State And Citizenship

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Introduction The discussion about the idea of state and citizenship is thousands of year old and even today there is no absolute agreement on exactly what it means. However, the concept of state and citizenship has suddenly emerged as a central theme in social science literature both as a normative concept and a social phenomenon. The idea of the state and citizenship has undergone numerous changes, some positive and some negative also, since its conception. The concept of state and citizenship has emerged in the 7th and 8th century B.C. and then the idea of nation state came into existence in the 19th and 20th century. The state and the citizenship is a social human need and are as old as the settled community of human beings. Since, the…show more content…
Traditionally, citizenship comprises of full membership of the polity that is the nation-state. It is integrally linked to a territorial state and to the people who belong to the state. The analytical and historical differences between the nationality and citizenship arise in the modern overlay of the membership in the nation (nationality) and the active membership in the political state (citizenship). The word nation no longer denotes the sovereign people but the collection of people recognizing the authority of the same state. It is the political structure created by the state and the country under its control. When a person talks about the national sovereignty, it means the sovereignty of the whole state. The membership of the state is necessary for the person to enjoy the distribution of rights such as welfare and the…show more content…
It means the legalization of rights, benefits and obligations of the citizens in a constitution. The institutionalization of citizenship makes the difference between the nationals and the non-nationals. It also underscores distinction between effective, full citizens and those without full memberships. Marshall’s notion of citizenship as a status denoting full membership in a community and to which are attached rights and duties outlines three distinct elements of citizenship: Civil, Political and Social. Recently, some citizens have also included cultural rights as the elements to the citizenship. These developments were driven by the state, the ruling economic and the political class and other socio-economic classes. They were a function of national conflict and were reflected in the state-citizenship nexus. They feature the deployment of nation-state, shared nationhood and bounded

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