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What do you understand by the idea of “citizenship” in modern UK society. Are we all equal citizens?
11 Oct 11, 2008 - 5:51:48 PM
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Introduction
In this essay I will examine the different ways in which one might operate with in defining citizenship, since there are different approaches. Secondly I will explore how citizenship is used as a tool of inclusion and exclusion, assimilation, and pluralism. Finally I will conclude my essay with how an ideal citizenship should be.
Defining the concept of citizenship is not an easy task. Different fields for example, political, legal, philosophical, and academic define it differently; see Peter Dwyer (2004:3).When this happens its impossible to get a universally accepted definition.
Historically speaking to the Greeks and Romans citizenship was both legal and social status. Citizens were those who had a legal right to have a say in the affairs of the city or the state by either speaking in public or by voting, usually both. Active citizenship was believed to be a prime moral virtue: no human being could be themselves at their best without participating in public life. Aristotle remarked that by saying: no human being could be themselves at their best without participating in public life. Aristotle remarked whoever could live outside the polis – the city, or the civic relationship or the community of citizens was either a beast or god; see Bernard Crick (2000: 4)
According to T.H Marshal the idea of citizenship entails three important aspects such us, civil rights, this means for example freedom of speech, thought, faith, the right to own property and to conclude valid contracts and the right to justice. The second aspect is political right, which means the right to vote or the right of getting elected. The last aspect and which I think is the most important is social right, which entails the rights to basic welfare and full participation in society. According to Marshal every citizen, irrespective of their class position, shared a common ‘equality of status’ with others who are also members of shared (national community). He goes further by mentioning that citizenship in not only based on rights but responsibilities follow it too. The above mentioned definition contains the word “national” which in other wards narrows down -
the above mentioned rights to territory or geography. But this doesn’t mean all citizens in a certain country have the same rights. For T.H. Marshal, social citizenship completed citizenship because it had class- abating effects. It could introduce equality of both opportunity and condition into class- structured society. There are also critics of T.H. Marshal’s social rights, but I will not look into them in this essay.
Citizenship
is a status bestowed upon those who are full members of a community.
All those who possess the status are equal with respect to the rights
and duties with which that status is endowed. There is no universal
principle hat determines what those rights and duties shall be, but
societies in which citizenship is developing institutions create an
image of an ideal of citizenship against which achievement can be
measured and towards which aspiration can be directed. The urge forward
along the path thus plotted is an urge towards a fuller measure of
equality, an enrichment of the stuff of which the status is made and
increase in the number of those on whom the status is bestowed.
(Marshall, 1949/92, p 18)
The modern inequality has many faces. However, the class- based inequality approach proves the inequality that has existed and still exists between citizens since the days of the slave and the master, the feudal and the peasants, the factory owner and the factory workers. One might argue that class can be used as a mechanism of both exclusion and inclusion. The notion of citizenship can be also used to assimilate like it’s the case in France. In Germany citizenship is linked to ancestry or blood, whereas in Holland pluralism is being practised; see Bryant, C.G.A (1997).
According to Marxism the idea of citizenship is fatally flawed because it assumes some shared set of common values, some conception of a common good in which the rights and duties of citizenship can be articulated. For Marxists, there cannot ultimately be shared political and social values in a society divided on class lines which follow, in the final analysis, the contours of private ownership. There is a clash of interests between those who do not have property rights in the means of production and those who own capital and those who do not; see Raymond Plant, cited on Lawrence and Wishart: (1991: 51)
When we are talking about citizenship it’s very difficult to draw a clear line between citizenship and nationality. It’s therefore very important that we separate citizenship and nationality. Each of these terms presents a difficulty of one sort or another. There are many examples or areas that indicate that there is inequality that exists between the citizens in the modern UK. Examples of these inequalities can be found on, class, poverty, gender, disability, and age. John Westergaard cited on, Abercrombie and Alan Warde (2001: 68) argues that other types of divisions – age, household type, and gender or consumption pattern have replaced class divisions as principal axis of material inequality. Westergaard illustrates inequality in a variety of examples. Westergaard uses an example about the distribution of real incomes. From 1980-1990, the earnings among top-tenth of white collar employees rose in real terms by about 40% whereas the manual workers as well as non-manual employees, for women as well as men was smaller. Even the best paid blue-collar workers saw their real wages rise at only about half the top white-collar rate. The poorest-paid tenth among the blue-collar men gained hardly anything in real terms. These trends are still the same today; see National Statistics Online income inequality.
Westergaard made another interesting argument about the distribution of gains and losses from changes in taxation together with changes in public welfare benefits. A comprehensive estimate from 1979-1989, shows some net gains for most households, but it shows no gains for many of those households with only basic state pensions or unemployment benefits to live on; and these, of course, are people who were generally, at low levels of the labour market when, earlier, they did have work.
Another group that does not enjoy equality in the name of citizenship is minors or children. They do not have all the rights and responsibilities of the citizens but they are nationals; see C.G.A. Bryant. One can also be a citizen of territorial and legal entities other than the state for example the European Union, to which rights and responsibilities attach.
The strong interplay between race, class, and gender needs also to be explored through for example the use of the term feminism. Feminism itself is so diverse since it may embrace different professions and colours. In the field of welfare for example some Scandinavian feminists stressed the way in which women had become the employees of the state on a huge scale, but found themselves for the most part doing the same kind of jobs that they had traditionally done at home; for example childcare, see Pete Alcock & Angus Erskine ((2003:105). Feminism is littered with many examples, and one might wonder if being a citizen gives one all the citizenship rights one needs- as for instance social liberal assume- why should women need women’s rights? Does this mean that women do not posses all the citizenship rights or do women for some reasons need extra, collective rights; see Rian Voet ( 1998:60). We still live in a world whereby our gender roles still dominate how different professions are being organised.
The central theme in many discussions of equality is that all citizens should enjoy broadly similar life chances (B.Turner 1986, and see Giddens’s idea of the ‘Third way’ cited on Scott and Fulcher (2003:642). Equality is viewed differently as to how similar and what respects are life chances should be equalized. There are three conceptions of equality, and due to time and space I will not be able to explain them into details. Equality of opportunity refers to access to all social positions that should be governed by universalistic criteria as opposed to particularistic one. It should be also earned by merit instead of inheritance via social background. It shouldn’t come from ascription but it should be based on achievement for example education. Equality of outset means that, people should start out from similar positions. Finally equality of outcome means that all should enjoy the same standard of living and life chances. Women and members of ethnic minorities have often been excluded or disadvantaged on grounds that have nothing to do with their abilities or needs; see Scott and Fulcher (2003: 645)
Life expectancy can show or indicate the inequality that exists between the citizens of UK. Furthermore it shows the magnitude of the inequality in our society. According to National Statistics Online life expectancy is not only gender based but it varies by country. Men aged 65 could expect to live further 16.6 whereas for women its 19.4. The highest life expectancy occurred in England when compared with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It’s at 16.8 for men and 19.6 years for women and lowest for Scotland at 15.5 and 18.4 respectively. Both Wales and Northern Ireland are a little lower than those for England.
Ethnic division-division by skin colour can be also used to prove inequality. People of black skin are distinctly handicapped in Britain. Black skinned people of Caribbean origin are more concentrated in lower grade jobs than brown-skinned people South Asian and East African origin; see Abercrombie and Alan Warde (2001: 77)
Educational inequality is also another way of showing the difference of educational achievements and under- achievements. There is difference between different groups, such as the middle-class, the working class, and the elite. Computers in education can for example deepen the divide between rich and poor. The use of technologies in schools and collages has expanded. According to a research paper written by Lawrence Gladieux and Watson Scott Swail (1999), concludes that new technology can create “digital divide” between “white and minorities the wealthy and less advantaged”. This research argues that pupils from less wealthy backgrounds have disadvantages both at home and in school by an overemphasis on using technologies such as the Internet. Poorer children are less likely to have access to computers at home and when offered the chance to use online resources at school are less able to make use of them than pupils who have the experience of using the Internet at home.
In concluding history has proved that we have never been equal no matter what. As long as we don’t have a system that can and will replace capitalism we shall never be equal. But to a certain degree the inequality that exists between different groups in our society can be drastically reduced as it s the case in Scandinavia. Social justice or shall I call it social rights works much better in Sweden and Denmark with strong economies and free markets which protects the common man and the environment. But this doesn’t mean that there is no exploitation in Northern Europe, but the policies of many social democrats in Scandinavia have lived to the very idea of T.H. Marshall social rights. What we need is good social rights and good citizens. You cannot expect to have good citizens without social justice, and social justice cannot be created without good citizens. These two elements interrelate.
The nature of good citizenship and its principals are not innate. They have to be learnt, preferably when young; see David Alton (2001). The ideal citizenship should be what McIntyre (1967) calls secondary values- pragmatism, accommodation, tolerance, live-and -let live, compromise without loss of honour, fair play and due process- which afford mediation between subscribers to different primary values who share the same space.
Bibliography
Alton
, David (2001) Citizen, HarperCollinsPublishers.
Alcock, Pete.
Erskine, Angus. & May, Margaret. (2003) Students companion to social policy, Blackwell Publishers.
Abercrombie, N. & Warde, A. (2000) Contemporary British Society, London Polity Press.
C.G.A,
Bryant, (April 1997) Citizenship, national identity and accommodation
of difference: reflections on German , French, Dutch and British cases,
.
New
Community, 23(2): 157-172 Journal of the European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations.
Crick, Bernard (2000) Essays on citizenship, Continium London and
New York
.
Dweyer, Peter.(2004), Understanding social citizenship, The policy press.
Scott, J. & Fulcher,J. ( 2003)
Sociology 2nd ed. Oxford University Press .
Yasincade@hotmail.com
Community Sector Management student at London Metropolitan University London
UK
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