Topic: Discuss the formation of citizenship in Europe and explain why there is no parallel development of citizenship in China. SOCI 4056 States and Power: Europe and China Citizenship is a regional or national status given to those who are full members of a political community (Marshall, 1950). According to Max Weber, there are three significations of citizenship: economic, political and social (Weber, 1981). However, the nature and content of citizenship vary with the form of state. For example, the quality of the rights of European citizenship and Chinese citizenship is very different. There are three elements of citizenship: Civil, Political and Social. Civil right refers to the individual freedom like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion etc. The Human Freedom Index is one of the freedom indices measuring the level of freedom in different countries. Six out …show more content…
The citizenship rights have been achieved in substantial degree only through struggle. Take England as an example, French Revolution on the development of citizenship rights introduce a phase of repression lasted nearly 20 years. England has extended vote and social reform after the revolution. The class struggle reflects not only the impact of lower-class demands but also dominate class requirement for security (Barbalet, 1988). As I mentioned above, the state can gain great advantages through giving citizenship rights to their people during wars. Therefore, warfare promotes citizenship. First, war status requires resources and commitment from their populations. This leads to extraction. The taxation leads to resistance from the population. The state had to establish working relations with capitalists and to bargain with the population over the yield of resources for an expanding range of state activities. In result, bargaining between the state and population bring with an extension of