Origins
Citizenship as formal status emerged in the Greek polis, distinguishing those with political rights from residents without them. Athenian citizenship under Cleisthenes (508 BCE) defined who could participate in the democracy—voting, holding office, serving on juries, speaking in assembly. This was not universal: women, slaves, and resident foreigners (metics) were excluded. But for qualifying adult males, citizenship created equal political standing regardless of wealth or birth. The citizen (polites) occupied a defined position in the political community with specified rights and obligations.
Roman citizenship developed different characteristics. Unlike the small-scale Greek polis, Rome extended citizenship across vast territories. Roman citizenship conferred legal rights (legal protection, trial rights, contract enforcement) distinct from political participation, which remained concentrated in Rome itself. The gradual extension of citizenship—to Latin allies, Italian communities, and eventually (Caracalla’s edict, 212 CE) virtually all free inhabitants of the empire—made citizenship a status encompassing millions. Roman citizenship thus became precedent for large-scale political membership detached from ethnic community.
Modern citizenship emerged with the nation-state and democratic revolutions. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789) made citizenship central to post-revolutionary order: political community of equal citizens replacing subjects of a king. National citizenship connected political status to bounded territorial communities, typically based on birth (jus soli—birthplace) or descent (jus sanguinis—parentage). Immigration and naturalization created pathways for acquiring citizenship beyond birth. Contemporary citizenship remains the primary framework for political membership, determining who belongs to which political communities and what that belonging entails.
Structure & Function
Citizenship creates a legal relationship between individual and state, conferring membership in political community. This membership typically includes rights (vote, hold office, receive state protection, enter and remain in territory) and obligations (obey laws, pay taxes, perform service including military). The specific content varies across systems, but the framework of reciprocal rights and duties between citizen and state remains constant.
Citizenship acquisition occurs through birth (automatically, based on parentage or birthplace) or naturalization (voluntary acquisition through application, residence, and fulfillment of requirements). Acquisition rules vary: some countries emphasize birthplace (most of the Americas), others emphasize descent (much of Europe and Asia). Naturalization typically requires residence, language competence, and sometimes tests of knowledge and loyalty. Dual citizenship—holding citizenship in multiple countries—has become increasingly common, though some countries prohibit it.
Citizenship’s meaning depends on what rights it actually confers. In democracies, citizenship includes political participation rights that make citizens the ultimate source of governmental authority. In authoritarian systems, citizenship may confer fewer rights against the state. Citizenship also has social dimensions: belonging, identity, access to welfare benefits, and status in relation to non-citizens. The gap between formal citizenship and substantive enjoyment of citizenship rights—across lines of race, class, gender—makes citizenship’s promise of equality perpetually contested.
Historical Significance
Citizenship institutionalized the revolutionary idea that political communities consist of equal members rather than hierarchically ordered subjects. This transformation—from subject to citizen—reshaped political legitimacy, basing government on consent of the governed rather than divine right or inherited rule. The citizen became the basic unit of modern politics, the one whose interests government was meant to serve and whose participation legitimated political authority.
Struggles over citizenship have driven political history. Who counts as a citizen—expansions and contractions of the category—mark major political transformations. Extension of citizenship to non-property owners, women, and previously excluded racial groups represented hard-won expansions of political community. Restrictions of citizenship—racial exclusions, denaturalization, statelessness—have accompanied political repression and genocide. The Nazi regime stripped Jews of citizenship before mass murder; stateless populations remain vulnerable to persecution. Citizenship status matters for life and death.
Contemporary citizenship faces challenges from globalization, migration, and human rights. Millions of migrants seek citizenship in countries other than their birth; refugee populations lack effective citizenship; irregular migrants occupy territories without belonging. Human rights frameworks promise universal protections regardless of citizenship, potentially making citizenship less consequential. Yet citizenship remains the primary mechanism for belonging to political communities and accessing the protections and benefits states provide. The form persists even as its meaning evolves with changing patterns of mobility and governance.
Key Developments
- 508 BCE: Cleisthenes’ reforms establish Athenian democratic citizenship
- 212 CE: Caracalla extends Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants
- 1789: French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
- 1865: US Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery; citizenship implications
- 1868: Fourteenth Amendment; birthright citizenship in US
- 1870: Fifteenth Amendment; citizenship cannot be denied by race
- 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act; racial restrictions on US citizenship
- 1920: Nineteenth Amendment; women’s citizenship rights
- 1924: Indian Citizenship Act; Native Americans granted citizenship
- 1933-1945: Nazi Germany strips citizenship from Jews
- 1948: Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes nationality rights
- 1954: Brown v. Board; substantive citizenship equality
- 1961: UN Convention on Reduction of Statelessness
- 1992: Maastricht Treaty creates EU citizenship
- 2000: UN Millennium Declaration addresses citizenship gaps
- 2015: European migration crisis; citizenship debates intensify