Demands of Citizenship

Since the seventeenth century liberal thinkers have been interested in the rights of individuals and their capacities to engage as free equals in the political activity of their community. However, as many in the republican tradition have noted, the maintenance of certain types of communities - predicated on broadly shared ethical expectations, modes of communication and patterns of activity - is a precondition of the meaningful exercise of citizenship rights. This volume presents essays from many of the major names in the field, exploring citizenship from a fresh perspective. After two decades of strident individualism, in the light of claims that the liberal democratic state is under threat of collapse from the forces of globalization, and in the midst of a theoretical debate about the possible and desirable limits of individual autonomy, they argue that it is high time to go beyond the standard concern of what can be ascribed to citizens. We must ask what should be demanded of them, in the name of the protection of liberty, equality and stability.