This course assesses the concept of citizenship from four perspectives: (i) as a status of equal membership in a self-governing polity; (ii) as a bundle of rights and obligations attached to this status; (iii) as a shared identity in diverse societies; and (iv) as a set of civic virtues and practices that sustain political freedom and self-government. It locates the concept of citizenship in related concepts such as: ‘individual’, ‘private’, ‘public’, ‘the state’ and ‘politics’, in order to better understand its attributes. It assesses the concept of citizenship at three levels: (i) as a theoretical constituted object of political thought; (ii) at the level of institution; and (iii) at the level of its practical realization.

Class discussions will pay greater attention on tracing historical lineages of ideas about citizenship, without losing sight of the main theme of the course i.e. assessment of contemporary problems of differentiated, overlapping and nested memberships in internally diverse and externally interdependent democracies.

Lecturer:  Professor Alexius Amtaika

Period: Term 3

Last Modified: Sat, 17 Feb 2018 15:58:41 SAST