Article Analysis

Article Analysis

Part 1

Article 1

Inclusive Citizenship seeks to go beyond the intellectual debates of recent years on democratization and participation to explore a related set of issues around changing conceptions of citizenship. People's understandings of what it means to be a citizen go to the heart of the various meanings of identity, including national identity; political and electoral participation; and rights. The researchers in this volume come from a wide variety of societies, including the industrial countries in the North, and they seek to explore these difficult questions from various angles. Themes include: i. Citizenship and rights. ii. Citizenship and identity. iii. Citizenship and political struggle. iv. The policy implications of substantive notions of citizenship.

Naila Kabeer has contributed to Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions as an author. Naila Kabeer, a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, is a well-respected academic working in the fields of poverty, economics, gender, and social capital.

Naila Kabeer has contributed to Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions as an editor. Naila Kabeer, a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, is a well-respected academic working in the fields of poverty, economics, gender, and social capital.

Article 2

Some liberals worry that granting concessions to national or ethnic groups hurts democracy: democracy, for them, requires a common citizenship based on treating people identically as individuals. When a particular group seeks some accommodation, this requires us to treat people differently based on their group affiliation, which strikes many as illiberal. Kymlicka turns this on its head. He argues that request for accommodation actually reflects minorities' desires to integrate. For example, Orthodox Jews in the US seek an exemption from military dress codes so they can wear their yarmulkas. They want the exemption not so they can be different, but so they can join the army and be like everybody else.

However, when groups [usually national minorities] want self-rule or autonomy, the situation is more complicated. On the one hand, this does prevent the formation of a common citizenship and patriotism, which, Kymlicka argues, are important for liberal democracy. On the other hand, forcing national minorities to assimilate will be problematic (as far as liberal theory goes) and can easily lead to violence. Sometimes, secession/partition is a good solution. But what we really need is a theory that explains the conditions under which multiple national groups can coexist peacefully within a single political unit.

Kymlicka reviews what has been done here, but inexplicably never mentions Lijphart's work (all of which aims to address exactly that question). He first refutes the idea that shared values won't form the basis for a happy union, only a shared identity. He wants somebody to develop further ideas, though: "A fundamental challenge facing liberal theorists, therefore, is to identify the sources of unity in a democratic multination state" (192). He ought to go read Lijphart for a useful starting point.

Article 3

Capitalism and Citizenship are without doubt an incompatible. Citizenship endeavors to establish equalities within our society but in contrast capitalism does ...