Progression Of Citizenship

Citizenship is something that allows you to obtain certain documentation that tells others what country you reside or are active in and attain freedoms that others may not have. When you are a citizen, you have the ability to vote and be a part of the community within it. One becomes a citizen through blood, birthright, religion, or naturalization. While in theory, citizenship sounds straightforward, there are issues with what it means to be a citizen and who can be considered one. Looking at citizenship, we should look at how it has progressed and who was affected by the progression. We should also look at how a group is formed within the state and what that means to be a citizen. Lastly, we have to talk about how citizenship is determined.

The definition is stating that a citizen has to be an active participant in their country to be considered a citizen. Now this is a bare bones definition that does not say how a citizen should show their engagement. One person's participation may be completely different with another’s idea. The definition does start to give us an idea of what citizenship may look like. A citizen should participate in elections, send your children to school, take on the culture and traditions of a country, and be working. There are people who do not and cannot do these things due to lack of identification this makes others conclude that they are not citizens. This way of thinking is similar to what Engin F. Isin talked about in his book Being Political. Isin tells us that citizenship is defined by what it is not more than what it is. People identify themselves by race, nationality, or gender and determine who they are based on every race, gender, or nationality they are

Nineteenth century allowed political rights to grow. More people had the ability to do be active participants in their communities. Granted mostly rich men were still the most active, working class men still had the right. Twentieth century citizens started to be able to look at the social inequality of citizens. As the working class males got more rights, the economy went up and the productiveness of a country went up as well. This is a basic capitalism method, the happier and more involved people feel, the more likely they are to buy things and work harder. The people don’t question whether they are equal in the eyes of the people governing them, instead they focus on the fact that they have rights that cannot be taken away once they leave the country or continent. There were multiple political and civil rights that were able to be given to different social classes, such as “...freedom of speech, thought and faith, the right to own property and to conclude valid contracts, and the right to justice“. This allowed many people the ability to be given basic freedoms that they should have because they are human