Citizenship ─ A Very Short Introduction

What does it mean to be a citizen today? Why is citizenship important? Can we create citizenship, and can we test for it?
This fascinating Very Short Introduction explores the answers to these questions and more. In clear and accessible language, Richard Bellamy addresses the problems with the current enthusiasm for citizenship, and asks how far citizenship must change or even remains possible given multiculturalism, globalization, and the growing gap between rich and poor. Successive chapters explain what citizenship is, and why it matters, describe how ideas of citizenship have changed through time from ancient Greece to the present, and examine its relationship to our membership of a state, to rights and to democracy. Throughout, Bellamy reveals the irreducibly political nature of citizenship and the challenges it faces in contemporary societies.

Richard Bellamy is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the School of Public Policy at University College, London.