Citizenship: Inclusion and exclusion

Abstract

This chapter will look at what has been meant by citizenship and analyze debates about citizenship and the criteria used for inclusion in or exclusion from the category of citizen. Place of residence may seem a clear criterion for inclusion. But there were differences between states on this issue even in ancient times with different policies in Athens from those in Rome. Rome made residents of their captured lands “cives sine suffragio,” possibly a doubtful benefit since while these citizens were liable for military service, they could not vote or hold office in Rome. Clearly however being a citizen was generally desirable and was connected with the ability of individuals to have an influence on the kind of community in which they wanted to live and with being able to claim the rights which go along with citizenship status. In spite of the fact that philosophers from Aristotle through Augustine, Marsilius, Hobbes, Locke, and Kant gave close analysis to the idea of citizenship, in practice the two most important criteria for citizenship in the modern state were being male and being adult. Being white and owning property could be added as two other criteria for citizenship in many states. These exclusionary criteria have been challenged over the last 200 years. Slaves, indigenous groups, women, and refugees are some of the excluded groups who have challenged their exclusion from citizenship. It is interesting to note that though at the same time women and slaves were gaining recognition as citizens, children were, according to some writers (Schmidt 2003, p. 175), being more excluded from participation in the daily life of the community. However children were not being entirely ignored. A selection of them, again selected using the criteria of gender, class, and color, were being prepared to be citizens. But they were citizens of the future, not of the present. This chapter goes on to trace the development of children’s rights over the course of the twentieth century, demonstrating the move from seeing the child as passive to seeing the child as a participating citizen. Concepts of rights are closely connected to concepts of citizenship, and disagreements about the nature of rights led to disagreements about the kind of citizenship appropriate for children. The chapter analyzes and critiques some of the rationales given for exclusion of children from citizenship, such as the rationale based on competency and that based on the need for protection. However this writer points out that the arguments of some writers in favor of greater recognition of children’s rights are in danger of showing children once again as being objects of the state.