Redefining Responsibility: The Politics of Citizenship in the United Kingdom

Abstract The growing economic liberalization within, and interdependence between, modern states have limited the ability of state administrations effectively to pursue public policies without the “co-operation and self-restraint” of their citizens. The concept of citizenship will thus increasingly be a battlefield in the struggle for ideological hegemony between major political interests who attempt to define citizenship to enhance their respective political agendas. These debates over the nature of citizenship have been articulated most clearly in the United Kingdom, where the Speaker's Commission on Citizenship (report released in September 1990) has been a focal point in the discussion of what citizenship in a modern state entails.