ABOUT THE IDEA OF CITIZENSHIP

Abstract

This work searches into J. S. Mill and T.H. Marshall’s contributions to the definition of contemporary citizenship profiles. It analyses the statements that feature the corresponding pairs republican citizenship/ liberal citizenship and direct democracy/ representative democracy. Next it focuses on Mill’s work “Representative Government” and “Citizenship and Social Class” by Marshall. The starting point in examining both authors’ thought is the resemblance that can be observed in their shared concern to articulate an idea of citizenship with the representative forms of a representative government. In “Representative Government” the way in which Mill manages to deal with a citizenship conception similar to the ancient one in the context of the representative government is specially taken into account. As regards Marshall’s “Citizenship and Social Class” this work analyses the concept of citizenship as a manifestation of equality in front of the tributary inequality of the different social classes in the frame of modern capitalist societies. This work encourages us to think that marshallian citizenship, even when it belongs to the liberal citizenship tradition with its stress on equality, acts as the foundation to develop a republican citizenship. However, this work does not ignore that both models of citizenship respond to completely different values and traditions.