Article
The Citizenship Dialectic
Georgetown Immigration Law Journal
(2006)
Abstract
Excerpt: Although over thirty years ago a leading constitutionalist declared that the
concept of citizenship is of little significance in American constitutional
law, the last two decades have witnessed what several writers have declared
"an explosion of interest in the concept of citizenship. The renewed
theoretical focus was sparked by recent world-wide political events and
trends including, but not limited to, increasing voter apathy and long-term
welfare dependency in the United States, the resurgence of nationalist
movements in Eastern Europe, and the stresses created by increasingly
multicultural and multiracial populations in Western Europe. Recent events
suggest that scholarly interest will continue to focus on the subject of
citizenship: these events include the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on
the United States and the United States' ensuing domestic and global war on
terrorism, with its consequences to Arabs and Muslims both at home and
abroad; the United States government's ineffective efforts at rescuing the
largely poor and African-American victims of the Louisiana Gulf Coast after
Hurricane Katrina, along with the widespread characterization of those
citizens as refugees; and the recent and ongoing ethnic uprisings in France.
While these events have led to a significant amount of public and media
attention, they have not led to much scholarly debate concerning their
implications on democratic and citizenship theories.
Â
Keywords
- citizenship,
- history of citizenship,
- Civil Rights
Disciplines
Publication Date
2006
Citation Information
Ediberto Roman. "The Citizenship Dialectic" Georgetown Immigration Law Journal Vol. 20 Iss. 4 (2006) p. 557 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ediberto_roman/16/