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CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN
THE THEORY OF CITIZENSHIP
Bryan S. Turner
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
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
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
-
V S r
^~*. despite the problems of citizenship, the moral requirements of JJ_
4
?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
' 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
References