Shaping Citizenship

Citizenship is a core concept for the social sciences, and citizenship is also frequently interpreted, challenged and contested in different political arenas. Shaping Citizenship explores how the concept is debated and contested, defined and redefined, used and constructed by different agents, at different times, and with regard to both theory and practice. The book uses a reflexive and constructivist perspective on the concept of citizenship that draws on the theory and methodology of conceptual history. This approach enables a panorama of politically important readings on citizenship that provide an interdisciplinary perspective and help to transcend narrow and simplified views on citizenship. The three parts of the book focus respectively on theories, debates and practices of citizenship. In the chapters, constructions and struggles related to citizenship are approached by experts from different fields. Thematically the chapters focus on political representation, migration, internationalization, sub-and transnationalization as well as the Europeanisation of citizenship. An indispensable read to scholars and students, Shaping Citizenship presents new ways to study the conceptual changes, struggles and debates related to core dimensions of this ever-evolving concept.

At the time, Canadian policies regarding ethnic communities were preoccupied with the involvement and loyalty these communities had with their homeland's politics and the fear of infiltration from either the left or right of the political spectrum. Focusing on the creation and operation of under-examined government institutions and committees devised to exercise subtle control of minority groups, Ivana Caccia explores the shaping of Canadian identity, the introduction of government-inspired citizenship education, and the management of ethnic relations. An engaging work that offers an important account of nation building in Canada and the treatment of ethnic minorities in times of heightened international tensions, Managing the Canadian Mosaic in Wartime provides crucial insights into multicultural policy and the possibility of parallels with the preoccupations with security and surveillance in the aftermath of 9/11.

In fledgling democracies marked by patronage, ethnic politics, and elite capture, what motivates citizens to participate in politics?

Despite or perhaps because of globalisation and internationalisation in the contemporary world, the role of education has become more significant in nation formation. However, whereas in the past its function was to create homogeneity and assimilation, today it must deal with diversity and plurality. The modernist premise of “one nation one state” is being questioned and re-constituted with the notion of the plural national-state. This book explores school processes in Hong Kong under these new conditions. The focus is on investigating how the concept of a national identity of the “one country two systems” policy is developing, and is thus a study of that diversity which all education systems now have to address. The policy aims at facilitating national re-integration and consolidation in the face of an insistence on local citizens’ universal civic rights and the values of liberty, equality, democracy and autonomy. The analysis shows citizenship education in the Hong Kong school system is more a locally-oriented cultural and political process than a transmission of a national ideology. Students learn their values, attitudes and perspectives by engaging and interacting with people within and beyond the school community. They acquire a liberal and democratic national identity which is distinct from that of pan-Chinese state-nationalism in mainland China. The book is thus both a case study of Hong Kong and an analysis of change in the relationship of education, citizenship and national identity in the contemporary world.

A significant addition to the growing body of literature on citizenship, this wide-ranging overview focuses on the importance, and changing nature, of citizenship. It introduces the varied discourses and theories that have arisen in recent years, and looks toward future scholarship in the field. Offers an analytical assessment of the various thematic discourses and provides guidance in pulling together those discrete themes into a larger, more comprehensive framework Identifies the four broadly conceived themes that shape the many discourses on contemporary citizenship – inclusion, erosion, withdrawal, and expansion Includes a thorough introduction to the subject

Interest in citizenship has never been higher. But what does it mean to be a citizen in a modern, complex community? Richard Bellamy approaches the subject of citizenship from a political perspective and, in clear and accessible language, addresses the complexities behind this highly topical issue.

Contestations of Citizenship, Education, and Democracy in an Era of Global Change: Children and Youth in Diverse International Contexts considers the shifting social, political, economic, and educational structures shaping contemporary experiences, understandings, and practices of citizenship among children and youth in diverse international contexts. As such, this edited book examines the meaning of citizenship in an era defined by monumental global change. Chapters from across both the Global South and North consider emerging formations of citizenship and citizen identities among children and youth in formal and non-formal education contexts, as well as the social and civic imaginaries and practices to which children and youth engage, both in and outside of schools. Rich empirical contributions from an international team of contributors call attention to the social, political, economic, and educational structures shaping the ways young people view citizenship and highlight the social and political agency of children and youth amid increasing issues of polarization, climate change, conflict, migration, extremism, and authoritarianism. The book ultimately identifies emergent forms of citizenship developing in formal and non-formal educational contexts, including those that unsettle the nation-state and democracy. Edited by a team of academics with backgrounds in education, citizenship, and youth studies, this book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and faculty who work across the broader field of youth civic engagement and democracy, as well as international and comparative education and citizenship. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Why do people turn to personal connections to get things done? Exploring the role of favors in social welfare systems in postwar, postsocialist Bosnia and Herzegovina, this volume provides a new theoretical angle on links between ambiguity and power. It demonstrates that favors were not an instrumental tactic of survival, nor a way to reproduce oneself as a moral person. Instead, favors enabled the insertion of personal compassion into the heart of the organization of welfare. Managing Ambiguity follows how neoliberal insistence on local community, flexibility, and self-responsibility was translated into clientelist modes of relating and back, and how this fostered a specific mode of power.