Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction

by Richard Bellamy

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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.

Download this VSI Reading Guide as an Adobe PDF (28 KB)

Questions for Thought and Discussion

• In what ways, is being a good citizen different from being a good neighbour or simply a good person?



• Can commercial corporations be citizens (as in ‘corporate citizenship’)?



• Is voting the most important feature of citizenship?



• Are the rights of citizenship any different to human rights? If so, should they be?



• Do citizens have duties as well as rights? If so, what are they?



• Do you think immigrants should have to take a citizenship test? If so, what sorts of questions should such a test ask?



• Must citizens speak the same language and share the same values? Or is multicultural citizenship possible?



• Do you think citizenship should be taught in schools? If so, what topics ought the curriculum to cover?



• Should the voting age be lowered to 16? Or ought it to be raised to 40? Should pensioners be allowed to vote?



• Can there be global citizenship? If so, how does it differ from national citizenship?

Other books by Richard Bellamy

• (co-editor with Alex Warleigh), Citizenship and Governance in the European Union (London: Continuum, 2001, 2nd ed. 2005)



• (co-editor with Dario Castiglione and Emilio Santoro), Lineages of European Citizenship: Rights, Belonging and Participation in Eleven Nation States (Palgrave, 2004)



• (co-editor with D. Castiglione and J. Shaw), Making European Citizens: Civic Inclusion in a Transnational Context (Palgrave, 2006)



• R. Bellamy and A. Palumbo (eds), Citizenship, International Library of Essays in Political Theory and Public Policy (Ashgate, 2010)

Further Reading

• R Beiner, (ed.), Theorizing Citizenship (SUNY Press, 1995)



• E. F. Isin and B. S. Turner (eds), Handbook of Citizenship Studies (Sage, 2003)