1 - Three Models of Citizenship

Summary

Chapter 1 explains how the modern state simultaneously maintains commitments to three different conceptions of citizenship that are all in some tension with each other: the republican, liberal, and ethno-nationalist models of citizenship. Liberalism stresses individual market freedom and natural rights; republicanism emphasizes collective civic activity; ethno-nationalism is based on solidarity and identity. We have managed to mute the inherent conflicts among these conceptions through the distinction, long central to the idea of citizenship, between the “public” and “private” spheres. Citizens live primarily private lives, where they are ruled by the marketplace and individual desires, but occasionally enter the public sphere to engage in politics, where they become part of an organic polity unified by a common sense of purpose and shared civic identity.