Introduction

Citizenship means being a full and equal member of a political community. This chapter looks at what that really means in practice today. Sections 6.2 and 6.3 open up two live debates hidden inside the phrase 'full and equal membership' — first, who genuinely counts as an equal insider when jobs, land, or resources are scarce, and second, whether formally equal rights are enough when citizens' real circumstances (rich or poor, urban or tribal) are so different. Section 6.4 turns to how citizenship connects to the idea of the nation, and to the different ways countries decide who qualifies to become a citizen. Section 6.5 asks a harder question: if citizenship is meant to be available to everyone, why do so many stateless people still exist, belonging to no state at all? Section 6.6 closes by asking whether a sense of 'global citizenship' could supplement, or even replace, national citizenship in an interconnected world.

By the end of this chapter you should be able to:

• explain the meaning of citizenship, and
• discuss some of the areas in which that meaning is being expanded or challenged today.