarckian legislation
created a political contextjn which the conditions for the develop-
"ment of a dynamic and active notion of citizenship were limited,
producing iqstead a rather restricted notion of burgership asjhe
main carrier ofHocial rights. The absence of a successful liberal
revolution and the continuing political dominance of the Junker
class produced an underdeveloped civil or public realm. This
political structure was further reinforced by Protestantism (specifi-
cally Lutheranism) which legitimized the state as simultaneously the
representative o a Volksgemeinschaft and as the protector of the
privatized individual. It was within this context^ that the German
system encouragedthe development of the educated individual as
the principal bearer of German culture. It was UmJaureaucraUc
state structure which generated the social context for the develop-
ment nf thfi ideals of B i l d u n g . that is the ideals of the educated
cultivated state employee of the middle classes. This moral world
view of the Bildungsbiirgertum which-developed a criticism of the
aristocracy, whose cultural lifestyle was based on sport, heavy
drinking and sexual immorality, and against the lower classes who
were thought to be in any case socially and politically dangerous. In_
 CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN THE THEORY OF CITIZENSHIP 11

Germany, therefore, the educated character was developed as an

alternative to revolutionary political struggle.
"The point of these illustrations is to suggest that a unitary theory
of citizenship is inappropriate, and^tJ^Ldiffej^nt-forrns^Lcilizeji:
ship have evolved under rather different circumstances of political
and social modernization in contemporary societies. While we need
to develop general concepts in sociologyjmch as the state, citizen-
ship and society), we also ha*ve to take particular notice^oTThe
cbntingent~arTd~ variable circumstances under which these general
social conditions or processes^yolye To take one further illus-
-

tration, in many respects the Habsburg empire shared many similar

features with Prussian bureaucratic state development. In Hungary,
for example, which continued to be a crucial province within the
Austro-Habsburg empire, the idea of the educated civil servant as
the leading example of the citizen was a common development. In
Hungarian the term polgar is equivalent to the German notion
of burger and also combines the meaning of the French notion of
bourgeois. A citizen is an allampolgar, but a l l a m refers to the state
rather than to the city. In Hungary, as in othcj_statxdjrected
bureaucracies, the citizen can either be conceptualized as a member
oflHe~city or as a merrif5eT^"tlTe~stHe. In either case, the roncepts
of the citizen emphasize passive acceptance of social arrangements
rather thana revolutionary democratic Tradition. Duririglhe domi-
nance ofTEe Communist "Party in Hungary, the notion of the
allampolgar became the object of criticism and condemnation,
signifying conservative bourgeois and reactionary attitudes. How-
ever, for dissident movements working against the Communist
Party, the notion of the polgar began once more to assume a
positive oppositional connotation. Polgar or bourgeois values came
to be regarded as more authentic and private than the party
attitudes of the hypocritical self-serving, public servant. Against the
values of party and the state, dissident groups came to see the
personal values of the polgar (intimacy, sensitivity and cultivation)
as a positive alternative to the more harsh ascetic virtues of
proletarian communism. Therefore, bourgeois aesthetics began to
appear more frequently in public discussion amongst intellectuals
and as an attractive alternative to social realism. It was within
this private domain that there developed an alternative, dissident I
culture which gave value to humour, personal friendships, wit and'
artistic expression. These illustrations further emphasize the point
that .social citizenship is both a condition of social integrationby
providing normative institutionalized means of social membersHjpT
which are based upon legal jmd_other jorms of entitlementTan^-
citizenship is also a set of conditions that promotes social conflict
 12 BRYAN S. TURNER

and social struggle where the social entitlements are not fulfilled.
This ambiguity in the character ot ciTizensTiipis also reflectecfin its
history either as a form of social incorporation or as a seFof
conditions tor social struggle.

Citizcnsjiirj and^QciaLchaiige
As we have seen, one of the problems with the Marshall legacy is
that it provided no clear account of the mechanisms by which
citizenship is developed orjundennirieji. In this discusTioli7^Ey_
attacrilngJthe idea of citizenship to the development of universalistic
social values which challenge particularistic criteria of social
membership^! have necessarilyJuTjced^hj^xj^nsio^
ship to the process ot TnoHernization. Thus, whatever forces
pushjnodernization forward also develop and expand citizenship.
Indeed, we can regard citizenship as a set of practices as the
embodiment of a wide range of modernizing processes Jn law,
culture? society and politics. We have already seen that citizenship,
which expanded with the development of the autonomous Euro-
pean city-state, was further developed by the nation-state, and in
recent times has expanded to provide greater social enuTlements to
-

minorities, to women, children and other dependent social groups.

In short, the growth of citizenship inThe West depended upon the
legacy of the Abrahamic religions which contained values relating to
the person, universal social membership and a particular view of
history as requiring or involving social change. Within the European
autonomous cities, the development of Roman law with its notion
of social contract and universalism further enhanced the possibilities
for defining social membership in secular and general terms. These
lbng-termjconditions for modernization are well known from the
^erature~orrmo^ernizing processes and the origins of modernity (in~
the context of Weberian sociology, see Collins, 1986, Part I).
sf To these long term conditions for citizenship, we need to develop
\e specific views of the expansion of citizenship. In the twentieth
n-eentury, warfare and the consequences of interstate violence have
[ been paradoxically significant for the development of social rights.
Thus, warfare has forced the state to mobilize civil society on a
universal basis combined with the promise of some social redistri-
bution as a compensation for involvement in war. But mass warfare
has also led to the development of certain basic educational and
medical provisions which are thought to be necessary for the
maintenance of an army in a democratic system. This argument
about the relationship between warfare and citizenship was
developed by Richard Titmuss and has become a standard view of
 CONIEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN THE THEORY OF CITIZENSHIP 13

the sociology of welfare change in the modern period (Titmuss,

1958). Of course, in the political economy of welfare^lhe organiz-
ation of the working class by trade unionism and by revolutionary
parties has been regarded as the essential condition for the expan-
sion of welfare rights and social entitlements. Thus, an expansion of u_
citizenship is the consequence of revolutionary class struggle. It is
for this reason that writers on fHewelfare sTaTeliave argued that the
recent reduction in expenditure on welfare provisions in a number
gf European societies is an effect of the absolute and relative
d ^ l i n e o f t h e workinpclass (Offe. 1985). The eroslori~bT ant
organized working class partly explains the decline of electoral \
support tor socialist parties in Western Europe and the decline of
trade union membership in absolute terms, which in turn explains
fKe weakness of socialist governments in relation to the national/
demands for budgetary cuts and tight financial management. The
pacification of Europe Jthe endof organized socialism^ and the
erosion of trade union militancy are seen to be factors'ih the relative
decline of governmental commitment to high welfare expenditures,
and tKese changes, wn^n combined with the failure of social security
schemes in societies like Great Britain, partly explain thjLContJnumgJj
problem of poverty as a negation ofMarshall's vision of_citizensr
(Lister, 1990).
This pessimistic view of the possibility of expanded social welfare
can be challenged on atTSIisToTielrnportant ground. It is not clear
that working-class trade unionism is the only condition under which
welfare expenditure might increase. It may be that new iiacial
movements have been responsible for citizenship expansion in_the
postwar period. For example, in North America, the Black Move-
ment, the Women's Movement and the anti-Vietnam war move- .
ment were all influential ip expanding citizenship rights to j
minorities and in protecting individual social rights against stale .
direction. The new issuesof citizenship appearJto_^ejritre,Around J
^^enderpoliticsjand around the Green Movement. AJlhiuigh_the
' dftbateabout welTare~as a necessary condition of full citizenship
coiUinuesJo be important, more interesting and radicajjfeyjslop-
ments appear to be c e n t r e d around, for exampleTThe^trugglelor ,
homosexual rights, the social rights relating to AIDS victimsthe *
fights of childrerTagainst the state "or against their parents in child
abuse cases, and the right to abortion under conditions chosen bv
the women rattier tnan~"by the state^_These social mgyjrnerits
combined with the umbrella rnoyement towards greater ecologically
security, suggest'that the most interesting issue of citizenship in the
late twentieth century may centre on the complex relationship
between nature and society, and that new social movements may
\
Jf.J* 14 BRYAN S. TURNHR

^ contrihjit^more In the d^vejopmept of mntemporarycitizenship

rights than more traditional class alliances. All of these changes
, K appear to confirm theargument of this chapter that the expansion of
) citizenship meansthe expansion of abstract universal social rights,
devoid of particularistic or national foundafionsT

\ Conclusion: from national to global membership?

' As a conclusion to this analysis, I turn to a number of issues which
w remain largely unresolved within the legacy of the sociology of"
citizenship. First, I havejoted two institutional settings for jhe~
^_^emergenre of modern citizenship, najriely_thjiujojiomous cityjmd
-

j^Vthe nation-staIeTT5oTh~1soHir origins imply that those persons of

i J groups falling outside the framework of the city-state or the nation-
, ,-|[state are simultaneously excluded from the rights of social citizen-
^ ship. In particular, in the modern period, if citizenship has emerged
J 3 primarily within the nation-state, then citizenship simultaneously
excludes and subordinates various aboriginal groups within so-
\d white-settler societies (especially Australia, Canada, New
r^f Zealand and the United States). These aboriginal groups are faced
{ with the choice of either separate development within their
own 'state' or some form of assimilation into existing patterns
of citizenship. While the first alternative looks like a version of
apartheid, the second option involves the inevitable ^e^traclion
of aboriginal cultures. In these circumstances, citizenship begins to
look like a repressive rather than progTessive social factor, but even
in circumstances where aboriginals are claiming ngfifs and entitle-
ments, they often appear to use the language of citizenship.
Citizenship, as a model of social movements, can therefore be
embraced and developed by such movements.
In general, thgse_problems of minority groups can be seen as one
version of the problem of cultural minority status in a world-
political system which is still largely organized around states.
"Stateless peoples (such as the Kurds), aboriginals and cultural
minorities fall outside of the paradigm or institutions generated by
the state. Radical criticisms of the idea of modernization might also
be applied to the~expansion ofritizenship^Thus. radical critics of
modernization theory condemned the modernization paradigm for
its ethnocentrism, its evolutionary assumptions and its apparent
inability to deal with the continuity of traditional, or the possibility
of de-modernization. Citizenship might also be subject to a similar
critique because, under the bland moral shield of universalism,
^various types of particularity must be subordinated. There might be t

therefore, a postmodern critiquejofcitizenship as modernization..

 C O N [EMPORARY PROBLEMS IN THE THEORY OF CITIZENSHIP 15

However, itjs possible to combine the claims to^Uizenship status

with a postmodern critique^ if postmodernism can be regarded as a
form ofpluralism. That fs we must avoid the equation of citizenship
A

with sameness. In citizenship, it maybe possible to reconcile the

,/claims'for pluralism, the need for solidarity ah^~trie~1cbTuingentr

vagaries of historicaTchange. If citrzeriship can developing" context

with differences, differentiation Ifnd pluralism are tolerated, then
citizenship need not assmnTli~fepressTvle'''chafacter as* a political
instrument of the state. Thus, in a world which is increasingly more
global, citizenship will have to develop^ to embrace both the'yx-
globalization of social relations and the increasing social differen-
tiation of social sj^terns^The future of citizenship must therefore be \
extracted from its' location in the nation-state. ^
The institutions of citizenship and the welfare state were rela-
tively successful political responses to the crises of laissez-faire
capitalism and liberal democracy in the twentieth century. In
retrospect, we can see Marshall's account of citizenship as both a
description of the evolution of welfarism in the context of British
postwar resettlement and a liberal defence of a hyphenated society
which contained both the inequalities of the capitalist market and
the progressive institutional arrangements of an advanced parlia-
mentary democracy.
In^ the last twenty years, however, the welfare^state as the \
embodiment ot the underlying principles of social citizehsTiTipTias^as \
we have seen, been criticized by the Left for its failure in bringing /
about a fully egalitarian society and by the Right for undermining /
voluntarism, pluralism and self-help. There have also been major
structural changes which have undermined the validity of the
'dominant paradigm' such as the disappearance of full employment,
theflexibilizationof labour, the decline of the nuclear family as the
dominant pattern of the household, and the growth of new forms of
poverty and unemployment such as the 'feminization of poverty'
and the emergence o f an ethnic underclass (Roche. 1992). These
ideological and structural changes in the context of the welfare state
have begun to indicate the general inadequacy of conventional
modgsof thinking a h o u t s o c i a l participation, welfare and rights. As
a result, there has been a growing concern with ideas about so.ciaJ_
obiligation^nd-dulyjalhxrJha^ .
This volume attempts to address these issues by a wide-ranging
examination of the legacy of the idea of civil society, the problems
of the Marshallian legacy of social rights and the broad legacy of
post-Keynesian economic policies in a world which is subject to igo
A/gJooal processes^rnulticultural politics and economic recession.
There are two broad conclusions to these essays. The first is that,
^ ?4 16 BRYAN S. TURNER

V S r
^~*. despite the problems of citizenship, the moral requirements of JJ_
4

egalitarian participation cannot be ignored or side-stepped by

4^ monetaristic economic policies and free-market arrangements. 1 Tie
^ | market still requires some form of social solidarity to maintain
P ^ coherence, civility and order. There has to be an institutional
^ answer to the Hobbesian problem. Secondly, theJimitations oi(^
V \p in ethnically complex societies and in a global political
v ^ context indicate that a new discourseTof human rights and animal
* * rights may be required to transcend the difficulties of contemporary
^ ? nationalist politics.

?v l The question of the body in relation to the organization of modern politics was
N ^ ^ ^ ) explored in Foucault's (1979) concept of 'bio-polities'. The political imagery of
. | the body has become an important component of sociology in recent years; see
f

O ^ f P
o O'Neill (1989), Turner (1984) and Lefort (1988).
r e M m l e

5? Za Because the enjoyment of citizenship is partly determined by age and

. 2 maturation we need to examine the flow of social entitlements by reference both
J V v life-cycle and to generational cohorts. Some aspects of this argument were
t 0

"N, ^ 5 ' 6 ' l l y developed in Turner (1986).

or na

' V 3 3* The liberal programme of social reform on the basis of.bourgeois rights was
J A jl rejected by Marx on the grounds that it addressed merely the epiphenomenal
tJvg forms of social participation, but I have also suggested here that Marx's negative
!C y 0 views on political reform were bound up with his analysis of the problem of the
Jewish community in the context of the class structure of European capitalism.
Marx's views of citizenship have to be consequently analysed alongside his
understanding of nationalism. For a discussion see Shanin (1984).
In the absence of a theory of social relations per se, the analysis of civil society
functions as a sociology inside Marxism. The whole tradition of civil society as a
f, concept in Western social theory is examined in Bobbio (1989).
1

5J. Some contemporary developments in the theory of civil society are discussed in
Keane (1984, 1988).
. In the formation of Greek democracy, changes in the nature of military
S technology were important in the growth of a democratic ethnic. These changes
a have been analysed in Mann (1986). For a general discussion, see McNeill
^ (1982).
7 Durkheim's (1950) analysis of the state is an important correction to the
common assumption that Durkheim failed to develop a political sociology. For
contemporary discussions see Lacroix (1981) and Pearce (1989).
8 /Modern citizenship replaces loyalty to the family, the village or the local
/ community by social and political loyalties to the city and later to the nation-
L state. As these communal ties are transformed by associational loyalties,
) citizenship becomes more abstract and universal. For a discussion of Toennies,
I see Mitzman (1971).
9 ^The argument that Parsons has to be seen primarily as a theorist of modernity,
of which citizenship is a principal component, is developed in Holton and Turner
 C O N TEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN THE THEORY OF CITIZENSHIP 17

10 American sociologists adopted Marshall to describe the problems of ethnicity,

democracy and nation building; see for example Parsons and Clark (1984).
11 Of course, the idea that the university system is an important institution in the
cultural support of a democracy can be traced back to Alexis de Tocqueville's
D e m o c r a c y i n A m e r i c a (see Smith, 1990).
12 Some aspect of this argument were developed in relation to a study of social
status in Turner (1988).

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