.

Chapter four; understanding state, Government and

citizenship
4.3. Understanding State
The term stat has been used to refer to a bewildering range of things: a
collection of institutions, a
territorial unit, a philosophical idea, an instrument of coercion or oppression,
and so on. This
confusion stems, in part, from the fact that the state has been understood in
four quite different
ways; from an idealist perspective, a functionalist perspective, an
organizational perspective and an
international perspective. The idealist approach to the state is most clearly
reflected in the writings
of Hegel. Hegel identified three moments of social existence: the family, civil
society and the state.
Within the family, he argued, a particular altruism operates that encourages
people to set aside their
own interests for the good of their children or elderly relatives. In contrast,
civil society was seen as
a sphere of ‗universal egoism‘ in which individuals place their own interests
before those of others.
Hegel conceived of the state as an ethical community underpinned by mutual
sympathy – ‗universal
altruism‘. The drawback of idealism, however, is that it fosters an uncritical
reverence for the state
and, by defining the state in ethical terms, fails to distinguish clearly between
institutions that are
part of the state and those that are outside the state.
Functionalist approaches to the state focus on the role or purpose of state
institutions. The
central function of the state is invariably seen as the maintenance of social
order (see p. 400), the
state being defined as that set of institutions that uphold order and deliver
social stability. Such an
approach has, for example, been adopted by neo-Marxists (see p. 64), who
have been inclined to see
the state as a mechanism through which class conflict is ameliorated to
ensure the long-term survival
of the capitalist system. The weakness of the functionalist view of the state,
however, is that it tends
to associate any institution that maintains order (such as the family, mass
media, trade unions and
the church) with the state itself. This is why, unless there is a statement to
the contrary, an
organizational approach to the definition of the state is adopted throughout
this book.
The organizational view defines the state as the apparatus of government
in its broadest sense;
that is, as that set of institutions that are recognizably ‗public‘, in that they
are responsible for the
collective organization of social existence and are funded at the public‘s
expense. The virtue of this
definition is that it distinguishes clearly between the state and civil society.
The state comprises the
various institutions of government: the bureaucracy, the military, the police,
the courts, and the
social security system and so on; it can be identified with the entire ‗body
politic‘. The organizational
approach allows us to talk about ‗rolling forward‘ or ‗rolling back‘ the state,
in the sense of
expanding or contracting the responsibilities of the state, and enlarging or
diminishing its
institutional machinery.
The international approach to the state views it primarily as an actor on
the world stage; indeed,
as the basic ‘unit‘ of international politics. This highlights the dualistic
structure of the state; the fact
that it has two faces, one looking outwards and the other looking inwards.
Whereas the previous
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definitions are concerned with the state‘s inward-looking face, its relations
with the individuals and
groups that live within its borders, and its ability to maintain domestic order,
the international view
deals with the state‘s outward-looking face, its relations with other states
and, therefore, its ability to
provide protection against external attack. The classic definition of the state
in international law is
found in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State
(1933). According to
Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, the state has four features: a defined
territory, permanent
population, an effective government and sovereignty. Let us now discuss
details of the abovementioned attributes as follows:
Population: Since state is a human association, the first essential element
that constitutes it is the
people. How much people constitute state? No exact number can be given to
such a question. The
fact is that the states of the world vary in terms of demographic strength.
There are states with a
population of greater than 1 billion like that of China and India, and with a
constituency of few
thousand people like Vatican and San Marino.
Another question that comes up at this stage is whether the population of a
state should be
homogenous. Homogeneity is determined by any factor like commonness of
religion, or blood, or
language or culture and the like. It is good that population of a state is
homogeneous, because it
makes the task of national integration easy. But it is not must, because most
of the states have a
population marked by diversity in respect of race, religion, language, culture,
etc. All problems of
nation building are solved and people of a state, irrespective of their
differences, become a nation. It
signifies the situation of ‗unity in diversity‘. In short, it is to be noted that
without population there
can be no state, ‗it goes without saying that an uninhabited portion of the
earth, take in itself, cannot
form a state.
Defined Territory: There can be no state without a territory of its own. The
territory of a state
includes land, water, and airspace; it has maritime jurisdiction extending up
to a distance of three
miles, though some states contend for a distance of up to 20 miles. The
territorial authority of a state
also extends to ships on high seas under its flag as well as its embassies and
legations/diplomat‘s
residence in foreign lands. As seen in the case of the factor of population, so
here it should be
emphasized that the size of a state‘s territory cannot be fixed. There are as
large states as China and
Russia and as small states of Fiji and Mauritius in respect of their territorial
make-up. It also possible
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that states may be in the form of islands as Indonesia, Philippines, and Japan.
It is, however, certain
that the boundary lines of a state must be well marked out. This can be done
either by the
geographical make up in the form of division by the seas, rivers, mountains,
thick forests, deserts,
etc., or it may be done by creating artificial divisions in the form of digging
trenches or fixing
pointed wire fencing.
Government: Government is said to be the soul of the state. It implements
the will of the
community. It protects the people against conditions of insecurity. If state is
regarded as the first
condition of a civilized life, it is due to the existence of a government that
maintain law and order
and makes ‗good life‘ possible. The government is the machinery that
terminates the condition of
anarchy. It is universally recognized that as long as there are diverse
interests in society, some
mechanism is needed to bring about and maintain a workable arrangement to
keep the people
together. The government of a state should be so organized that it enforces
law so as to maintain the
conditions of peace and security. The form of government may be
monarchical, aristocratic,
oligarchic, democratic, or dictatorial and the like, what really needed is that
if there is no
government, there is anarchy and the state is at an end.
Sovereignty: As already pointed out, sovereignty is the fourth essential
attribute of the concept
state. It is the highest power of the state that distinguishes it from all other
associations of human
beings. Sovereignty, in its simplest sense, is the principle of absolute and
unlimited power. It has two
aspects - Internal and External. Internal Sovereignty implies that inside the
state there can be no
other authority that may claim equality with it. The state is the final source of
all laws internally. On
the other hand, External sovereignty implies that the state should be free
from foreign control of
any kind. It is, however, a different matter that a state willingly accepts some
international
obligations in the form of membership to some international
intergovernmental and other
organizations such as the United Nations. Conceptually, the existence of
sovereign authority appears
in the form of law. It is for this reason that the law of the state is binding on
all and its violation is
resulted with suitable punishment. It is universally accepted that a sovereign
state is legally
competent to issue any command that is binding on all citizens and their
associations.
In addition to the essential attributes of the state agreed in the 1933, the
contemporary political
theorists and the UN considered recognition as the fifth essential attribute
of the state. This is
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because, for a political unit to be accepted as a state with an ‗international
personality‘ of its own, it
must be recognized as such by a significant portion of the international
community. It is to mean
that, for a state to be legal actor in the international stage; other actors (such
as other states,
international intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations… etc.)
must recognize it as a
state. Thus, recognition implies both approaching of the necessary facts and
the desire of coming in
to effect of the legal and political results of recognition. Likewise, for a
government of a state to be
formally to act on its behalf, the government must be recognized as
legitimate government of the
statebyothergovernments.
4.4. Rival Theories of State
There are various rival theories of the state, each of which offers a different
account of its origins,
development and impact on society. Indeed, controversy about the nature of
state power has
increasingly dominated modern political analysis and goes to the heart of
ideological and theoretical
disagreements in the discipline. These relate to questions about whether, for
example, the state is
autonomous and independent of society, or whether it is essentially a product
of society, a reflection
of the broader distribution of power or resources. Moreover, does the state
serve the common or
collective good, or is it biased in favor of privileged groups or a dominant
class? Similarly, is the state
a positive or constructive force, with responsibilities that should be enlarged,
or is it a negative or
destructive? Andrew Heywood (2013) classified the rival theories of state into
four: the pluralist
state, the capitalist state, the leviathan state and the patriarchal state.
4.4.1. The Pluralist State
The pluralist theory of the state has a very clear liberal lineage. It stems from
the belief that the state
acts as an ‗umpire‘ or ‗referee‘ in society. This view has also dominated
mainstream political analysis,
accounting for a tendency, at least within Anglo-American thought, to
discount the state and state
organizations and focus instead on ‗government‘. Indeed, it is not uncommon
in this tradition for
‗the state‘ to be dismissed as an abstraction, with institutions such as the
courts, the civil service and
the military being seen as independent actors in their own right, rather than
as elements of a broader
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state machine. Nevertheless, this approach is possible only because it is
based on underlying, and
often unacknowledged, assumptions about state neutrality. The state can be
ignored only because it
is seen as an impartial arbiter or referee that can be bent to the will of the
government of the day.
The origins of this view of the state can be traced back to the social-contract
theories of thinkers
such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The principal concern of such
thinkers was to examine
the grounds of political obligation, the grounds on which the individual is
obliged to obey and
respect the state. They argued that the state had arisen out of a voluntary
agreement, or social
contract, made by individuals who recognized that only the establishment of
a sovereign power
could safeguard them from the insecurity, disorder and brutality of the state
of nature. Without a
state, individuals abuse, exploit and enslave one another; with a state, order
and civilized existence
are guaranteed and liberty is protected. As Locke put it, where there is no
law there is no freedom.
In liberal theory, the state is thus seen as a neutral arbiter amongst the
competing groups and
individuals in society; it is an ‗umpire‘ or ‗referee‘ that is capable of
protecting each citizen from the
encroachments of fellow citizens. The neutrality of the state reflects the fact
that the state acts in the
interests of all citizens, and therefore represents the common good or public
interest. In Hobbes‘
view, stability and order could be secured only through the establishment of
an absolute and
unlimited state, with power that could be neither challenged, nor questioned.
In other words, he
held that citizens are confronted by a stark choice between absolutism and
anarchy. Locke, on the
other hand, developed a more typically liberal defense of the limited state. In
his view, the purpose
of the state is very specific: it is restricted to the defense of a set of ‗natural‘
or God-given individual
rights; namely, life, liberty and property. This establishes a clear distinction
between the
responsibilities of the state (essentially, the maintenance of domestic order
and the protection of
property) and the responsibilities of individual citizens (usually seen as the
realm of civil society).
Moreover, since the state may threaten natural rights as easily as it may
uphold them, citizens must
enjoy some form of protection against the state, which Locke believed could
be delivered only
through the mechanisms of constitutional and representative government.
These ideas were developed in the twentieth century into the pluralist theory
of the state. As a
theory of society, pluralism asserts that, within liberal democracies, power is
widely and evenly
dispersed. As a theory of the state, pluralism holds that the state is neutral,
insofar as it is susceptible
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to the influence of various groups and interests, and all social classes. The
state is not biased in favor
of any particular interest or group, and it does not have an interest of its own
that is separate from
those of society. As Schwarzmantel (1994) put it, the state is ‗the servant of
society and not its
master‘. The state can thus be portrayed as a ‗pincushion‘ that passively
absorbs pressures and forces
exerted upon it.
Two key assumptions underlie this view. The first is that the state is
effectively subordinate to
government. Non-elected state bodies (the civil service, the judiciary, the
police, the military and so
on) are strictly impartial and are subject to the authority of their political
masters. The state
apparatus is therefore thought to conform to the principles of public service
and political
accountability. The second assumption is that the democratic process is
meaningful and effective. In
other words, party competition and interest-group activity ensure that the
government of the day
remains sensitive and responsive to public opinion. Ultimately, therefore, the
state is only a weather
vane that is blown in whichever direction the public-at-large dictates.
Modern pluralists, however, have often adopted a more critical view of the
state, termed the neopluralist theory of the state. Theorists such as Robert
Dahl and Charles Lindblom (1953) have
come to accept that modern industrialized states are both more complex and
less responsive to
popular pressures than classical pluralism suggested. Neo-pluralists, for
instance, have acknowledged
that business enjoys a ‗privileged position‘ in relation to government that
other groups clearly cannot
rival. In Politics and Markets, Lindblom (1980) pointed out that, as the major
investor and largest
employer in society, business is bound to exercise considerable sway over any
government, whatever
its ideological leanings or manifesto commitments. Moreover, neo-pluralists
have accepted that the
state can, and does, forge its own sectional interests. In this way, a state
elite, composed of senior
civil servants, judges, police chiefs, military leaders and so on, may be seen
to pursue either the
bureaucratic interests of their sector of the state, or the interests of client
groups. Indeed, if the state
is regarded as a political actor in its own right, it can be viewed as a powerful
(perhaps the most
powerful) interest group in society. This line of argument encouraged Eric
Nordlinger (1981) to
develop a state-centered model of liberal democracy, based on ‗the autonomy
of the democratic
state.
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4.4.2. The Capitalist State
The Marxist notion of a capitalist state offers a clear alternative to the
pluralist image of the state as
a neutral arbiter or umpire. Marxists have typically argued that the state
cannot be understood
separately from the economic structure of society. This view has usually been
understood in terms
of the classic formulation that the state is nothing but an instrument of class
oppression: the state
emerges out of, and in a sense reflects, the class system. Nevertheless, a rich
debate has taken place
within Marxist theory in recent years that has moved the Marxist theory of
the state a long way from
this classic formulation. In many ways, the scope to revise Marxist attitudes
towards the state stems
from ambiguities that can be found in Marx‘s own writings.
Marx did not develop a systematic or coherent theory of the state. In a
general sense, he believed
that the state is part of a ‗superstructure‘ that is determined or conditioned
by the economic ‗base‘,
which can be seen as the real foundation of social life. However, the precise
relationship between
the base and the superstructure, and in this case that between the state and
the capitalist mode of
production, is unclear. Two theories of the state can be identified in Marx‘s
writings. The first is
expressed in his often-quoted dictum from The Communist Manifesto (1848):
‗The executive of the
modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the
whole bourgeoisie‘. From
this perspective, the state is clearly dependent on society and entirely
dependent on its economically
dominant class, which in capitalism is the bourgeoisie. Lenin thus described
the state starkly as an
instrument for the oppression of the exploited class.
A second, more complex and subtle, theory of the state can nevertheless be
found in Marx‘s analysis
of the revolutionary events in France between 1848 and1851, The Eighteenth
Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte (1852). Marx suggested that the state could enjoy what has come
to be seen as ‗relative
autonomy‘ from the class system, the Napoleonic state being capable of
imposing its will upon
society, acting as an ‗appalling parasitic body‘. If the state did articulate the
interests of any class, it
was not those of the bourgeoisie, but those of the most populous class in
French society, the
smallholding peasantry. Although Marx did not develop this view in detail, it
is clear that, from this
perspective, the autonomy of the state is only relative, in that the state
appears to mediate between
conflicting classes, and so maintains the class system itself in existence.
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Both these theories differ markedly from the liberal and, later, pluralist
models of state power. In
particular, they emphasize that the state cannot be understood except in a
context of unequal class
power, and that the state arises out of, and reflects, capitalist society, by
acting either as an
instrument of oppression wielded by the dominant class, or, more subtly, as a
mechanism through
which class antagonisms are ameliorated. Nevertheless, Marx‘s attitude
towards the state was not
entirely negative. He argued that the state could be used constructively
during the transition from
capitalism to communism in the form of the ‗revolutionary dictatorship of the
proletariat‘. The
overthrow of capitalism would see the destruction of the bourgeois state and
the creation of an
alternative, proletarian one.
In describing the state as a proletarian ‗dictatorship‘, Marx utilized the first
theory of the state, seeing
the state as an instrument through which the economically dominant class
(by then, the proletariat)
could repress and subdue other classes. All states, from this perspective, are
class dictatorships. The
‗dictatorship of the proletariat‘ was seen as a means of safeguarding the
gains of the revolution by
preventing counter-revolution mounted by the dispossessed bourgeoisie.
Nevertheless, Marx did not
see the state as a necessary or enduring social formation. He predicted that,
as class antagonisms
faded, the state would ‗wither away‘, meaning that a fully communist society
would also be stateless.
Since the state emerged out of the class system, once the class system had
been abolished, the state,
quite simply, loses its reason for existence. Marx‘s ambivalent heritage has
provided modern
Marxists, or neo-Marxists, with considerable scope to further the analysis of
state power. This was
also encouraged by the writings of Antonio Gramsci, who emphasized the
degree to which the
domination of the ruling class is achieved by ideological manipulation, rather
than just open
coercion. In this view, bourgeois domination is maintained largely through
‗hegemony‘: that is,
intellectual leadership or cultural control, with the state playing an important
role in the process.
Since the 1960s, Marxist theorizing about the state has been dominated by
rival instrumentalist and
structuralist views of the state. In The State in Capitalist Society (1969,
2009), Miliband portrayed
the state as an agent or instrument of the ruling class, stressing the extent to
which the state elite is
disproportionately drawn from the ranks of the privileged and propertied.
The bias of the state in
favor of capitalism is therefore derived from the overlap of social
backgrounds between, on the one
hand, civil servants and other public officials, and, on the other, bankers,
business leaders and
captains of industry. Nicos Poulantzas, in Political Power and Social Classes
(1968), dismissed this
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MoSHE 109
sociological approach, and emphasized instead the degree to which the
structure of economic and
social power exerts a constraint on state autonomy. This view suggests that
the state cannot but act
to perpetuate the social system in which it operates. In the case of the
capitalist state, its role is to
serve the long-term interests of capitalism, even though these actions may be
resisted by sections of
the capitalist class itself. Neo-Marxists have increasingly seen the state as
the terrain on which the
struggle amongst interests, groups and classes is conducted. Rather than
being an ‗instrument‘
wielded by a dominant group or ruling class, the state is thus a dynamic
entity that reflects the
balance of power within society at any given time, and the ongoing struggle
for hegemony.
4.4.3. The Leviathan State
The image of the state as a ‗leviathan‘ (in effect, a self-serving monster intent
on expansion and
aggrandizement) is one associated in modern politics with the New Right.
Such a view is rooted in
early or classical liberalism and, in particular, a commitment to a radical
form of individualism. The
New Right, or at least its neoliberal wing, is distinguished by a strong
antipathy towards state
intervention in economic and social life, born out of the belief that the state is
parasitic growth that
threatens both individual liberty and economic security. In this view, the
state, instead of being, as
pluralists suggest, an impartial umpire or arbiter, is an overbearing ‗nanny‘,
desperate to interfere or
meddle in every aspect of human existence. The central feature of this view is
that the state pursues
interests that are separate from those of society (setting it apart from
Marxism), and that those
interests demand an unrelenting growth in the role or responsibilities of the
state itself. New Right
thinkers therefore argue that the twentieth century tendency towards state
intervention reflected not
popular pressure for economic and social security, or the need to stabilize
capitalism by ameliorating
class tensions but, rather, the internal dynamics of the state.
New Right theorists explain the expansionist dynamics of state power by
reference to both demandside and supply-side pressures. Demand-side
pressures are those that emanate from society itself,
usually through the mechanism of electoral democracy. The New Right argue
that electoral
competition encourages politicians to ‗outbid‘ one another by making
promises of increased
spending and more generous government programs, regardless of the long-
term damage that such
policies inflict on the economy in the form of increased taxes, higher inflation
and the ‗crowding
out‘ of investment. Supply-side pressures, on the other hand, are those that
are internal to the state.
These can therefore be explained in terms of the institutions and personnel of
the state apparatus. In
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MoSHE 110
its most influential form, this argument is known as the government
oversupply thesis. The
oversupply thesis has usually been associated with public-choice theorists,
who examine how public
decisions are made on the assumption that the individuals involved act in a
rationally self-interested
fashion.
While Marxists argue that the state reflects broader class and other social
interests, the New Right
portrays the state as an independent or autonomous entity that pursues its
own interests. In this
view, bureaucratic self-interest invariably supports ‗big‘ government and
state intervention, because
this leads to an enlargement of the bureaucracy itself, which helps to ensure
job security, improve
pay, open up promotion prospects and enhance the status of public officials.
This image of selfseeking bureaucrats is plainly at odds with the pluralist
notion of a state machine imbued with an
ethic of public service and firmly subject to political control.
4.4.4. The Patriarchal State
Modern thinking about the state must, finally, take account of the
implications of feminist theory.
However, this is not to say that there is a systematic feminist theory of the
state. Feminist theory
encompasses a range of traditions and perspectives, and has thus generated
a range of very different
attitudes towards state power. Moreover, feminists have usually not regarded
the nature of state
power as a central political issue, preferring instead to concentrate on the
deeper structure of male
power centered on institutions such as the family and the economic system.
Some feminists, indeed,
may question conventional definitions of the state, arguing, for instance, that
the idea that the state
exercises a monopoly of legitimate violence is compromised by the routine
use of violence and
intimidation in family and domestic life. Nevertheless, sometimes implicitly
and sometimes
explicitly, feminists have helped to enrich the state debate by developing
novel and challenging
perspectives on state power.
Liberal feminists, who believe that sexual or gender equality can be brought
about through
incremental reform, have tended to accept an essentially pluralist view of the
state. They recognize
that, if women are denied legal and political equality, and especially the right
to vote, the state is
biased in favor of men. However, their faith in the state‘s basic neutrality is
reflected in the belief
that any such bias can, and will, be overcome by a process of reform. In this
sense, liberal feminists
believe that all groups (including women) have potentially equal access to
state power, and that this
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MoSHE 111
can be used impartially to promote justice and the common good. Liberal
feminists have therefore
usually viewed the state in positive terms, seeing state intervention as a
means of redressing gender
inequality and enhancing the role of women. This can be seen in campaigns
for equal-pay legislation,
the legalization of abortion, the provision of child-care facilities, the
extension of welfare benefits,
and so on.
Nevertheless, a more critical and negative view of the state has been
developed by radical feminists,
who argue that state power reflects a deeper structure of oppression in the
form of patriarchy. There
are a number of similarities between Marxist and radical feminist views of
state power. Both groups,
for example, deny that the state is an autonomous entity bent on the pursuit
of its own interests.
Instead, the state is understood, and its biases are explained, by reference to
a ‗deep structure‘ of
power in society at large. Whereas Marxists place the state in an economic
context, radical feminists
place it in a context of gender inequality, and insist that it is essentially an
institution of male power.
In common with Marxism, distinctive instrumentalist and structuralist
versions of this feminist
position have been developed. The instrumentalist argument views the state
as little more than an
agent or ‗tool‘ used by men to defend their own interests and uphold the
structures of patriarchy.
This line of argument draws on the core feminist belief that patriarchy is
rooted in the division of
society into distinct ‗public‘ and ‗private‘ spheres of life, men dominating the
former while women
are confined to the later. Quite simply, in this view, the state is run by men,
and for men.
Whereas instrumentalist arguments focus on the personnel of the state, and
particularly the state
elite, structuralist arguments tend to emphasize the degree to which state
institutions are embedded
in a wider patriarchal system. Modern radical feminists have paid particular
attention to the
emergence of the welfare state, seeing it as the expression of a new kind of
patriarchal power.
Welfare may uphold patriarchy by bringing about a transition from private
dependence (in which
women as ‗home makers‘ are dependent on men as ‗breadwinners‘) to a
system of public
dependence in which women are increasingly controlled by the institutions of
the extended state.
For instance, women have become increasingly dependent on the state as
clients or customers of
state services (such as childcare institutions, nursery education and social
work) and as employees,
particularly in the so-called ‗caring‘ professions (such as nursing, social work
and education).
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4.5. The Role of the State
Brainstorming
Questions:
What should states
do? What functions or
responsibilities should
the state fulfil, and
which ones
should be left in the
hands of private
individuals?
Contrasting interpretations of state power have clear implications for the
desirable role or
responsibilities of the state. With the exception of anarchists, who dismiss the
state as fundamentally
evil and unnecessary, all political thinkers have regarded the state as, in
some sense, worthwhile.
Even revolutionary socialists, inspired by the Leninist slogan ‗smash the
state‘, have accepted the
need for a temporary proletarian state to preside over the transition from
capitalism to communism,
in the form of the ‗dictatorship of the proletariat‘. Nevertheless, there is
profound disagreement
about the exact role the state should play, and therefore about the proper
balance between the state
and civil society. Among the different state forms that have developed are the
following:
Minimal states
Developmental states
Social-democratic states
Collectivized states
Totalitarian states
Religious states
4.5.1. Minimal States
The minimal state is the ideal of classical liberals, whose aim is to ensure that
individuals enjoy the
widest possible realm of freedom. This view is rooted in social-contract
theory, but it nevertheless
advances an essentially ‗negative‘ view of the state. From this perspective,
the value of the state is
that it has the capacity to constrain human behavior and thus to prevent
individuals encroaching on
the rights and liberties of others. The state is merely a protective body, its
core function being to
provide a framework of peace and social order within which citizens can
conduct their lives as they
think best. In Locke‘s famous simile, the state acts as a night watchman,
whose services are called
upon only when orderly existence is threatened? This nevertheless leaves the
‗minimal‘ or ‗night
watchman‘ state with three core functions. First and foremost, the state
exists to maintain domestic
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order. Second, it ensures that contracts or voluntary agreements made
between private citizens are
enforced, and third it provides protection against external attack. The
institutional apparatus of a
minimal state is thus limited to a police force, a court system and a military of
some kind. Economic,
social, cultural, moral and other responsibilities belong to the individual, and
are therefore firmly
part of civil society.
The cause of the minimal state has been taken up in modern political debate
by the New Right.
Drawing on early liberal ideas, and particularly on free-market or classical
economic theories, the
New Right has proclaimed the need to ‗roll back the frontiers of the state‘. In
the writings of Robert
Nozick (1974), this amounts to a restatement of Lockean liberalism based on
a defense of individual
rights, especially property rights. In the case of free-market economists such
as Friedrich von Haye
and Milton Friedman, state intervention is seen as a ‗dead hand‘ that reduces
competition, efficiency
and productivity. From the New Right perspective, the state‘s economic role
should be confined to
two functions: the maintenance of a stable means of exchange or ‗sound
money‘ (low or zero
inflation), and the pro motion of competition through controls on monopoly
power, price fixing
and so on.
4.5.2. Developmental States
The best historical examples of minimal states were those in countries such
as the UK and the USA
during the period of early industrialization in the nineteenth century. As a
general rule, however, the
later a country industrializes, the more extensive will be its state‘s economic
role. In Japan and
Germany, for instance, the state assumed a more active ‗developmental‘ role
from the outset. A
developmental state is one that intervenes in economic life with the specific
purpose of promoting
industrial growth and economic development. This does not amount to an
attempt to replace the
market with a ‗socialist‘ system of planning and control but, rather, to an
attempt to construct a
partnership between the state and major economic interests, often
underpinned by conservative and
nationalist priorities.
The classic example of a developmental state is Japan. During the Meiji
Period (1868–1912), the
Japanese state forged a close relationship with the Zaibutsu, the great family-
run business empires
that dominated the Japanese economy up until World War II. Since 1945, the
developmental role of
the Japanese state has been assumed by the Japanese Ministry of
International Trade and Industry
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(MITI), which, together with the Bank of Japan, helps to shape private
investment decisions and
steer the Japanese economy towards international competitiveness. A similar
model of
developmental intervention has existed in France, where governments of
both left and right have
tended to recognize the need for economic planning, and the state
bureaucracy has seen itself as the
custodian of the national interest. In countries such as Austria and, to some
extent, Germany,
economic development has been achieved through the construction of a
‗partnership state‘, in which
an emphasis is placed on the maintenance of a close relationship between the
state and major
economic interests, notably big business and organized labor.
More recently, economic globalization has fostered the emergence of
‗competition states‘, examples
of which are found amongst the tiger economies of East Asia. Competition
states are distinguished
by their recognition of the need to strengthen education and training as the
principal guaranteeing
economic success in a context of intensifying transnational competition.
4.5.3. Social Democratic (Welfare) States
Whereas developmental states practice interventionism in order to stimulate
economic progress,
social-democratic states intervene with a view to bringing about broader
social restructuring, usually
in accordance with principles such as fairness, equality and social justice. In
countries such as Austria
and Sweden, state intervention has been guided by both developmental and
social democratic
priorities. Nevertheless, developmentalism and social democracy do not
always go hand-in-hand. As
Marquand (1988) pointed out, although the UK state was significantly
extended in the period
immediately after World War II along social-democratic lines, it failed to
evolve into a
developmental state. The key to understanding the social-democratic state is
that there is a shift
from a ‗negative‘ view of the state, which sees it as little more than a
necessary evil, to a positive
view of the state, in which it is seen as a means of enlarging liberty and
promoting justice. The
social-democratic state is thus the ideal of both modern liberals and
democratic socialists.
Rather than merely laying down the conditions of orderly existence, the
social-democratic state is an
active participant; in particular, helping to rectify the imbalances and
injustices of a market economy.
It therefore tends to focus less upon the generation of wealth and more upon
what is seen as the
equitable or just distribution of wealth. In practice, this boils down to an
attempt to eradicate
poverty and reduce social inequality. The twin features of a social democratic
state are therefore
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Keynesianism and social welfare. The aim of Keynesian economic policies is
to ‗manage‘ or
‗regulate‘ capitalism with a view to promoting growth and maintaining full
employment. Although
this may entail an element of planning, the classic Keynesian strategy
involves ‗demand
management‘ through adjustments in fiscal policy; that is, in the levels of
public spending and
taxation. The adoption of welfare policies has led to the emergence of so
called ‗welfare states‘,
whose responsibilities have extended to the promotion of social well-being
amongst their citizens. In
this sense, the social-democratic state is an ‗enabling state‘, dedicated to the
principle of individual
empowerment.
4.5.4. Collectivized States
While developmental and social-democratic states intervene in economic life
with a view to guiding
or supporting a largely private economy, collectivized states bring the
entirety of economic life under
state control. The best examples of such states were in orthodox communist
countries such as the
USSR and throughout Eastern Europe. These sought to abolish private
enterprise altogether, and set
up centrally planned economies administered by a network of economic
ministries and planning
committees. So-called ‗command economies‘ were therefore established that
were organized through
a system of ‗directive‘ planning that was ultimately controlled by the highest
organs of the
communist party. The justification for state collectivization stems from a
fundamental socialist
preference for common ownership over private property. However, the use of
the state to attain this
goal suggests a more positive attitude to state power than that outlined in the
classical writings of
Marx and Engels (1820–95).
Marx and Engels by no means ruled out nationalization; Engels, in particular,
recognized that,
during the ‗dictatorship of the proletariat‘, state control would be extended
to include factories, the
banks, transportation and so on. Nevertheless, they envisaged that the
proletarian state would be
strictly temporary, and that it would ‗wither away‘ as class antagonisms
abated. In contrast, the
collectivized state in the USSR became permanent, and increasingly powerful
and bureaucratic.
Under Stalin, socialism was effectively equated with statism, the advance of
socialism being reflected
in the widening responsibilities and powers of the state apparatus. Indeed,
after Khrushchev
announced in 1962 that the dictatorship of the proletariat had ended, the
state was formally
identified with the interests of ‗the whole Soviet peoples.
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4.5.5. Totalitarian States
The most extreme and extensive form of interventionism is found in
totalitarian states. The essence
of totalitarianism is the construction of an all-embracing state, the influence
of which penetrates
every aspect of human existence. The state brings not only the economy, but
also education, culture,
religion, family life and so on under direct state control. The best examples of
totalitarian states are
Hitler‘s Germany and Stalin‘s USSR, although modern regimes such as
Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq
arguably have similar characteristics. The central pillars of such regimes are
a comprehensive process
of surveillance and terroristic policing, and a pervasive system of ideological
manipulation and
control. In this sense, totalitarian states effectively extinguish civil society
and abolish the private
sphere of life altogether. This is a goal that only fascists, who wish to dissolve
individual identity
within the social whole, are prepared openly to endorse. It is sometimes
argued that Mussolini‘s
notion of a totalitarian state was derived from Hegel‘s belief in the state as an
‗ethical community‘
reflecting the altruism and mutual sympathy of its members. From this
perspective, the advance of
human civilization can clearly be linked to the aggrandizement of the state
and the widening of its
responsibilities.
4.5.6. Religious States
On the face of it, a religious state is a contradiction in terms. The modern
state emerged largely
through the triumph of civil authority over religious authority, religion
increasingly being confined
to the private sphere, through a separation between church and state. The
advance of state
sovereignty thus usually went hand in hand with the forward march of
secularization. In the USA,
the secular nature of the state was enshrined in the First Amendment of the
constitution, which
guarantees that freedom of worship shall not be abridged, while in France
the separation of church
and state has been maintained through a strict emphasis on the principle of
laïcité. In countries such
as Norway, Denmark and the UK, ‗established‘ or state religions have
developed, although the
privileges these religions enjoy stop well short of theocratic rule, and their
political influence has
generally been restricted by a high level of social secularization.
Nevertheless, the period since the 1980s has witnessed the rise of the
religious state, driven by the
tendency within religious fundamentalism to reject the public/private divide
and to view religion as
the basis of politics. Far from regarding political realm as inherently corrupt,
fundamentalist
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movements have typically looked to seize control of the state and to use it as
an instrument of moral
and spiritual regeneration. This was evident, for instance, in the process of
‗Islamization‘ introduced
in Pakistan under General Zia-ul-Haq after 1978, the establishment of an
‗Islamic state‘ in Iran as a
result of the 1979 revolution, and, despite its formal commitment to
secularism, the close links
between the Sri Lankan state and Sinhala Buddhism, particularly during the
years of violent struggle
against Tamil separatism. Although, strictly speaking, religious states are
founded on the basis of
religious principles, and, in the Iranian model, contain explicitly theocratic
features, in other cases
religiously-orientated governments operate in a context of constitutional
secularism.
4.6. Understanding Government
Brainstorming:
What is government?
What are the
functions of
government? Discuss
on the systems of
government?
4.6.1. What is Government?
In its broadest sense, to govern means to rule or control others. Government
can therefore be taken
to include any mechanism through which ordered rule is maintained, its
central features being the
ability to make collective decisions and the capacity to enforce them. A form
of government can
thus be identified in almost all social institutions like families, school,
businesses, trade unions and
so on. However, government in our context, is to refer to the formal and
institutional processes that
operate at the national level to maintain public order and facilitate collective
action. It is a body or
organ that administers a country and main organization dealing with affairs
of the whole country.
Thus, government is one of the most essential components and also an
administrative wing of the
state.
In other words, government can also refer to political organization
comprising individuals and
institutions authorized to formulate public policies and conduct affairs of
state. Governments are
empowered to establish and regulate the interrelationships of the people
within their territorial
confines, the relations of the people with community as a whole, and the
dealings of the community
with other political entities. Thus, government applies both to the
governments of national states,
for instance the federal government of Ethiopia and to the governments of
subdivisions of national
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states such as the regional states, provinces, and municipal governments, etc.
of Ethiopia. Any form
of government, to be stable and effective, must possess two essential
attributes: authority and
legitimacy.
Authority: In politics, the word authority implies the ability to compel
obedience. It can simply be
defined as ‗legitimate power.‘ While power is the ability to influence the
behavior of others, authority
is the right to do so. Authority is therefore, based on an acknowledged duty
to obey rather than on
any form of coercion or manipulation. Thus, authority is the legitimacy,
justification and right to
exercise that power. Authority can be expressed as naked force and terror as
was the case in many
undemocratic governments or through a series of more or less transparent
public hearings as in the
case of most democratic states.
Legitimacy: The term legitimacy (from the Latin word legitimare, meaning
‗to declare lawful‘)
broadly means rightfulness. Thus, legitimacy is the attribute of government
that prompts the
governed to comply willingly with its authority. It confers on an order or
commands an authoritative
or binding character, thus transforming power in to authority. Thus,
legitimacy is the popular
acceptance of a governing regime or law as an authority.
Legitimacy is considered as a basic condition to rule; without at least a
minimal amount of
legitimacy, a government will deadlock or collapse. Thus, as long as
legitimacy stays at a certain level,
stability is maintained, if it falls below this level it is endangered. For
instance, most of the times
regimes are seen as requiring the consent of a large proportion of the
population to retain power,
but this is not necessarily be the case, since many unpopular regimes have
been known to survive
provided they are seen as legitimate within a small but influential elite.
Therefore, legitimacy is
gained through the acquisition of power in accordance with recognized or
accepted standards or
principles. That is to say that a legitimate government will ‗do the right
thing‘ and therefore deserves
to be respected and obeyed. The concept legitimacy differs from legality in
the sense that the term
legality does not necessarily guarantee that a government is respected or
that its citizens
acknowledge a duty of obedience.
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4.6.2. Purposes and Functions of Government
One of the central questions of political philosophy is the purpose of
government. Many great
political philosophers have conceived themselves with this question. One
common formulation is
that the main purpose of the state is to protect rights and to preserve justice.
There are several ways
to conceive the differences between the different political views. For
example, one might as in what
areas should the government have jurisdiction, to what extent it may
intervene in those areas, or
even what constitutes intervention in the first place. A lot of institutions can
be said to exist only
because the government provides the framework for their existence; for
instance, Marxist argue that
the institution of private property only exists due to government. Mostly, the
constitutions of
various countries codify views to the purposes, powers, and forms of their
governments, but they
tend to do so in rather vague terms, which particular laws, courts, and
actions of politicians
subsequently flesh out. In general, various countries have translated vague
talk about the purposes of
their governments in to particular state laws, bureaucracies, enforcement
actions, etc.
Evidently, depending on the character of the society of which they are an
expression, different
governments may serve various purposes and functions. In the contemporary
world, however, the
purposes and functions of governments have greatly expanded with the
emergence of government
as the most active force vehicle in the political, social, and economic
developments. Accordingly, the
major purposes and functions of government include, among other things, the
following:
Self-Preservation: Nearly all governments at least claim to have as their
purposes the
establishment of an order that permits predictability, which in turn promotes
a sense of security
among the governed. This may be true whether a government is authoritarian
or democratic.
Sovereign states also take as a primary purpose the defense of the country‘s
territory against
external attack. Thus, as their first and primary purpose and function,
governments are
responsible to prevail order, predictability, internal security, and external
defense.
Distribution and Regulation of Resources: All governments invariably
play the role of
distributing resources in their societies. In addition, governments are the
only institutions that
determine whether resources are going to be controlled by the public or
private sector. Some
governments may decide that the resources should be controlled by the
public, which commonly
known as socialist states and others may decide to be controlled by the
private sector, which are
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capitalist states. In addition, other states may place in between, that is the
resources could be
controlled by both the public and private sector.
Management of Conflicts: Governments usually develop and consolidate
institutions and
procedures for the management of conflicts. These may include the
legislative, executive, and
judicial institutions with established procedures for the supervision and
resolution of conflicts
that may arise in the society.
Fulfillment of Social or Group Aspirations: In addition to the
aforementioned purposes and
functions, governments also strive to fulfill the goals and interests of the
society as a whole and
of various groups within the society. These aspirations may include the
promotion of human
rights, common good, and international peace.
Protection of Rights of Citizens: Some governments, especially those of
constitutional and
democratic governments, are established for the protection of every citizen‘s
human,
democratic, political, social, economic and cultural rights. Constitutional and
democratic
governments are created to serve and protect every citizen‘s rights, not to
dominate them.
Protection of Property: States or governments provide means such as
police and the court
systems that protect private and public property. As such, protection of
private and public
property is, therefore, one among the major purposes and functions of any
government.
Implementations of Moral Conditions: Some governments‘ attempts to
improve the moral
conditions of their citizens that is why, in all countries, laws and institutions
are designed to
shape citizens character in accordance with some standard of morality.
Provision of Goods and Services: Some governments, especially those of
the poor countries,
participate heavily in the provision of goods and services for the public. Some
of the necessary
common goods and services provided by governments may include, provision
of healthcare,
education, development of public works, provision of food, shelter, clothing
for the public,
Developing social services, etc.
4.7. Understanding Citizenship
Brainstorming
Question:
What does the term
citizenship means for
you?

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4.7.1. Defining Citizenship
As you can remember, in chapter one of this course, we have seen the
definitions of citizen and
citizenship. In simplest terms, citizen refers to the person who is a legal
member of a particular State
and one who owes allegiance to that State. To describe it in a different mood,
citizen is a person
who is legally recognized as member of a particular, officially sovereign
political community, entitled
to whatever prerogatives and encumbered with responsibilities.
The means by which we determine whether a person is legal member of a
particular State or
otherwise is called ‗citizenship‘. At the formal level, citizenship simply
denotes to the network of
relationships between the State and the citizen. As such, citizenship refers to
the rules regulating the
legal/formal relations between the State and the individual with respect to
the acquisition and loss of
a given country‘s nationality. However, from political and social perspectives
and at a substantive
level, citizenship is beyond a legal status. Though many agree that citizenship
is a political and legal
artefact that creates a condition of civic equality among those who possess it
with regard to the
prerogatives and responsibilities it bestows and requires, the term citizenship
has been defined
differently by scholars and practitioners. For this reason, citizenship is a
polysemy term which has
had different meanings depending on the historical legacies, political
organization of the state,
ideologies and socio-cultural context of societies. Several countries refer to
the term citizenship in
their national language as expressing merely the judicial relationship
between the citizen and the
State while others denote it with the social roles of citizens in their society.
Generally, the concept of
citizenship varies from society to society, depending on the place, the
historical moment and
political organization. Although differences may exist, there are common
elements such as rights,
duties, belonging, identity and participation one can find in definitions of the
term.
i) Citizenship as a Status of Rights: The mere fact of being a citizen
makes the person a creditor
of a series of rights. In this sense, current political discourse often tends to
identify citizenship with
rights. Marshall 1998, distinguishes three types of rights that historically
have been established in
succession: the civil, or the rights necessary for the development of individual
liberty; political, i.e. the
right to participate in the exercise of political power, as an elected member
or as a voter and social
rights, which are those that guarantee the right to public safety, health, the
right to education, etc.,
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that is the right to a decent life (these rights are discussed in detail in
Chapter four of this module). It
is precisely these rights that give us the status of citizens, to enjoy these
means to be a full member
of a democratic society. Each right is often pursued in specific institutional
forums: legal/civil rights
are mainly exercised in the courts; political rights are used in voting booths,
legislatures and street
protests; social rights are often activated or disputed in government
buildings.
Oldfield (1990), Mouffe (1992) and Lister (1997) conceptualize citizenship as
both a status and an
active practice. Citizenship as a status accords a range of rights and
obligations. That is why; Jones
and Gaventa (2002) assert that rights and obligations lie at the heart of the
language of citizenship.
Hence, legally and sociologically speaking, a citizen is a person who has the
privilege to enjoy the
citizenship rights that are essential for agency. Hohfeld (1978), for instance,
discovered four
components of rights known as ‗the Hohfeldian incidents‘ namely, liberty
(privilege), claim, power
and immunity.
a) Liberty Right: is a freedom given for the right-holder to do something
and there are no
obligations on other parties to do or not to do anything to aid the bearer to
enjoy such rights. The
beholder got benefits from liberty rights without obliging others.
Furthermore, no one including the
State has any legitimate authority to interfere with the citizen‘s freedom
except to prevent harm to
others. For instance, every citizen has the right to movement. His/her right to
movement goes to
the level where another‘s claim right limits his/her freedom (see also through
articles 25 to 34 of the
FDRE constitution). But what does it means by claim rights?
b) Claim Rights: are the inverse of liberty rights since it entails
responsibility upon another person
or body. The duty bearer has to accomplish something that is indispensable
for right holders to
enjoy the claim rights. That is, there must be somebody who is there to do or
refrain from doing
something to/for the claim holder, i.e., claim rights are rights enjoyed by
individuals when others
discharge their obligations. Hence, in contrast to liberty rights, claim rights
impose a corresponding
duty on others to help respect and protect the bearers. For instance, social
rights such as
unemployment and public service benefits are claims that directly depend on
taxes paid by others. To
mention, a contract between employer and employee confers on the
employee a right to be paid
his/her wages. The employee has a claim that the employer has a duty to the
employee to pay those
wages. Article 41(3 and 4) of the FDRE constitution underlines the
responsibility of the government
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to avail publicly funded social services such as health and education since all
Ethiopian citizens have
the rights to enjoy such basic privileges, claim rights.
Liberty and claim rights termed as primary rules, rules requiring that people
perform or refrain from
doing particular action. There are two other rights termed as secondary
rules, according to
Hohfeldian incidents. These secondary rules specify how agents/beholders
can introduce, change
and alter the primary rules (liberty and claim rights).
c) Powers Rights: are rights regarding the modification of first-order rights.
They are cooperative
controls that are imposed on others. The holder of a power, be it a
government or a citizen, can
change or cancel other people and his/her own entitlements. For example,
Article 40(1) of the
FDRE constitution asserts that Ethiopian citizens have the rights to the
ownership of private
property and to modify, sale, donate or transfer their property to a third
party. As it is stated in
Article 33(3) the FDRE constitution, every Ethiopian citizen has the right to
renounce his/her
Ethiopian citizenship/nationality which shows the power rights of the
citizens. Similarly, a
government has also the power to modify legal rights through imposing to or
removing duties from
citizens.
d) Immunity Rights: allow bearers escape from controls and thus they are
the opposite of power
rights. Immunity rights entail the absence of a power in other party to alter
the right-holder‘s
normative situation in some way. For instance, civil servants have a right not
to be dismissed from
their job after a new government comes to power. Witness in the court has a
right not to be ordered
to incriminate himself/herself. Additionally, as it is affirmed in Article 18(3) of
the FDRE
constitution, ―no one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory
labour‖. Immunities also
comprise compensation for rights violations that occurred in the past and at
least partially make up
for past injustices or uneven burdens.
Discussion
Question:
Assume that you have
a smart phone. Then,
discuss with your
class mates about
your liberty, claim,
power and immunity
rights over your smart
phone.
ii) Membership and Identity: Citizenship is associated with membership of
a political community,
which implies integration into that community with a specific identity that is
common to all
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members who belongs to it. The criteria for membership have been linked to
shared territory,
common culture, ethnic characteristics, history, etc. However, nowadays, we
often use citizenship to
signify not just membership in some group but certain standards of proper
conduct. Some people –
those who contribute to the well-being of their community are understood to
be the ‗true‘ citizens.
Those who free-ride are mere members who do not seem to understand,
embrace, or embody what
citizenship really means. When communities, public or private, bestow
citizenship awards to some
of their members, it is this usage they invoke. It obviously implies that only
‗good‘ citizens are
genuine citizens in the full meaning of the term.
iii) Participation: Participation occupies a key position in citizenship.
Nonetheless, individuals
differ in what approaches they find important – some people focus on their
private affairs while
others actively participate in the life of the society, including politics. There
are two approaches in
this regard; minimalists and maximalists. A minimalist approach to
citizenship characterized by a
kind of basic passive compliance with the rules of a particular
community/State, while the
maximalist approach imply active, broad participation of citizens engagement
in the State.
However, as Ferguson (1999) asserts, people cannot realize their rights (be it
social, economic and
political rights), if they fail to exercise their democratic rights to participation
in decision-making that
affect, directly or indirectly, their affairs. Since citizens are embodies with
social relations, ―to act as a
citizen requires a sense of agency: the belief that one can act; acting as
citizen, especially collectively‖
(Lister, 1998: 38). Therefore, framing citizenship as agency place undue
obligation on people to
consciously exercise their citizenship rights. For example, the involvement of
service users in the
decision-making process of public services helps them to consider themselves
as active agents
making and creating the services they receive rather than being passive
beneficiaries. That is why
there is a dichotomy between passive and active citizenship.
iv) Inclusion and Exclusion: All individuals living in a particular state do
not necessary mean that
all are citizens. For instance, there are non-citizens visiting, working and
living in Ethiopia branded
as foreigners/aliens. Foreigners have the likelihood of staying in the
territorial administration of
Ethiopia as far as they have authorized visas. The aliens, therefore, have
rights just like the
Ethiopian citizens such as the right to life, movement, and protection of the
law. Additionally, there
are also responsibilities shared by both the non-citizens and citizens
domiciled in Ethiopia
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particularly in respecting the laws of the country. However, citizens are
fundamentally different from
aliens in enjoying privileges and shouldering responsibilities. There are some
political and economic
rights that are reserved to and duties to be discharged by citizens only. For
instance, an Ethiopian
citizen has the right to get access to land, vote and to be elected and get
Ethiopian passport.
Likewise, defending the constitution as well as Ethiopia territory from foreign
aggressors are solely
the duty of Ethiopian citizens. Generally, citizenship as legal relationship
between a person and a
State is different from the specific legal relation exist between foreigners and
the host State.
Citizenship status, however, is not only restricted to persons. Organizations
and [endemic] animals
could also be considered as citizens. The term "corporate citizenship" (CC)
has been used
increasingly by corporations, consultants and scholars to echo, underscore,
extend, or reorient
certain aspects of corporate social responsibility. This is important, for it
offers innovative
conceptual aspect for understanding business-society relation, and in
particular for identifying
specific roles and responsibilities for corporate, governmental, and other
actors in society. Just like
citizens, corporations and private organizations do have the right to make
profits and maximize their
benefits. As well, they have the duty to pay tax and protect the environment
similar to individual
persons of citizens. In the modern time, corporations‘ duty is not restricted to
protecting the
environment and paying tax. Beyond the formal responsibilities, they have
also corporate social
responsibility (CSR). CSR requires corporations to engage in social and
development affairs such as
helping individuals with disabilities, HIV/AIDS carriers, constructing schools
and health centers.
Moreover, in the era of globalization, it has become increasingly customary
to use ‗citizen‘ in a
different way to indicate membership of a person beyond a particular political
community, the State.
Terms like ‗global citizen‘ or ‗cosmopolitan citizen‘ are commonly used to
refer to every human
living in the earth planet.
4.7.2. Theorizing Citizenship
Citizenship is not an eternal essence rather a cultural artifact mold by people
through time and that
is why the notion of citizenship and the meaning attached to it changes with
the change in political
thoughts, ideologies, policies and government. While some States relies on
markets to allocate
citizenship rights with very restricted government/State intervention, other
States acknowledge
government intervention in the market. Besides, all citizenship rights haven‘t
got institutional
recognition at the same period. Some of the citizenship rights such as
women‘s rights are recently
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endorsed into law. For instance, the way citizenship has been framed and
defined in the post-1991
Ethiopia is different from the time before, and the list and scope of
constitutional rights too.
Citizenship obligations vary too, ranging from States where military service is
required (like Eritrea
and North Korea) to those states (including Ethiopia) where every citizen,
under normal
circumstances, is not obliged to take military trainings or serve. As a result,
various citizenship
theories emerge out of such historical trajectories.
Therefore, to realize the notion of citizenship, what it is and what it could
become, understanding its
theoretical explanations come out to be the crucial one. Though there are
different approaches to
citizenship, most contemporary works that address the issue of citizenship
speak of the following
four approaches: liberal, communitarian, republican and multicultural
citizenship.
[Link]. Citizenship in Liberal Thought
Class Discussion:
Have you ever heard
the word liberalism?
What comes to your
mind when you
heard/read the
word?
Liberal theory of citizenship begins with the individual person (the self). The
self exists as the true
symbol of liberal theory. Accordingly, it gives a strong emphasis to the
individual liberty of the
citizen, and rights that adhere to each and every person. The self is
represented as a calculating
holder of preferences and rights in a liberal society. Hence, in liberalism the
primary political unit as
well as the initial focus of all fundamental political inquiry is the individual
person.
Liberals insist that individuals should be free to decide on their own
conception of the good life, and
applaud the liberation of individuals from any ascribed or inherited status.
Advocators of this
though argue that individual citizens act rationally, corresponding to the
constitutions and laws of
the State, to advance their own interests. As well, individuals conceive of
themselves and of one
another as having the moral power to have a conception of the good. John
Locke (1960), one
among the influential early expositors of liberal theory, viewed individuals as
endowed with
reasoning skills, through which they can discern and act upon the dictates of
divinely given natural
law. If individuals act irrationally, it means that they debase their natural
faculties and misapprehend
what natural law requires. Locke argued that natural law and the reason to
apprehend compel
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individuals to consider their own and others interests, to enter into civil and
political society, act in
the community and thus to value social cooperation and self-restraint. Thus,
the individual is morally
prior to the community: the community matters only because it contributes to
the well-being of the
individuals who compose it. If those individuals no longer find it worthwhile
to maintain existing
cultural practices, then the community has no independent interest in
preserving those practices, and
no right to prevent individuals from modifying or rejecting them.
Likewise, liberals deem internal factors as the primary reasons that
determine personal identity. They
provide little consideration to the environmental factors in the process of
shaping the self. Beyond
this, liberalists claims that the individual person shapes all other social
aggregations, including the
state. Therefore, citizenship and other political institutions in a given State
are means that are
accepted only conditionally – i.e., as long as they, in the individual‘s
calculations, foster the
maximization of the citizen‘s preferences/benefits. John Stuart Mill, for
instance, regarded
individuality and self-interest as the source of social, not just personal,
progress and well-being. He
has insisted that untrammeled freedom of individual thought, inquiry,
worship, and expression is the
surest path to truth and social improvement. Under this thought, the role of
the State is to protect
and create convenient environment to help citizens enjoy and exercise of
their rights; the State has
an instrumental function. According to Mill, individual liberty and State
action tend to be opposed
to each other. Increasing the power of the State means reducing individual
liberty describing the
myopia, corruptibility, and other defects of state officials exercising coercive
powers, the better
outcomes when individuals pursue their own ends, and the natural sociability
of private actors in a
liberal.
The pursuit of one‘s own interests that do not affect others is entirely the
province of the individual,
within which one must be free to do as one pleases without the law‘s
interference. It follows that
individuals have the right to choose their level of participation in the
community in order to fulfill
and maximize their own self-interest. If they choose not to do so, their
citizenship is not
jeopardized. Where others‘ interests are affected, however, the State may be
justified in regulating
the activity. There are three fundamental principles which a liberal
government must provide and
protect: (1) equality, whereby the government has to treat individuals who
are similarly situated in
the same way and afford them the same rights; (2) due process, such that the
government is required
to treat individuals over whom it exercises power fairly; and (3) mutual
consent by which
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membership in the political community rests on the consensual relationship
between the individual
and the state. By protecting these three values, the government ensures that
it provides protection
for individuals' rights and liberties, so they can effectively participate in the
political sphere.
In line with this, Berlin (1969) and Held (2001) consider a dual
characterization of liberalism ranging
from a protective, defensive, conservative liberalism focused on negative
liberty, subjective rights
and individualism, ideals that emphasize individuals‘ right to be left alone
and to pursue their own
projects free of the State compulsion, all the way to a liberalism oriented to
development, which is
affirmative, progressive and focused ‗positive liberty‘ notions. Common to
positive liberty accounts
is the claim that the State should act affirmatively to create or secure those
substantive entitlements
(e.g. income, health care, and education) that individuals need in order to
lead the dignified,
independent lives essential to their freedom. However, freedom under
government, as John Lock
(1960 cited in Schuck, 2002: 133) has already described it, embraces living in
conformity with a
predictable, non-arbitrary law to which one has directly or indirectly
consented.
Generally, the bedrock principles of liberal theory of citizenship are:
individuals are free to form
their own opinions, pursue their own projects, and transact their own
business untrammeled by the
State‘s political agenda and coercive power, except in so far as individual
actions implicate the
interests of other members of society. Liberal citizens are thus left to their
own devices without
much guidance from the state. They must decide for themselves how to use
their constitutionally
secured freedoms, decide what kind of citizen to be – including the possibility
that they will decide
to forswear any political activity at all, preferring to retreat into an entirely
private world of family,
friends, market transactions, and self-absorption and gratification, into a
world largely indifferent to
any public goods not generated within these parochial domains. Citizenship
cannot be defined based
on shared identity or a common culture; the individual chooses his own
affections, and any
identification with other individuals is rather a product of their legal status as
citizens. Equal rights bind
citizens together in a legal community of free individuals. This does not imply
the complete rejection
of culture and identity as such, but identity and culture are not a priori
foundations for citizenship.
Group Discussion:
Do you agree that
liberal theory of
citizenship is the
current guiding
citizenship approach
of
Ethiopia?

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Critics of Liberal Theory of Citizenship
First, how can individuals be/are prevented from destroying each other and
from destroying the
basis of their mutually beneficial interaction? The most common problems
related with advocating
individualism are free-raiders problem and the tragedy of the commons.
The free raiders problem occurs when those who benefit from resource or
service do not pay for it,
which results in an under provision of the resource/service. Particularly it
occurs when property
rights are not clearly defined and imposed. Whereas, tragedy of the commons
is a dilemma arises
when individuals act independently and rationally consulting their own self-
interest ultimately
deplete shared limited environmental resources. Since no one owns the
commons, e.g. atmosphere
and grazing lands, each individual has an incentive to utilize common
resources as much as possible
they can. Consequently, environmental pressures and humanitarian
emergencies pose great
challenges to liberal States, demanding a larger State role in allocating
scarce resources, rights, and
statuses among competing interests often bearing compelling moral claims.
Action to protect the
environment involves international agreements to collectively reduce
emissions or regulate other
activities. These sorts of agreements involve countries giving up short-term
advantages for a longterm common benefit and are designed to prevent any
one of them free-riding on the actions of
others – for example, by continuing to pollute while other countries cut their
emissions, thereby
reaping the environmental advantages without paying any of the costs.
Second, liberalists affirmatively valorize the privatization of personality,
commitment, and activity.
Hence, the problem has to do with is the ways in which individuals and their
ideas are framed. The
preferences and insights of autonomous individuals might originate from
impure process, the
information they were provided might be biased or meaningless, or their
preferences might have
arisen from a fit of anger.
Third, as we have seen in the above, individuals have absolute freedom either
to actively engage in
politics or ignore at all. Deducing from this, the citizens do not only have the
right to participate in
the political affairs of their country but also the right not to engage in it and
then retreat into their
private pursuits if they wish. Needless to say, liberal thought facilitate the
pursuit of wealth and the
indulgence of material pleasures and thus, as a matter of fact and preference,
liberal societies tend to
be less egalitarian. This not only leaves less time available for public
regarding activities but also
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diminishes the social prestige. All in all, if many citizens are not willing to
devote time or give
attention to politics, power will become an instrument of the few rather than
of the many, and
polity‘s very survival in a democratic form will be endangered.
Fourth, liberalists justify that inequalities arise out of differences in
individual talents, values, and
choices – differences, moreover, that the State cannot seek to efface without
endangering citizens‘
liberties. Perhaps the most daunting challenge to liberalism, then, is to
reduce inequalities to socially
acceptable and politically sustainable from the views of the disadvantageous
groups, while at the
same time vindicating the liberal commitment to the protection of individual
liberties. For several
reasons, however, liberalism may actually increase economic and other kinds
of inequalities rather
than reduce them. The persistence of inequalities among liberal citizens and
between them and
aliens are bound to engender much social and political unrest and tensions,
unless and until the
benefits of market-driven economic growth ‗trickle down‘ to the socially
disadvantaged. Structurally,
as well as ideologically, liberal states make redistributive policies difficult to
enact, implement, and
legitimate. In a liberal social system, the private sector controls most of the
incentive systems that
drive and shape individual and group behavior; these systems are largely
immune from State control.
More fundamentally, liberalism contrives to keep the State weak and
permeable to private interests,
institutionalizing its endemic fear of state power through political structures
and practices that
widely disperse and carefully confine the state‘s influence.
Finally, liberalism posits a State that maintains substantial normative
neutrality. In this conception,
the liberal State should neither choose among competing visions of the good
society nor place its
thumb on the scales in other ways, such as redistributive policies, that favor
particular visions. It
should instead play a far more modest, supplementing role, facilitating
individuals‘ pursuit of their
own projects or visions. The issues of how liberal State‘s role remains modest
become a matter of
great controversy and of course history has proved impossibility of the State
to maintain neutral.
Hence scholars in the field devise alternative thoughts to citizenship like
republican, communitarian
and multicultural approaches to citizenship.
Class Discussion:
Discuss with your
classmates about the
criticisms of the
liberal citizenship
approach.

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[Link]. Citizenship in Communitarian Thought
The debate on citizenship as the expression of community revived with the
emergence of
communitarianism since the 1980s. Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, Michael
Walzer and Alisdair
MacIntyre are some among the proponents of communitarianism. Mainly,
Taylor‘s Sources of the Self
(1989) Walzer‘s Spheres of Justice (1983), Sandel‘s Liberalism and the Limits
of Justice (1982) and
MacIntyre‘s After Virtue (1981) established the foundations of
communitarianism.
Communitarianism is as an approach emphasizes on the importance of
society in articulating the
good. The communitarian (also known as the nationalist) model argue that
the identity of citizens
cannot be understood outside the territory in which they live, their culture
and traditions, arguing
that the basis of its rules and procedures and legal policy is the shared
common good. The political
subject, above all, belongs to a community, a community to which he/she
owes allegiance and
commitment. Thus, rather than viewing group practices as the product of
individual choices,
communitarians view individuals as the product of social practices.
Moreover, communitarians often deny that the interests of communities can
be reduced to the
interests of their individual members. Privileging individual autonomy is seen
as destructive of
communities. A healthy community maintains a balance between individual
choice and protection of
the communal way of life and seeks to limit the extent to which the former
can erode the latter. As a
result, the good of the community is much above individual rights and
citizenship comes from the
community identity, enabling people to participate. The State must provide a
policy for the common
good, according to the way of life of the community. Communitarians
examine the ways shared
conceptions of the good are formed, transmitted, justified and enforced.
―Whether citizenship as membership of a political community rests on the
individual or a prior
cultural or moral community is what divides the protagonists, the liberal and
communitarian theories
of citizenship‖ (Delanty, 2002: 159). For liberalists, citizenship rests on the
individual and it is the
individual that determines its aspects, but for Communitarians citizenship is
rooted and lies with the
people who surround the individual. Communitarianism claims that an
individual‘s sense of identity
is produced only through relations with others in the community that nourish
him/her. An
individual person cannot escape from the control of his/her culture and thus
the self/individuality is
culturally constructed, socially-embedded. Describing in another mood,
whatever individuality the
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citizen has is derived from and circumscribed by the community. According
to this thought,
individual interests, identity, freedom and equality can only be meaningfully
practiced and realized
through the prioritization of the common good, and once the members of the
polity share common
virtues and goals.
All in all, the two defining features of communitarian perspective are: first, no
individual is entirely
self-created; instead the citizen and his/her identity is deeply constructed by
the society where
he/she is a member. Newcomers such as children and immigrants to a society
must assimilate
themselves in order to participate in community activities. Only when an
individual successfully
assimilates can the society achieve its common goals and become effective.
Second, as a
consequence of assimilation, a meaningful bond is said to occur between the
individual person and
his/her community. Insofar as an individual understands that what is good for
the community is
good for him as well, he will also understand that if he does not participate in
the community, the
common good will be diminished.
Communitarian citizenship thought has been criticized for various reasons.
Communitarianism is
hostile towards individual rights and autonomy – even that it is authoritarian
since it melts the self
into the society. A community push people to sacrifice large parts of their
individual differences in
order to follow shared values. Other critics argue that communities are
dominated by power elites
or that one group within a community will force others to abide by its values.
Communitarian theorists tend to emphasize the communal construction of
social individuals and
social formations, and of values and practices. A problem is that these
constructive processes
themselves need to be analyzed in terms of power - power which can account
for when individuals
manage to reconstruct their circumstances, when they move from context to
context, when they get
trapped, when they rest content.
Group Discussion:
Discuss, in group, the
strong and weak sides
of communitarian
citizenship approach.

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[Link]. Citizenship in Republican Thought
Republican citizenship theory put emphasis on both individual and group
rights. Means republican
though attempts to incorporate the liberal notion of the self-interested
individual within the
communitarian framework of egalitarian and community belonging. Like
communitarian thought, it
emphasizes on what bind citizens together in to a particular community.
Citizenship should be
understood as a common civic identity, shaped by a common public culture. It
requires citizens to
bring together the facets of their individual lives as best they can and helps
them to find unity in the
midst of diversity. However, republicans don‘t pressurize individuals to
surrender their particular
identities like the communitarian thought. Instead, it is underpinned by a
concern with individual
obligation to participate in communal affairs. It encourages people to look for
the common ground
on which they stand, despite their differences, as citizens. At this juncture, an
effective balance
between toleration and obligation is required. Toleration involves citizens
participating politically as
advocates of particular interests, with their concern focused on ‗fairness
between different sections
of the community and the pursuit of common ends.
Just like liberal citizenship though, republican school advocate self-
government. Yet, republican
thought do not agree with the case that all forms of restraints deprive
people‘s freedom. Liberalism,
as we have already discussed, advocates absolute freedom of individuals and
gives insignificant
consideration towards nurturing the public virtues that lead people to do
their duties as citizens. In
contrast to liberalism, individuals must overcome their personal inclinations
and set aside their
private interests when necessary to do what is best for the public.
Republicans, thus, acknowledge
the value of public life. To them, public life draws people out, and it draws
them together. It draws
out their talents and capacities, and it draws them together into community –
into connection and
solidarity, and occasionally conflict, with other members of the public.
In view of that, there are two essential elements of the republican citizenship:
publicity and selfgovernment. Publicity basically refers to the condition of
being open and public. The public is not a
mere collection of people but a sphere of life where people joined by common
concerns that takes
them beyond their private lives. Besides, public affairs such as politics, as the
common concern of
the public, must be conducted openly in the public for reasons of
convenience. In this case, the rule
of law and civic virtue are central elements. Politics requires public debate
and decisions, which in
turn require regular, established procedures – the rule of law is the standard
formula for the
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republicans. The citizens and governments in a republican State shall not act
arbitrary, impulsively,
or recklessly but according to the laws of the State.
However, without citizens who are willing to take an active part in the
government, a republic State
could not survive. True citizenship requires commitment to the common good
and active
participation in public affairs – civic virtue. Republics must thus engage in
what Sandel (1996: 6)
calls ―a formative politics… that cultivates in citizens the qualities of
character that self-government
requires‖. Constitutional safeguards may be necessary to resist corruption in
the forms of avarice,
ambition, luxury, and idleness, but they will not suffice to sustain freedom
under the rule of law in
the absence of a significant degree of virtue among the citizens. To say that
‗Amare‘ is a citizen of a
republican State, it is to mean that he enjoys the protection of the State‘s
laws and is subject to the
laws. It is also to say that, as a citizen, ‗Amare‘ is supposed to be on an equal
footing with other
citizens. The rule of law thus requires not only active and public-spirited
participation in public
affairs – the civic virtue of the republican citizen – but also the proper form of
government.
Republican citizenship has been criticized by scholars who advocate
multicultural and other
approaches of citizenship. The first is that the republican conception of
citizenship is no longer
realistic. Republican citizenship is an irredeemably nostalgic ideal in this age
of globalization. To be a
citizen, in the republican view, is to be a partner in a common enterprise, and
people will be likely to
put the common interest ahead of their own – to act as true citizens – only
when they feel
themselves to be part of such an enterprise. The Internet and satellite
television are unlikely to
inspire this sense of community on a global basis. The second is that the
conception poses a threat
to an open, egalitarian, and pluralistic society. This second criticism is put
forcefully by Young (1990:
117), who detects a denial of ‗difference‘ in republican attempts because in
practice republican
politicians enforced homogeneity by excluding from citizenship all those
defined as different. To be
sure, Young‘s point is that the search for common ground serves to justify the
dominance of a
particular – and typically male – group.
The third point concerns the claim that citizenship involves a false ideal of
impartiality. Here, the
republican response is to deny that the ideal is false. We should indeed strive
to think and act, when
establishing laws and policies, as members of the public rather than self-
interested individuals. But
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this does not mean that we cannot take account of the particular needs and
interests of the people –
even people who ‗stand in different social locations‘ – who compose the
polity.
[Link]. Multicultural Citizenship
The increasing diversity in States challenges particularly the liberal
conceptions of citizenship. The
liberal view the rights of the individual as paramount and group identities
and rights as inconsistent
with and inimical to the rights of the individual. A number of factors have
caused scholars to raise
inquires about the liberal analysis and expectations for identity groups in
democratic States. These
factors include the rise of the ethnic revitalization movements demanding
recognition of group
rights as well as individual rights; the structural exclusion of racial, gender,
ethnic, and language
groups; and increasing immigration throughout the world that made States
multinational and
polytechnic. They raise complex and divisive questions about how States can
deal effectively with
the problem of constructing civic communities that reflect and incorporate
the diversity of citizens
and yet have an overarching set of shared values, ideals, and goals to which
all of the citizens of a
State are committed. Consequently, the conception of citizenship in a modern
State should be
expanded to include cultural rights and group rights within a democratic
framework.
There is a need to move towards a new type of multicultural citizenship
appropriate to highly
diverse societies and contemporary economic trends. Recognition of group
difference implies
departing from the idea of all citizens as simply equal individuals and instead
seeing them
simultaneously as having equal rights as individuals and different needs and
wants as members of
groups with specific characteristics and social situations which is basically
the focus of multicultural
citizenship discuss four principles of multicultural citizenship which are
presented here under.
i) Taking equality of citizenship rights as a starting point. It is essential to
ensure that all members of society
are formally included as citizens, and enjoy equal rights and equality before
the law. Just like the
liberal perspective, multicultural citizenship concerns with the universal
rights of members.
ii) Recognizing that Formal equality of rights does not necessarily lead to
equality of respect, resources, opportunities or
welfare. Formal equality can mask and legitimize disadvantage and
discrimination. It is necessary to
consciously recognize group difference and to understand its causes. While
liberal theorists believe
that the universal rights accorded through citizenship safeguard the cultural
membership of
individuals, theorists within multicultural school of thought envisage the need
for additional rights
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for vulnerable minority groups, in order for such groups to sustain
themselves amidst the dominant
culture(s).
iii) Establishing mechanisms for group representation and participation.
Despite formal equality, disadvantaged
groups are often excluded from decision-making processes. It is necessary to
make arrangements to
ensure the participation of people directly affected, wherever important
decisions are made.
iv) Differential treatment for people with different characteristics, needs and
wants. Liberalists‘ universal
conception of citizenship within a stratified society results in the treatment of
some groups as
second-class citizens because group rights are not recognized and the
principle of equal treatment is
strictly applied. Treating people equally, despite the fact that past actions
have made them unequal,
can perpetuate inequality. Government should take measures to combat
barriers based on gender,
sexual preference, age, disability, location, Aboriginality, ethnicity, religion,
area of origin and culture
(Castles, 1999: iii). In this view, multicultural citizenship allows for
marginalized voices to be heard.
A differentiated conception of citizenship is needed to help marginalized
groups attain civic equality
and recognition in multicultural democratic nations. Society is formed of
different groups which are
either dominant or oppressed (Young, 1989). This strand of differentiated
citizenship therefore
concerns the denouncing of universal rights and the provision of special
rights for oppressed
groups. This suggests a politics for difference and not one geared towards the
possibility of
integration.
Critics of differentiated citizenship worry that if groups are encouraged by
the very terms of
citizenship to turn inward and focus on their 'difference' (whether racial,
ethnic, religious, sexual,
and so on), then the hope of a larger fraternity of all Americans will have to
be abandoned.
Citizenship will cease to be a device to cultivate a sense of community and a
common sense of
purpose. Nothing will bind the various groups in society together and prevent
the spread of mutual
mistrust or conflict.
Critics also worry that differentiated citizenship would create a "politics of
grievance." If, as Young
implies, only oppressed groups are entitled to differentiated citizenship, this
may encourage group
leaders to devote their political energy to establishing a perception of
disadvantage-rather than
working to overcome it-in order to secure their claim to group rights
(Kymlicka and Norman, 1994:

4.7.3. Modes/Ways of Acquiring and Loosing Citizenship

Citizenship right was one of the rights guaranteed to individuals by the
Universal Declaration of
Human Rights adopted in 1948. According to Article 15 of the declaration,
―everyone has a right to
a nationality‖ and that ―no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his
nationality.‖ Hence, in the
following sections we will discuss the ways of acquiring and loosing
citizenship.
[Link]. Ways of Acquiring Citizenship
Since the grant of citizenship remains within the discretion of the state
concerned, the means of
acquiring a particular State‘s citizenship vary from country to country.
However, the common ways
of acquiring citizenship can be grouped in to two: citizenship by birth and
citizenship through
naturalization/law.
i) Citizenship from birth/of Origin: individuals can get citizenship status
of a particular State
either because he/she is born in the territorial administration of that or
his/her mother and/or
father are citizens of the State in question. That is, there are two principles of
citizenship from birth
commonly known as Jus Soli (law/right of the soil) and Jus Sanguinis
(law/right of blood). Whereas
Jus Soli is a principle whereby an individual is permitted to obtain citizenship
status of a particular
State because he/she was born in the territorial administration of that
country, Jus Sanguinis is a
norm where citizenship acquired claiming one‘s parents citizenship status.
However, jus soli could
not apply to children born from diplomats and refugees live in a host State.
Children born from
diplomats in a host State where jus soli is allowed do not have the right to
claim citizenship status of
the host country because of two special principles (international diplomatic
immunities):
extraterritoriality and inviolability principles.
ii) Citizenship by Naturalization/Law: is the legal process by which
foreigners become citizens
of another country. The common sub-principles of acquiring citizenship
through naturalization are
the following. Political case (secession, merger and subjugation), grant on
application, marriage,
legitimatization/adoption, and reintegration/restoration. Citizenship by
political case is a process by
which an individual person acquires citizenship of a certain State following
the conquest or cession
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of a territory. In case a particular territory is merged to or subjugated by
another country, people
domiciled in that territory would acquire a new citizenship. Besides, in cases
of secession option may
be given to individuals to choose either country‘s citizenship. Let us now
discuss the remaining ways
of acquiring citizenship vis-à-vis to Ethiopia.
[Link]. The Modes of Acquiring Ethiopian Citizenship
Before the 1930, there wasn‘t officially inscribed legal document that deals
with citizenship. But in
1930 Ethiopia adopted a legal document named as ―Ethiopian Nationality
Law‖. Recently, this
nationality law has replaced by another legal document called ―Ethiopian
Nationality Proclamation NO.
378/2003‖ which was adopted in 2003 by the House of People‘s
Representatives. This proclamation
is enacted in accordance to article 6 and 33 of the 1995 FDRE constitution
and affirmed that a
person can acquire Ethiopian citizenship either by birth or naturalization.
Now, let‘s discuss the
modes of acquiring Ethiopian citizenship included in the 2003 nationality
proclamation.
1) Acquisition by Descent: the 1930 Ethiopian nationality law asserted that
―any person born in
Ethiopia or abroad, whose father or mother is Ethiopian, is an Ethiopian
subject.‖ In its Article 6(1),
the 1995 FDRE constitution stated that ―any person of either sex shall be an
Ethiopian national
where both or either parent is Ethiopian.‖ In line with this, Article 3 of the
2003 nationality
proclamation ascribed two principles under the acquisition of Ethiopian
citizenship by decent. One,
―Any person shall be an Ethiopian national by descent where both or either
of his/her parent is
Ethiopian;‖ second, ―An infant who is found abandoned in Ethiopia shall,
unless proved to have a
foreign nationality, be deemed to have been born to an Ethiopian parent and
shall acquire Ethiopian
nationality.‖ According to the proclamation, any person can‘t acquire
Ethiopian citizenship through
the principle of Jus Soli (law of soil). It means that children born in the
territorial administration of
Ethiopian do not have the right to acquire Ethiopian citizenship. Birth place
of a child is not a
requirement to acquire Ethiopian nationality. Wherever a child was born,
he/she has the right to
attain Ethiopian citizenship if, and only if, he/she is born from an Ethiopian
father or mother or
both Ethiopian parents.
2) Acquisition by Law (Naturalization): Article 6(2) of the 1995 FDRE
constitution also avers
that aliens can get Ethiopian citizenship. Under naturalization, there are
various ways of acquiring
Ethiopian citizenship in accordance with of the amended Ethiopian
nationality proclamation of
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2003 recognized by the provisions of Articles 5 to 12 of the 2003 nationality
proclamation. These
are:
a) Grant on Application (registration): happens when an alien requests a
host state to be granted
citizenship status of the country in question. However, host countries,
including Ethiopia, do not
simply grant citizenship status to those who apply unless they fulfill certain
requirements. The
common ones are applicant‘s age, length of residence in the host country,
criminal conviction,
income and moral character. But the criteria vary from country to country.
For instance, according
to Article 5 of the 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation, an applicant shall
get Ethiopian
nationality if, and only if, he/she (1) reach the age of majority, 18 years; (2)
lived in Ethiopia for a
total of at least four years; (3) has sufficient and lawful source of income
(economically self-reliant);
(4) is able to communicate in any of the indigenous languages spoken in
Ethiopia; (5) has a good
character; (6) has not recorded criminal conviction; (7) has been released
from his/her previous
nationality or the possibility of obtaining such a release upon the acquisition
of Ethiopian nationality
or that he/she is a stateless person; and (8) takes the oath of allegiance
indicated in Article 12 of the
proclamation: ―I-----, solemnly affirm that I will be a loyal national of the
federal democratic republic of Ethiopia
and be faithful to its constitution‖.
b) Cases of Marriage: an alien who is married to an Ethiopian citizen have
the possibility of
acquiring Ethiopian citizenship. Yet, there are certain preconditions set in
Article 6 of the
proclamation in which the marriage and the alien married to an Ethiopian
citizen must fulfill just to
allow the foreigner acquire Ethiopian nationality by law. One, the marriage
shall be thru in
accordance with the laws of Ethiopia or the State where the marriage is
contracted; second, the
marriage shall lapse at least for two years; third, the alien married to an
Ethiopian citizen have to live
in Ethiopian for at least one year preceding the submission of the application;
and fourth, the
alien have to reach the age of majority, be a morally good person, and lastly
take the oath of
allegiance stated under Article 12 of the proclamation.
c) Cases of Adoption (Legitimating): this process whereby an illegitimate
child get citizenship
status of his/her caretaker‘s nationality. In this case, Article 7 of the
nationality proclamation asserts
that a child adopted by and grown under the caretaker of Ethiopian citizen
has the right to acquire
Ethiopian citizenship. But, the child could get Ethiopian citizenship if the
adopted child has not
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attained the age of majority; lives in Ethiopia together with his/her adopting
parent; and has been
released from his/her previous nationality or the possibility of obtaining such
a release upon the
acquisition of Ethiopian nationality or that he/she is a stateless person.
However, where one of
his/her adopting parents is a foreigner, in writing, such a parent has to
express his/her agreement
that his/her adopted child gain Ethiopian nationality.
d) Citizenship by Special Cases: as it is labeled in Article 8, an alien who
has made an outstanding
contribution in the interest of Ethiopia may be conferred with Ethiopian
nationality by law without
undergoing the pre-conditions stated in Article 5 (sub-articles 2 and 3) of the
2003 Ethiopian
nationality proclamation. That is, he/she is not required to live in Ethiopia for
a total of four years
and may lack the ability to communicate in any of the languages spoken in
Ethiopia.
e) Re-Admission to Ethiopian Nationality (Reintegration/Restoration):
this is a process by
which a person acquires his/her lost citizenship. The 2003 Ethiopian
nationality proclamation
acknowledges this principle in its Article 22. That is, a person who has lost
Ethiopian citizenship
status may get back Ethiopian nationality. However, there are requirements
in which the person is
expected to fulfill. In this case, the person could be readmitted to Ethiopian
nationality if he/she
applies to the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority for re-
admission. In addition,
he/she has to return and domiciled in Ethiopia and renounces his foreign
nationality to get back
Ethiopian nationality.
Examining and Deciding upon an Application to acquire Ethiopian
Citizenship
An application to obtain Ethiopian nationality by law shall be accompanied
with relevant documents
and shall be submitted to the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs
Authority (Article 10 of the
proclamation). Then, the application shall be examined by the Nationality
Affairs Committee
(Article 11 and 23 of the proclamation), a committee comprises five members,
namely; (i) a
representative of the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority
(chairperson); (ii) a
representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (member); (iii) a
representative of the Ministry of
Justice (member); (iv) a representative of the Federal Police Commission
(member); and (v) a
representative of the Authority (member and secretary). The Committee has
to submit its
recommendation to the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority.
If the committee‘s
recommendation got approval of the Authority, the applicant shall take the
oath of allegiance (see
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article 12 of the proclamation) in front of the committee. Lastly, the applicant
confers with a certificate
of naturalization and become legally an Ethiopian national.
Class Discussion:
Do you think that a
person could acquire
more than one
country‘s citizenship?
Discuss with your
classmates the
possibility of
acquiring
dual/multiple
citizenship.
[Link]. Dual Citizenship
Dual citizenship is the condition of being a citizen of two nations. Of course, a
person may acquire
more than two States which is called multiple citizenship. Duality/multiplicity
arises because of the
clash among the Jus Soli, Jus Sanguini and naturalization. For example, a
baby born to a French family
visiting the United States would acquire U.S. citizenship by Jus Soli and
French citizenship by Jus
Sanguinis. A child born from a mother and father of two different countries
could acquire dual
citizenship through decent. Besides, on the one hand, a State may allow its
naturalized citizens to
keep their original citizenship, an on the other, a State may refuse its citizen
to revoke his/her
citizenship for various reasons which are cause for dual/multiple citizenship.
People who declared
that they no longer were citizens of such a country and became naturalized in
another still would be
claimed as citizens by the original nation.
Today just under half of all African countries still prohibit dual citizenship on
paper—though in
many cases the rules are not enforced, so that a citizen can acquire another
citizenship without
facing adverse consequences in practice. Ethiopia prohibits its citizens to
have dual citizenship.
Article 20(1) of the 2003 nationality proclamation assert that ―any Ethiopian
who voluntarily
acquires another nationality shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced
his Ethiopian
nationality.‖ However, a person who retains another country‘s citizenship or
voluntary renounces
his Ethiopian nationality may not be allowed to release his/her Ethiopian
citizenship if he/she
hasn‘t discharged his/her outstanding national obligations and/or has been
acquitted or served the
penalty for the crime he/she accused of or convicted (see Article 19(4) of the
2003 Ethiopian
nationality proclamation). Therefore, under this condition which is called
indelible allegiance, the
person would remain dual/multiple citizen, an Ethiopian and the country
he/she acquires
citizenship through law (see also Article 20(4) of the 2003 nationality
proclamation).
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4.7.4. Ways of Loosing Citizenship
Citizenship can be lost when a State provides for lapse or withdrawal of
citizenship under certain
conditions, or when a citizen voluntary renounces it. The primary rational for
loss of citizenship is
the absence of a genuine link with the state. Many citizenship laws also
provide for loss if there has
been fraud in the course of acquiring citizenship. Some States have
provisions for depriving people
of citizenship in cases where their behavior is considered to demonstrate
disloyalty towards the state.
One can imagine a number of reasons why a nation might want to terminate
citizenship of
individuals. Aleinik off put denationalization grounds into three categories:
allegiance, punishment,
and public order. One may lose a country‘s citizenship when he/she
demonstrates a lack of
allegiance which could be explained through what we called active disloyalty
(for example, treason)
or simply no loyalty at all (apathy or unconcern about the fate of the nation).
Citizenship is related
with enjoying rights in one nation. However, a country may seek to deny such
benefits to people it
believes are unworthy of enjoying them. Denationalization, on this account,
may be justified as
punishment. For example, the U.S. Congress has enacted several
denationalization grounds that fall
within this category, such as violation of laws against subversion, draft
evasion, and desertion from
the armed forces in time of war. Also, the time that a citizen deemed to be a
threat to public order,
dangerous to national security or who embroil the state in foreign
controversies, the State may
denationalize the person. Generally, the commonly discussed ways of losing
citizenship are
deprivation, renunciation, lapse/expiration and substitution.
Deprivation is an involuntary loss of citizenship which arises while
government authorities or court
take a decision to nullify an individual‘s citizenship. It is on the assumption
that the burden of
justification for the loss of citizenship of an individual lies on the state . The
citizen may be deprived
of his/her citizenship for reasons of uncovering national secrets, non-
compliance with citizenship
duties (duty of loyalty), loss of genuine link with his/her state, flawed
acquisition of citizenship,
promising loyalty to and/or serving in armed force of another country, trying
to overthrow the
government by force, seriously prejudicial behavior, and becoming
naturalized in another country.
But, the 1995 FDRE constitution asserts that ―no Ethiopian national shall be
deprived of his or her
Ethiopian nationality against his or her will.‖ Similarly, in its Article 17, the
2003 Ethiopian
nationality proclamation prohibits the possibility of losing Ethiopian
nationality through deprivation.
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Lapse/expiration is another way of losing citizenship which is not applicable
to Ethiopia. Lapse is
a mode whereby a person loses his/her citizenship because of his/her
permanent residence or long
term residence abroad beyond the number of years permitted by the country
in question. For
example, if an Indian citizen stays outside his/her country continuously for
more than seven years,
he/she automatically loses his/her Indian nationality by the principle of lapse.
Renunciation is the voluntary way of losing citizenship. The UDHR (1948)
guarantees the right of
a person to change his/her nationality. Loss of citizenship is voluntary only if
it is intended and
initiated by the individual concerned. An Ethiopian national has the full right
to renounce his/her
Ethiopian nationality if he/she wishes according to Article 33(3) of the FDRE
constitution and
Article 19 of the 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamations. However, the
person who has
renounced a country‘s nationality may not be actually released from that
status until he/she has
discharged his/her obligations towards that particular State or accused of a
crime. This situation is
called indelible allegiance. According to Article 19(4) of the 2003 Nationality
Proclamation, an
Ethiopian who has declared to renounce Ethiopian nationality may not be
released until: (i) the
citizen has discharged his/her outstanding national obligations or until he/she
has served the
penalty for the crime he/she has accused of or convicted.
Substitution: citizenship may be lost when the original citizenship is
substituted by another state,
where it is acquired through naturalization. On the other side, this may also
take place when a
particular territory is annexed by another state; the inhabitants‘ citizenship
within the annexed
territory will be replaced by the citizenship of the subjugator. Generally, an
Ethiopian citizen can
lose his/her Ethiopian nationality through renunciation and upon acquisition
of other country‘s
nationality stipulated in article 19 and 20 of the 2003 nationality
proclamation, respectively.
[Link]. Statelessness
Statelessness is the condition of having citizenship of any country and with
no government from
which to ask protection. According to the international law, stateless person
is a person who is not
considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.
Statelessness almost always
results when state failure leads people to flee – be it due to invasion and
conquest by another state,
civil war, famine, or an oppressive regime – from their home country.
Individuals could also become
stateless persons because of deprivation and when renouncing their
citizenship without gaining
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nationality in another State. Some people become stateless as a result of
government action. To
settle such conditions, the UN has adopted a convention on the protection
and reduction of
stateless persons