© 1998 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL

Citizen in action:
citizenship and
community
development in a

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Northern Ireland
context1

ABSTRACT Community development can be understood as an expression of

citizenship in action. A synthesis of two different citizenship traditions is proposed
so that citizenship is understood both as a status, involving rights, and as a practice,
involving political participation, broadly defined. This framework is applied to com-
munity development in the context of Northern Ireland. Particular emphasis is
placed on women's active citizenship. This also highlights the ways in which citizen-
ship acts as a force of exclusion as well as inclusion and the need to accommodate
difference in citizenship's universalistic premises.

Introduction
Community development can be understood as an expression of citizenship
in action. In order to explore this claim, this article covers three main issues:
• the meaning of citizenship;
• its relationship to community development;
• citizenship as a force of both inclusion and exclusion and questions of
difference.
It does so in the context of Northern Ireland where, Paul Teague and Robin
Wilson of Democratic Dialogue argue, addressing social exclusion is 'ulti-
mately about creating an inclusive citizenship' (1995, p. 92). The Opsahl
Commission, an independent citizens' inquiry into ways forward for North-
ern Ireland, received a wealth of evidence which enriches our understand-
ing of citizenship.2 On the one hand, the ways in which economic and social
deprivation and marginalisation are corrosive of citizenship in the political,

1. This article is a condensed version of a speech given at the Community Development, Democracy
and Citizenship conference, Belfast, May 1996, and draws on Lister, R., Citizenship: Feminist Per-
spectives (Macmillan, 1997).
2. The Opsahl Commission, of which I was a member, was established by Initiative '92 and chaired
by the late Torkel Opsahl. It reported in 1993 (Pollak, 1993; see also Uster, 1994).

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL 33 NO. 3 July 1998 pp. 226-235

 CITIZENSHIP IN ACTION 227

civil and social spheres were spelt out starkly in the working classes com-
munities of Belfast. On the other, the vibrant network of community groups
in such areas demonstrated how, against all the odds, genuine 'active
citizenship' is alive and well in Northern Ireland's working class civil society.
This is particularly true when thinking about the meaning of citizenship for
women.

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The meaning(s) of citizenship
A contested concept
Citizenship is one of those slippery terms which everyone understands at
one level but about which it is difficult to arrive at an agreed definition. This
is partly because of the variety of elements that can be taken to constitute
citizenship, reflecting two very different traditions (see below), and partly
because, as one citizenship theorist noted 'the way we define citizenship is
intimately linked to the kind of social and political community we want'
(Mouffe, 1992, p. 225). In contemporary political debate, citizenship has
been invoked in campaigns for more effective civil and political rights and
in promoting social rights. The language of citizenship has also been
deployed by various social movements such as the disabled people's move-
ment, those campaigning for gay and lesbian rights and by feminists. In
mainstream political debate, however, there has been a shift in emphasis
from a discourse of citizenship rights to one of citizenship obligations in a
number of countries. More broadly, environmentalists are also talking the
language of citizenship obligation, in this case an obligation which tran-
scends national frontiers and generations.

The two traditions of citizenship

These competing understandings of citizenship reflect two very different
historical traditions, one which emphasises the individual and his rights (and
until recently it was his rights) and the other the community and the obli-
gations of individuals to that community. Or, as one commentator has put
it, one which emphasises citizenship as a status and the other which empha-
sises it as a practice (Oldfield, 1990). Among those who hold citizenship to
be a status are both classical liberals, who would confine citizenship to the
formal civil and political rights necessary to protect individual freedom, and
those who, following T. H. Marshall, would include social rights as neces-
sary to the promotion of a more positive notion of freedom. For many, Mar-
shall's Citizenship and Social Class (1950) provides the touchstone for
thinking about citizenship. The key elements of his definition are member-
ship of a community; the rights and obligations which flow from that
membership; equality of status; and an ideal or measuring rod (as exempli-
fied by its use by social movements).
228 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL. 33 NO. 3 1998

It is from Marshall that the civil-political-social rights triad stems. Radical

political theorists today have suggested ways in which this triad needs to be
extended to include, for example, reproductive rights. Another avenue has
been to try to dynamise rights by arguing that the right of participation in
decision-making in social, economic, cultural and political life should be
included in the nexus of basic rights. This is echoed in attempts on the Left
to develop a more active form of citizenship rights than those traditionally
associated with the post-war welfare state, through, for example, promot-

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ing user-involvement in and democratic accountability of public services.
This idea of participation as a citizenship right represents a bridge to the
other citizenship tradition - civic republicanism which has its roots in
ancient Greece and Rome. Here the citizen is an active participant in
governance and politics for the good of the wider community. There has
been something of a resurgence in this tradition, especially in the USA, in
reaction against the individualism of the dominant liberal citizenship para-
digm. This, it is argued by some, represents an impoverished understanding
in which individual citizens are reduced to atomised, passive bearers of
rights and citizenship is transformed from a collective political activity to
the pursuit of individual economic interests.
A number of feminist writers have been attracted by this approach but
have also noted the ways in which it is problematic for women: for example,
the demands it makes have particular implications for women, disadvan-
taged by the gendered division of time and it is based on a very narrow
notion of the political, as pertaining purely to the formal arena of politics.
But, as I will argue in relation to community development, this narrow defi-
nition of the political needs to be challenged.

Synthesis
Although these two traditions tend to be seen as competing and even
incompatible, it is possible to make the case for a synthesis of the two.
Central to this synthesis is the notion of human agency, defined by the
political theorist Carol Gould as a process of self-development: 'of con-
cretely becoming the person one chooses to be through carrying out those
actions that express one's purposes and needs' (1988, p. 47). This process
takes place in a social context and in developing her self, the individual is
also acting upon, and thereby potentially changing the world, a world which
at the same time structures the choices available.
Citizenship as participation can be seen as representing an expression of
human agency in the political arena, broadly defined; citizenship as rights
enables people to act as agents. Such a conceptualisation of citizenship is, I
would argue, particularly important in challenging the construction of
women (and especially minority group women) as passive victims, whilst
keeping sight of the discriminatory and oppressive male-dominated politi-
cal, economic, and social institutions which still deny women full citizenship.
 CITIZENSHIP IN ACTION 229

It thus draws on a dual understanding of power similar to that which com-

munity development works with: people can be at the same time relatively
powerless in relation to the wider economic and political power structures,
yet also capable of exercising power in what Anthony Giddens calls the
'generative' sense of self-actualisation.
In putting forward this synthesis, I want, however, to draw a distinction
between two formulations - to be a citizen and to act as a citizen. To be a
citizen means to enjoy the rights necessary for agency and social and politi-

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cal participation. To act as a citizen involves fulfiling the full potential of the
status. Those who do not fulfil that potential do not cease to be citizens. I
emphasise this because otherwise we are in danger of creating a measuring
rod of citizenship against which many, especially women, but also say chron-
ically ill or severely disabled people, might once again fall short because of
the demands they face in their private lives and other constraints.

Citizenship and community development

Underlying this synthesis of the two citizenship traditions of rights and par-
ticipation is a dynamic understanding of citizenship in which process and
outcome stand in a dialectical relationship to each other. This is illustrated
by looking at community development which can be understood as an
expression of this approach to citizenship. The importance of community
development lies not only in what it achieves in terms of practical outcomes
for disadvantaged communities but also in the process of involving the
members of those communities in working for change and the impact this
involvement can then have on those individuals' capacity to act as citizens.
It is important to emphasise the social nature of this process, defined by
David Thomas as 'the quality of relations between people, how decisions
are made, conflicts aired, problems solved, people supported and cared for,
values and standards denned, control and regulation enforced, and wisdom
and traditions passed on' (1995).

Promoting rights
In terms of outcomes, community development is largely about defending,
promoting and extending citizenship rights which are not fixed but are the
subject of contestation. For many living in deprived communities, these
rights are being corroded by mounting levels of poverty and social exclu-
sion and endemic long-term unemployment. If people are to be able effec-
tively to exercise their civil and political rights, there needs to be an effective
floor of welfare or social rights. At the same time as poverty and unem-
ployment are exacerbating social and economic exclusion, so they are con-
tributing also to growing political marginalisation as politicians compete for
the votes of the relatively comfortable majority. As J. K. Galbraith has
warned in the US context: 'Democracy can be an imperfect thing. So it is
230 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL. 33 NO. 3 1998

when the most needful and most vulnerable of people do not participate in
the political process, do not have voice and influence' (1994, p. 15).
In this context of social, economic and political exclusion, community
development has a crucial role to play in maintaining and strengthening the
floor of social citizenship rights; and in ensuring that people have access to
those rights which do exist. My main focus, though, is the process side of
the equation - citizenship as participation.

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Promoting participation

But is it citizenship? As observed earlier, a conventional understanding of

political citizenship limits it to the sphere of formal politics. It would dis-
count community activism as neither political nor citizenship: as not politi-
cal because it is not being played out in the formal political arena and as not
citizenship because it is parochial and it is specific community interests
which are being pursued rather than some wider common good. Both argu-
ments can be countered.
First, community activism can only be deemed as not political if one
adopts a very narrow definition of the political that operates on the basis of
a rigid distinction between public and private spheres, in which the politi-
cal operates only in the former, and in the formal political arena at that.
Feminists have challenged such a narrow definition and the rigid distinction
between public and private that underpins it. They have illustrated how the
public and private interact to perpetuate women's second class citizenship
and how this is an intensely political matter. Community activism, particu-
larly amongst women, is often about placing 'private' matters on the public
agenda and in the process bridging the public-private divide. Yet political
theory and politicians tend to disregard such activism. As a group of women
from North Belfast told the Opsahl Commission, 'We are involved with
politics with a little "p" on the ground, but we get no recognition for it from
politicians who are involved in politics with a big "p". There needs to be
recognition for those engaged in politics with a small "p".' (Pollak, 1993,
p. 12). One political theorist who does give this recognition is David Held.
He defines politics in terms of power relationships that operate 'in all the
relations, institutions and structures which are implicated in the activities of
production and reproduction in the life of societies' (Held, 1987, p. 275).
On this definition there can be no doubt that community development is
political with a small 'p'. But is it citizenship? Civic republicans would argue
that citizens are supposed to come together to achieve common ends with
those different from themselves and in so doing to transcend their specific
interests and identify with the wider collectivity rather than with any par-
ticular group. They are supposed to take on an impartial rather than a par-
ticular perspective. But arguably this is an understanding of citizenship and
the common good which serves to reinforce the position of more privileged
 CITIZENSHIP IN ACTION 231

groups. To refuse to apply the label of citizenship to the struggles of activists

in disadvantaged communities is to reinforce the very exclusion that they
are fighting, in the name of a common good which has subordinated the
interests of these communities to those of more powerful groups.
Moreover, the distinction between an impartial and a particular perspec-
tive can be fuzzy in practice. The involvement of individuals in a particular
political activity might be motivated initially by self-interest but the
outcome could be to the benefit of the wider community and that wider

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outcome might become more important to the individual as a result of her
involvement. Thus, for example, a mother of teenage children might join a
campaign for decent facilities on her estate out of concern for her own chil-
dren; but that campaign could benefit the whole community if it reduced
vandalism and crime and her involvement in it may well have broadened
out her own concerns.
That said, the argument that citizenship involves the transcendence of
particular interests is relevant to understanding the relationship between
community development, community relations and community education
in Northern Ireland. This comes out very clearly in a report on community
development in Northern Ireland (Lovett et al., 1995). It draws attention to
the tension between community development and community relations
when competition between protestant and catholic community groups can
heighten sectarian feelings. Community education can then act as a bridge
between community development and community relations.

The importance of community activism. From this perspective, community

development is important for citizenship for its impact both on the wider
community and on the individuals involved. In relation to the community,
the American political theorist, Robert D. Putnam (1993, p. 41) has under-
lined the importance of civil society or 'social capital' for economic develop-
ment and effective government. By social capital he means 'features of
social organisations, such as networks, norms, and trust that facilitate co-
ordination and co-operation for mutual benefit'. 'A vigorous network of
indigenous grassroots associations' represent 'the capillaries of community
life'.
One of the messages that came across loud and clear to the Opsahl Com-
mission (Pollak, 1993) was that the activities of the capillaries of civil society
in the working class communities of Northern Ireland have helped to
improve morale and increase the confidence of these communities. Confi-
dence-building within communities was seen by many as an essential part
of any process of reconciliation and reconstruction and as a pre-requisite
for cross-community work. The emphasis on building up confidence and
self-esteem is important in thinking about how community development
work can help people to develop as citizens. But it needs resources, includ-
ing training resources, to help people to realise their potential and the
capacity-building not just of individuals but of whole communities. There is
232 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL. 33 NO. 3 1998

clear evidence that collective action can boost individual and collective self-
confidence, as individuals and groups come to see themselves as political
actors and effective citizens.
This is particularly true for women for whom involvement in community
organisations can be more personally fruitful than engagement in formal
politics which is often more alienating than empowering. The process has
been described by Susan Hyatt, an American anthropologist, as 'accidental
activism' through which 'women who previously did not see themselves as

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in any way political are becoming advocates for social change' (1992, p. 6).
Hyatt worked with women on a Bradford public housing estate, in the
North of England, who joined together to fight the privatisation of their
estate and who later also campaigned against the installation of water meters
in their homes. She observes how these women developed a new sense of
themselves both individually and collectively. With their new-found skills
and self-confidence they have spoken at conferences and to the media and
have participated in a national campaign for water justice. A more well
known example is that of the women who played a key role in the fight of
British mining communities against pit closures, sustaining the communities
through the long period of hardship. Although after the strike, most of the
women returned to their 'traditional' gender roles, Hyatt observes that 'they
employed a variety of strategies to either sustain the sense of empowerment
they had acquired through activism, or to protect the space of community
action as their own' (1992, p. 9). In Castleford, for example, they set up a
women's centre which is now providing degree-level education.
The importance for women of what we might call informal politics is also
brought out by a study by the Northern Ireland Women and Citizenship
Research Group (1995, p. 21): 'Widespread evidence from elsewhere is cor-
roborated in this research that women who are inexperienced in political
activism gain a sense of personal power or effectiveness from initiation into
the realm of public interaction through non-hierarchical, usually female,
collectivities'. The contrast between women's informal political activism
and their exclusion from formal politics is particularly stark in Northern
Ireland (Fearon, 1996).

Citizenship as a force for inclusion/exclusion

and questions of difference
I have emphasised the position of women partly because it is so often
women who are the mainstays of active citizenship in deprived communi-
ties. But a focus on women also highlights the ways in which citizenship acts
as a force for exclusion as well as inclusion. Women's exclusion from citizen-
ship has not been the product of some historical accident; indeed the classi-
cal notion of citizenship was predicated on their exclusion, together with
slaves. Men were able to be citizens in the public sphere because there were
 CITIZENSHIP IN ACTION 233

women and slaves to attend to their needs in the private sphere. Women
may have achieved formal rights of citizenship in the modern world but the
sexual division of labour and the public-private divide, which underpins
conventional understandings of citizenship, still operate to undermine
women's position as citizens.
Of course, it is not just women whose citizenship is compromised. The
Opsahl Report pointed to 'a number of minority groups in the region which
cannot be said to enjoy full rights of citizenship' (Pollak, 1993, p. 77). The

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understandable preoccupation with discrimination on grounds of religion
has meant a tendency to ignore the issue of discrimination against minority
ethnic groups including travelling people and also against disabled people.
Underlying these examples of exclusion from full citizenship is a tension,
identified by Stuart Hall and David Held, between the ideals of equality and
universality embodied in the very idea of the citizen on the one hand and
the 'post-modern' emphasis on difference and diversity on the other.
Drawing on radical political theory, I would argue that we should see this
tension as creative rather than irreconcilable and that we need to integrate
both universalist and radical pluralist perspectives in addressing the central
issue of exclusion from citizenship.
Thus, while citizenship rights are traditionally understood as being essen-
tially universal, that is applying equally to all members of a society, argu-
ably they can also be particularised to take account of the situation of
specific groups. This can be both in the 'reactive' sense of counteracting past
and present disadvantages, which may undermine their position as citizens,
for example, through anti-discrimination legislation and in the more pro-
active sense of affirming diversity, particularly with regard to, for instance,
cultural and linguistic rights.
Thinking about citizenship as participation: it is about creating spaces
where different groups can come together to air their differences in what
has been called a 'politics of difference'. However, it has to be a politics in
which the differences are respected and not simply suppressed, and also in
which some common ground is sought. A recent photo-essay by Cynthia
Cockburn about women is Belfast, entitled 'Different Together', suggests
that just such a politics of difference is being pursued by women's centres
through the Women's Support Network in which, she writes:
Individually women hold on to their political identities - some long for a united
Ireland, others feel deeply threatened by the idea. But they have identified a
commonality in being women, being community based and being angry at injus-
tice and inequality, that allows them to affirm and even welcome this and other
kinds of difference (Cockburn, 1996, p. 46).
This approach to citizenship is thus based on notions of community which
are inclusive rather than exclusive and which encourage pluralism, so that
the voices of minorities within communities can also be heard. An increas-
ingly important element in this equation is the European dimension. In her
234 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL. 33 NO. 3 1998

evidence to Opsahl (Pollak, 1993), Elizabeth Meehan suggested that this

opened up the potential for the development of multiple citizenships and
identities. By unpicking the various identities that people hold, rather than
fossilising them into the dichotomies that have held Northern Ireland poli-
tics in their grip, it might be possible, she argues, to create a more pluralist
democratic public space.
This fits in with the way citizenship theory is developing in the face of the
changing role of the nation state. A number of citizenship theorists argue

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that the way forward is to seek a more multi-layered conception of citizen-
ship operating on several levels, including possibly even the global. Simi-
larly, the growing impact of NGOs operating at the international level has
been held up as an example of the significance of the developing institutions
of a global civil society. We can see it in operation in the contribution of
NGOs to UN summits and in the ways women are increasingly working
together through international networks.

Conclusion
Thus, moving from the local to the global, webs of citizenship are being spun
by groups which stand outside the formal political system. In terms of both
process and outcome, community development represents an expression of
citizenship at the local level. Citizenship theory, drawing on the two his-
torical citizenship traditions, embracing a broad definition of citizenship,
and combining universalistic and particularistic perspectives, can contribute
to our understanding of community development. Community develop-
ment in turn provides a paradigm of an inclusive and radical pluralist
approach to citizenship theory.

Ruth Lister is Professor of Social Policy, Loughborough University, UK.

Address for correspondence: Professor Ruth Lister, Department of Social
Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK.

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