Citizenship Political Theory UGC NET

The concept of citizenship consists of three main elements or dimensions (Cohen 1999; Kymlicka and Norman 2000; Carens 2000). the primary is citizenship as status , defined by civil, political and social rights. Here, the citizen is that the legal person liberal to act consistent with the law and having the proper to say the law’s protection. It needn't mean that the citizen takes part within the law’s formulation, nor does it require that rights be uniform between citizens. The second considers citizens specifically as political agents, actively participating during a society’s political institutions. The third refers to citizenship as membership during a political community that furnishes a definite source of identity.

“By definition,” Maurice Cranston says, “a liberal may be a man who believes in liberty” (1967: 459). In two ways, liberals accord liberty primacy as a political value. Liberals have typically maintained that humans are naturally in “a State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions…as they think fit…without asking leave, or counting on the desire of the other Man”