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The Discourse of Citizenship in Modern Europe: An Elementary Map
P. Costa
My task, if I have not misunderstood it, is to present a kind of reasoned catalo
some images of modern and contemporary citizenship. I must therefore point o
sense and limits of my intervention.What citizenship means could be take
granted in our workshop; nevertheless, it is a matter of fact that the
ëcitizenshipí takes different meanings in different kinds of inquiries. In my ca
term ëcitizenshipí is conventionally redefined in order to have what I call a road
our disposal: a concise expression we can use to draw attention to the c
attitude taken by European societies towards the individual and his relationship
the political community. The specific message which citizenship as a ëroad
communicates is a methodological warning: that individual is the focus an
starting-point of the inquiry and the point is to understand how this or that p
culture represents him and responds to the main questions regarding him.
Every society draws up a tale or several tales about citizenship: I mean that
society talks about itself, looks at itself in the mirror of citizenship asking ab
political identity of the individual, elaborating different images of him, attr
rights and duties, legitimizing or discouraging his expectations; every society
up an explanation of its patterns of life and a catalogue of its hopes and fears
the ëdiscourse of citizenshipí the endless tale every society tells to itself des
the individual, prescribing what he must or must not do, so that everything w
the best of the possible worlds.
This is the tale I am going to deal with: the tale is a political and legal discours
has gone on ceaselessly in European countries from the ancient world till our da
I would not dream of presenting a bold synthesis of it in the forty five minutes
disposal. Iíll only try to present a catalogue or table of contents and suggest
relationships among them, something like a large-scale map. I am aware that
going to entertain you with well-known subjects and considerations but I hop
they may be, even if not at all original, at least of some use as a sum
introduction to our debate.
I don't believe in the existence of `constant factors' in the long path of citiz
Some general questions do, however, arise again and again, though the solutio
forth differ considerably with time. First of all, there is a recurring tendency,
the whole development of European political culture, to ascribe a protected a
the individual, to ensure him against the intrusions of others and agains
overwhelming pressure of power. At the same time ñ and this is the second p
there is an equally strong inclination to stress the involvement expected o
individual within the community, his obligatory engagement for the common
Thirdly, there is a strong tendency to make the individual's rights compatible w
maintenance of order. Fourthly, the individual is usually perceived as part of a
group that includes, protects, disciplines and helps him.
The individuals as a free, participatory, obedient, included subject: these are p
constant, but formal features of the individual, while the substantive represe
of him dramatically changes.
Medieval political culture exhibits something like an original core of we
citizenship, a concentrated and unitary complex of different features of it.
context the individual is not detachable from the community, his liberty-immu
not divided from the pursuit of common good, the corporatist image of po
community, the political order as a body ñ an incredibly enduring metaphor ñ, do
conflict with the idea of a hierarchical order, obedience and inclusion are
interwoven.
It is the increasing tension between those elements of citizenship which duri
Middle Ages formed an unitary whole that distinguishes the slow departure of p
culture from its medieval path: between 17th and 18th century the idea of l
immunity breaks away from civic engagement and the duty of allegiance has now
to do with the image of the community as an inclusive body: Althusius vs.
Harrington vs.Hobbes, if you want to personify the opposing perspectives.
On one hand, the tendency to define the individual as essentially belonging
community is still alive, but on the other hand a new sovereignty is aris
sovereignty which is not perceived as the top of an already existing order (acc
to the medieval tradition), but is seen as the causal factor of an order which d
on it for its very existence. The order as an inclusive body and the order a
effect of the absolute power of a sovereign are now separate features of citize
The post-medieval individual flourishes in the shadow of the new sovereig
security is now endangered by the religious and civil conflict and he finds both
and a protector in the king. The individual's security depends on the order a
order depends on the sovereign.
The virtuous circle between the individual and the absolutist sovereign is not
off by the modern natural law theory, which begins its great intellectual adv
precisely confirming the absolutist tradition of late sixteenth century. The natu
theory gives a new definition of both the individual and the sovereignty. As f
individual, it brings back rights to his natural condition, so that they no longer
on membership: the liberty-immunity of the individual (the proprium of Grotiu
property of Locke) does not depend on the civitas, but is founded precisely
anthropological structure of the individual. As for sovereignty, the natural law
does not make it more feeble and uncertain: it changes only its foundation
purpose, because sovereignty now stands on the consent of the subjects and
for the safeguard of their security.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth century discourse of citizenship the trad
claim for the liberty-immunity of the subject has evolved towards a refined ta
individual rights, towards the extolling of liberty and equality, but has been s
without linking the different topics of civic engagement and membership. Vice
the emphasis of the civic and participatory engagement of the citizen is still al
instance in France, where authors like Helvetius or Mably exalt love for genera
and republican virtue, but no longer consider rights, despite their importance
self-sufficient support of the order. Probably the boldest attempt to deve
discourse of citizenship capable of uniting membership and rights was don
Rousseau: and it was just the difficulty of putting together so different featu
citizenship that probably caused the well known ambiguities and aporias of his t
A new, explosive combination of membership and rights is however due, rather t
the solitary meditation of a single author, to a collective enterprise of an e
meaning: the 1789 revolution. On the revolutionary stage the actors still spe
language of natural law tradition and eighteenth century reformers, but operat
completely different context and will therefore come to elaborate a new discou
citizenship: a discourse whose novelty appears evident if you refer, more than
single features, to their mutual relationships. The French revolution is a revolu
rights: liberty and property are announced by the Declarations of rights of í89
natural rights of the individual and the pillar of a legitimate order. Rooted
nature of human being, rights are nevertheless incapable of a spontaneous reali
they must be announced, defended, realized by a collective entity, the nation,
Sieyes on the very eve of revolution had prophetically introduced as the motive
the mytho-moteur, of the revolution itself. It is the nation that announces the
to the whole world; it is the nation that brandishes them as a sword against th
regime of inequalities and hierarchy, that regime which at that point comes
referred to as ancient; it is the nation that realises the rights through the law
enable their concrete application.
The new order is the order of rights, but the order of rights is revealed and r
by the nation: it is true that rights are the natural heritage of the individuals, b
equally true that only in the nation and thanks to the nation rights becom
foundations of a real order. Furthermore, the rights of the private individual a
basis of citizenship, but don't exhaust its contents: participation and politica
now acquire a major importance and become the core of that citizenship which
calls active and describes as different from, and superior to, that passive citi
which consists of the entitlement to merely civil rights. Civil and political righ
free (`immune') and participatory individual: these two features (rights
membership) of the discourse of citizenship are now strongly connected. They
however make for an easy and calm relationship, but are the poles of an exp
tension, which starts with French revolution and will dramatically affect the p
debate of the incoming century.
The core of the tension is one of the great key words of modern age, equality.
the revolution equality is no longer a mere attribute of the natural man: it
instrument of political struggle, displaying its aptitude to endless pra
applications. If equality does not directly oppose liberty and property, which
the basic support of the new order, it challenges every attempt of legiti
differences among subjects in the name of the property.
The struggle against political discrimination is a struggle for equality, but the s
for equality is not only a struggle for rights: at the same time it is a struggle
nation. Accepting differences among subjects implies accepting filters, whic
interposed between the individuals and the political community, between the su
and the nation: the struggle for equality is at the same time a struggl
membership and aims for a direct and participatory inclusion of the individuals
unitary national body. The great revolutionary debates on the Jewish condition,
female suffrage and on slavery are the effect of an egalitarian trend w
challenging the differences, struggles for rights and membership to the same d
The heritage of French revolution has an outstanding importance, at leas
continental Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century. The F
revolution is important not because one or several discourses of citizenship
and apply the revolutionary message, though examples of this kind are not m
Even if relatively few authors and movements thoroughly follow the revolutiona
of citizenship, everybody is compelled to take a position on a revolution which d
precise boundary-line, marks the time before and the time after, sugges
philosophy of history, offers a complete set of key symbols. One of the main co
of revolutionary citizenship, liberty and property, is widely considered as an e
attainment. At the same time however the contrast between property and eq
becomes more marked, in comparison with what happened during revoluti
debates.
Equality is respectively feared or appreciated on one hand because it recalls the
of the Jacobin sickle which cuts off every qualitative difference among subjec
leads to the domination of the undifferentiated mass ñ one of the great fe
nineteenth century liberalism; on the other hand, because it often seems to b
key capable of opening the doors of the palace to the excluded majority - bo
fear and the hope of this are excessive, as we know.
The criticism usually made against the revolutionary idea of equality by a
belonging to completely different traditions is its alleged individualism: the id
the individual as himself can be considered as the very axiom of the discours
that his actions can spontaneously produce order. In the nineteenth centur
opposite tendency is widespread, the tendency to choose not the individual b
collective being as the axiom of the discourse of citizenship. In fact, ma
nineteenth century discourses agree in the refusal of revolutionary individualis
completely differ in the representation of the collective entity and of the ind
their overlapping area of consent is only the priority assigned to the order, the
conviction that the individual identity strictly depends on its relationship wi
collective being. In France an important and influential doctrine takes place,
finds in Commute its gravitational centre and leads, partly changed but recogn
into the solidarism of the Third Republic. According to this tradition,
metaphysical, negative attitude of French revolution, caused by the leading role
individual, must be overcome by a society which takes hold of the indivi
determines their duties and lets their rights depend on the functions they acco
in the social whole. In German speaking countries an imposing and multiform tr
develops (from as early as the Napoleonic wars) redefining the map of politic
legal philosophy in a contrary way to French (enlightened, revolutionary) mod
main components of this model are criticized, as the consensual foundation
State, the voluntarism (the immediate will denounced by Hegel), the idea
constituent power, the absorbing role of the individual, in a word still
individualism. On the contrary, the collective entity must not be perceived as t
of individuals capable of freely determining the order, but as on organic and
unity, a historically developing people which, marked by its own language, re
culture, finally takes root as State. It is in the people, in the people as State, t
individual finds the ground of his identity and of his fundamental rights. People
and society are also the collective entities which offer to the individual the
environment for his political existence: his identity strictly depends on its incl
the collective being.
The change of citizenship's orientation from the individual to the collective e
not haphazard: it is not only linked with the whole intellectual history of the c
but is also stimulated by the two major problems of that period, the national q
and the social question. The effect of national question on the discours
citizenship, easily perceivable in Italian and German cultures, is to draw the at
to a collective being which requires the full and sacrificial engagement
members. The individuals and their rights make sense only if related with a
which goes beyond them: their identity depends on their active inclusion in a
which is becoming State thanks to the engagement of its members.
The second great question, the social question, belongs to a different plan
affects the basic lexicon of citizenship in an even more relevant way. It depe
course on the industrialization process which in different times but in a simil
takes place in every European nation and appears to the contemporaries a
explosive and worrying novelty. It places an ancient problem, that of social con
a different light. Conflict now no longer seems a temporary disease of the or
localized disturbance incapable of subverting the existing set of powers. It
opinion of most that conflict now takes place, so to speak, exactly in the cen
the city and not in one of its remotes suburban areas: it is a conflict caused p
by the basic pattern of the social system, by that link between liberty and pr
which was the most enduring heritage of revolution throughout Europe. Deciding
to do with the conflict is in fact deciding what to do with the individual, the righ
the order.
I think that three are the main types of answer given to the social question dur
nineteenth century. In the first case they go on trusting in the automatic func
of a social system based on liberty and property, convinced that any interven
political power (such as public assistance services or regulations of productio
workers' conditions) would have endangered the progress of civilization promo
the free competition of responsible individuals. Spencer is the clearest and
radical example of this attitude, so far as to discourage even the philanthropic
private individuals, usually recommended by liberal ethics.
The second type of strategy adopted towards the social conflict recollects a
number of different doctrines which, notwithstanding their heterogeneous theo
statements, agree on the attempt of finding the way to reconcile appa
incompatible goals: that is to preserve liberty and property, but to make
compatible with the requirements of the social whole. They do no longer trust
automatic functioning of market society: liberty and property are a necessary b
sufficient condition of the order, which requires the intervention of a burea
machine capable of acting as mediator in the social conflict. Order no longer d
on the spontaneous and autonomous acting of the individuals. It is the collectiv
which must control the individuals, make itself responsible for the satisfaction
essential needs of the citizens, allow a social redistribution of risks, chang
standards of responsibility, even if within the frame of liberty and pro
Controlling the subjects is now the main task of government - and not by c
lawyers use the term of administrative State. It is the social and political body
carefully leans towards its members in order to support them in their vital n
and not by chance organicist metaphors, better, analogies, are extremely pop
late nineteenth century culture. The collective entity acts as an including
inasmuch as it acts as mediator of a conflict which, if abandoned to its own dy
would break up the social cohesion. The liberty and autonomy of the individua
longer the basis, but only the outcome of an order which depends on the inclusi
controlling efficacy of the collective being: its representative, the State, wo
the main instrument of the social integration of forces, groups and indiv
otherwise unable of a spontaneous convergence.
Social integration becomes the primary goal of government and implies an ac
mixture of conservation and progress, a prudent settlement of differences
equality, of rights and duties. Citizenship as integration implies the idea of a c
progress, which goes on without breaks and sudden changes, implies the idea
movement which preserves the existing order and changes only by degrees it.
context equality re-emerges and implies correcting, not subverting, that
stratification on which social order depends: it becomes the point of referenc
public intervention that aims to reduce social differences without expecting to
them. Governing entails the reduction of differences in order to promote
integration. Not rights, but the governing and integrating action of the collectiv
are the core of the discourse of citizenship. With this perspective, conflict is
challenge to the maintenance of the existing order, which reacts to the thre
embracing the individuals. Instead, a contrasting strategy is instead adopted
end of the century by those socialist parties which, in Germany, in France and i
declare a reference to Marx and Engels: according to them, it is the existing
which threats and opposes (even if vainly on the long period) the liberating eff
a class conflict which will cause a deep break in the historical development.
This perspective is to some extent perfectly contrary to the former (and Eng
Kautsky strongly criticize the so-called State socialism). While according t
multifaceted doctrines of the third way the State is the deus ex machina of an
based on social integration, according to the Marxist point of view it is the inst
of a class society which revolution will sweep away. Liberty, property and
which, according to the supporters of the third way, are a necessary comp
(though not the basis) of the order, have been submitted to a scathing
destructive criticism since Marx's early writings. While the champions of the th
see the historical movement as developing under the banner of a continuos an
progress, Marxists see it as broken up into incompatible stages, so that the p
age can be seen in contrast to a future society finally liberated from the bond
private appropriation. Though the Marxian doctrine seems to cut off every lin
the most common ideas of citizenship the gap actually narrows if we refer t
policies and the debates of socialist parties between nineteenth and twe
century. The great principles of Marxist orthodoxy (the criticism of the Stat
attack on formal democracy and the anticipation of a revolutionary explosio
confirmed again and again, but these general statements must seriously tak
account the limits of daily politics which compels the party to accept compro
seeks short-term or medium-terms goals, pushes for alliances and takes adva
of the existing institutions. Rooted in this impasse is one of the great and un
dilemmas of nineteenth-twentieth century socialism, the alternative of reform
revolution: the main question for the whole socialist movement is the link betwe
immediate political goals and the dynamics of the historical development, betwe
minimum and maximum program, to use Turati's expression.
The apparently paradoxical result is that socialist parties come to offer, so to
split image of citizenship: they go on declaring their basic agreement with Mar
Engels' sharp attack on rights and the State, but at the same time (due t
distinction between reform and revolution, present and future, means and
fiercely struggle for political democracy, reforms and rights. Far from drawing
discourse against citizenship, socialist parties become the champions of that s
for rights which according to Jhering could be conceived as the mark of the
identity of an individual or a people, but in fact would have been short-lived w
the momentum of the socialist movement: it is socialism which, placing its
d'être in the political struggle and in the social demands, gives anew a leading
the language of right, that again becomes, and to same extent despite the inte
of the main actors, the driving force of the discourse of citizenship. While soli
corporatists and social reformers of several orientations (in a word, the spok
of the third way) find their point of reference in the present society and s
reforms in order to control conflict and promote integration, socialists look
future and assign a prominent role to the claim of rights, considering them as
of social reforms which can pass only by the active and militant engagement
citizen.
Different discourses of citizenship also develop during the late nineteenth c
their theoretical approach is completely different but some overlapping are
consent are not missing and can be easily enhanced when peculiar po
occurrences oblige to carry out some precise plans of government. Twentieth c
constitutionalism is precisely the outcome of different traditions which,
embedded in the nineteenth century discourse of citizenship, come to form,
speak, an unitary plot in the twentieth century, although the leading actors of t
were to a great extent unaware of it. Weimar constitution is the first example
kind, followed by the constitutions of the post-World War II years. I am not sayi
thoroughly different representations of citizenship have easily and spontan
found standards of agreement in twentieth century constitutions. T
constitutions have been adopted by fiercely conflicting assemblies and have
criticized (the Weimar constitution like the Italian constitution of í48) a
inconclusive and unsuccessful arrangement of opposing ideologies. The ex
genesis of Weimar or Italian constitutions must not, however, prevent us
grasping their true sense, which is not the chance effect of a temporary compr
but rather emerges from the whole history of previous century, so that
constitutional plan is complex but not incoherent and finds its unity in the
passages of a longstanding discourse of citizenship. On one hand the constit
text gathers the main key words of the revolutionary tradition (liberty, pro
equality), on the other hand it inherits the idea of a collective being obliged to h
govern the subjects and finally tries to find its gravitational centre in the sys
rights: the multiplication of rights along with a clever dosage of them should m
possible to overcome the tension among equality, liberty and property and to re
the leading role of the individual with the requirements of the social whole.
We could also present twentieth century constitutionalism as the most r
attempt to offer a synthesis of the main topics displayed by the discour
citizenship in past centuries and therefore lead us to believe that our elementa
is complete. In fact, a map of contemporary citizenship, however simple it m
cannot coincide with those features which result in the provisory synthes
twentieth century constitutionalism, unless you want to sketch a some
providentialist picture of citizenship's history. A different path has been dev
since at least the 1850's and acquired increasing importance at the end o
century thanks to three decisive factors, which I will mention only briefly.First
the idea of race and the consequent redefinition of the individual. The ancient
the essential unity of human kind falls prey to the attacks of eccentric authors
as Gobineau) and, at the end of the century, because of the contributions o
sciences, such as anthropology and criminology, which see race as the deter
factor of individual and collective identity. The second element, only partly con
with the former, is the increasing appreciation of war: of colonial war, first of
more in general, of expansionist war, of war as an instrument of national achiev
and strength and finally of war in itself: war as an irrepressible and vital impu
the call of blood, as a vocation to the supreme sacrifice, as the surrender
individual to a collective being (the nation, the race, the State) capable of re
his pretended autonomy.
It is this extraordinary and explosive melange of racial doctrines, mystique o
colonial adventures and extolling of the State's power which clearly opposes
discourses of citizenship which, despite all their irreconcilable diversities, sho
kind of family feeling because they shared some basic ideas and values, su
individual autonomy, rights, liberty and equality. Deeply rooted in western c
different images of citizenship therefore arise during the nineteenth centur
consequently twentieth century citizenship is not only constitutionalism and exp
of rights but necessarily includes the totalitarian image of citizenship shared b
fascism and national socialism.
Though remarkably different, both fascist and national socialist discours
citizenship draw numerous suggestions from the melange war-race-nation-powe
neither forget to adopt and redefine some concepts deriving from
governmentalist and solidaristic traditions. The supremacy of the race,
expansionistic war, the power of the collective being now cover the whole hori
the individual, whose identity strictly depends on his hostile attitude towar
enemy, towards the other as an internal or external enemy. Membership acqui
absolute prominence and the control on subjects becomes the main goal of a re
which mixes persuasion and coercion in order to make individuals susceptib
manipulation, in order to mould, to redefine, to recreate them (even genetica
dependent parts of a fanatically unitary community. What integration was t
moderate doctrines of the third way, manipulation becomes in the radical persp
of the totalitarian State.
Thus, the total State has fallen down, substituted by those constitu
democracies which have chosen an impressive and increasing number of rights
basis for the order, precisely those rights which in the same í48 (the year
promulgation of Italian constitution) seek world-wide confirmation through
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Can we therefore announce a complet
irreversible triumph of the individual's rights and the sudden disappearing of
fellow-travellers in the long journey of citizenship, such as membership, order,
sovereignty?
I think that we cannot forget that deeply rooted but contradictory requirement
ever affected the discourse of citizenship: the liberty-immunity of the individu
been obliged to come to terms with the expectations of the community;
individual's rights had to make themselves compatible with the order; equality h
to combine with the maintenance of power relationships; the preservation of ind
and collective identity could not save itself from an often painful and aggr
relationship with alterity. Precisely because all of these are integral parts of th
of citizenship which western Europe has written about itself, none of the
necessarily condemned to a perpetual exile and each of them can at any mo
prevail and give place to new, unpredictable, but historically rooted, settlement
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