Heater, Derek. "Who are Citizens?". In What Is Citizenship?, by Derek Heater, 80-114. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999.

Heater, Derek. "Who are Citizens?". In What Is Citizenship?, by Derek Heater, 80-114. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999.

• International law provides for the fact that all states must provide for having citizens, a category they are allowed to define. The two general methods are jus sanguinis, where citizenship is acquired through birth or inheritance, and jus soli, where citizenship is acquired by place of birth (80).
• These two methods require greater specificity which varies between countries to account for specific circumstances like birth in international waters or children from unions between citizens and non-citizens (80).
• The actual civic rights which come from possession of legal citizenship also vary, as different categories of citizenship can exist. In an extreme case, the UK maintains five different categories of citizenship of which only one confers full civil and political rights (81).
• Since at least the late 18th-Century in the Altantic World, there have been conceptions of citizenship in terms of equality and common ownership of the state. The necessity of equality between citizens is a fundamental notion in current international law, and there are often demands for 'full citizenship' to include not just legal equality, but also equal representation in social, political, and economic structures (84).
• Three theories of a general historical reluctance to adopt full equality between citizens have been suggested. Karl Marx suggested that capitalism renders citizens greatly unequal due to economic conditions, thus negating all formal equality. In some cases, citizenship constitutes a group identity which current members have been unwilling to expand the benefits and prestige of to others, often a sentiment expressed through the creation of second-class citizenship for different groups (84-86).
• Generally in the contemporary world there remain different 'levels' of citizenship resisting actual equality. There are usually full and active citizens, apathetic and inactive citizens, second-class citizens denied full inclusion due to discrimination, an 'underclass' so impoverished or marginalized that participation in general society is practically impossible, and those with 'residency' status but not citizenship (87).
• Although women have successfully wielded political power in virtually every society in every timeperiod in some capacity, the general population of women could not enjoy citizenship until the 20th Century. Either explicitly sexist believes about the inferior intellectual abilities of women barred them from full inclusion in politics, or requirements for property ownership created de facto barriers to citizenship for most women (88-89).
• Since the late 19th Century, women have steadily gained full access to political and civil rights. This has led to a shift in feminist thought during the 1960s in Western countries towards a position of 'second-class citizenship' characterized by persistent economic and social exclusion (91).
• This second-wave of feminism beginning in the 1960s developed into three distinct intellectual trends: liberal feminism, based on securing individual rights for women; socialist feminism, based around reforming discriminatory institutions in contemporary economic structures; and radical feminism, which declared all elements of society to be dominated by patriarchy (91).
• Feminist perspective raise unique questions about the meaning of citizenship. Some feminists, like Iris Young, have suggested that the characteristics of citizenship -- military sacrifice, comradery, competition, dispassionate reason -- have been informed by male experiences, and that continued emphasis on these aspects -- which Ms. Young contends women cannot experience -- excludes women from full enjoyment of citizenship (92).
• One reaction to this view is that it is biologically incorrect, and that the traits associated with feminity are a result of societal and cultural conditioning. There is nothing in nature which makes women unable to develop the attributes of citizenship, so a new definition is not needed (93).
• This view is supported by the author, and provides a simplier solution to generally low rates of female participation in politics by suggesting that diminish the unfair domestic work of women through more social welfare would result in more women having the available to engage in politics (94).
• Those argeeing with Ms. Young's views either argue that biological differences require an adaptation of the concept of citizenship to stress involvement in local community groups, and other traditionally female activities, as defining hallmarks of citizens, or argue that women cannot fulfill male demands of citizenship and should be excluded (93).
• Since the beginning of the 19th Century, nationality and citizenship have been identical concepts -- what about the Nazis, though? -- when modern nation-states began actively constructing national identity based on legal regimes of citizenship. In the French Revolution, these ideas were also blended with cosmopolitan humanism, but this idea was not generally copied by other states (95-97).
• The conflation of citizenship and nationality occured in the context of revolutionary activity in the Atlantic world. Under the circumstances of rebellions against aristocratic privilege, linking ideas of patriotism and nationhood with those of fundamental equality of citizens under the law allowed revolutionaries to harness nationalist sentiment for support of egalitarian movement (100-101).
• The concepts of nationality and citizenship are so closely linked that many questions are raised about the ability of someone to truly function as a citizen without national spirit and patriotism. Exercise of legal citizenship without these qualities 'feels' like a diminished version of citizenship (103, 105).
• Historically, nationalism emerge either as a political phenomenon or a ethnically-based phenomenon. Conceptions of early nationalism along these lines, such as French political nationalism and German ethnic nationalism in the 19th Century, have consequences for contemporary citizenship policies, profoundly affect how states define citizenship (106).
• Historic types of nationalism do not, however, created set or permanent paths for conceptions of citizenship or policies pursued, and many countries experience a combination of these two varieties of citizenship. For example, after centuries of definining citizenship on jus sanguinis terms, German adopted a more civil citizenship policy in the 1990s. Civic nationalist states like the US have also often flirted with ethnic nationalism (107-108).
• Governments tend to adopt different strategies with different rationales to ethnic and linguistic minority groups. Indigenous peoples, for example, are usually disempowered despite persuasive moral arguments to protect their rights. The same is sometimes true of ethnic minorities, although many states respect these more carefully. The moral arguments for accomodating immigrants are more fraught, as one can reasonably claim that they made a choice to come to a country and should change their behaviors to match the host country rather than expect it to accomodate them (112).
• States often struggle to balance between the rights of those minority citizens who differ from the accepted norm, and the general state impulse to centralize and make subjects uniform. Failures to do this, as in Yugoslavia, can result in the disintegration of states (113).