Prominent scholars from various disciplines rethink the idea of citizenship and its relation to gender, ethnicity, class and national status in this collection which focuses on the current dismantling of welfare states, and the rise in state terror.

Historically, as well as more recently, women's emancipation has been seen in two ways: sometimes as the `right to be equal' and sometimes as the `right to be different'. These views have often overlapped and interacted: in a variety of guises they have played an important role in both the development of ideas about women and feminism, and the works of political thinkers by no means primarily concerned with women's liberation. The chapters of this book deal primarily with the meaning and use of these two concepts in the context of gender relations (past and present), but also draw attention to their place in the understanding and analysis of other human relationships.

The notion of citizenship is complex; it can be at once an identity; a set of rights, privileges, and responsibilities; an elevated and exclusionary status, a relationship between individual and state, and more. In recent decades citizenship has attracted interdisciplinary attention, particularly with the transnational growth of Western capitalism. Yet citizenship's relationship to gender has gone relatively unexplored--despite the globally pervasive denial of citizenship to women, historically and in many places, ongoing today. This highly interdisciplinary volume explores the political and cultural dimensions of citizenship and their relevance to women and gender. Containing essays by a well-known group of scholars, including Iris Marion Young, Alison Jaggar, Martha Nussbaum, and Sandra Bartky, this book examines the conceptual issues and strategies at play in the feminist quest to give women full citizenship status. The contributors take a fresh look at the issues, going beyond conventional critiques, and examine problems in the political and social arrangements, practices, and conditions that diminish women's citizenship in various parts of the world.

“On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship” is a 1789 essay by French philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet. Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet (1743–1794), more commonly known as Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French mathematician and philosopher who espoused equal rights people of all genders and races, a liberal economy, free public instruction, and the importance of a constitutional government. Said to have been the very embodiment of the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, Condorcet died in prison as a result of his attempting to escape French Revolutionary authorities. Within this essay, he argues that, according to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, rights are universal; and if that is indeed true, then they should apply to all adults—women included. A fascinating example of early feminist literature, “On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship” will greatly appeal to those with an interest in the history of feminism and its most notable proponents. Read & Co. Great Essays is proudly republishing this classic essay now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

Nira Yuval-Davis provides an authoritative overview and critique of writings on gender and nationhood, presenting an original analysis of the ways gender relations affect and are affected by national projects and processes. In Gender and Nation Yuval-Davis argues that the construction of nationhood involves specific notions of both `manhood′ and `womanhood′. She examines the contribution of gender relations to key dimensions of nationalist projects - the nation′s reproduction, its culture and citizenship - as well as to national conflicts and wars, exploring the contesting relations between feminism and nationalism. Gender and Nation is an important contribution to the debates on citizenship, gender and nationhood. It will be essential reading for academics and students of women′s studies, race and ethnic studies, sociology and political science.

The second edition of this classic text substantially revises and extends the original, takes account of theoretical and policy developments, and enhances its international scope. Drawing on a range of disciplines and literatures, the book provides an unusually broad account of citizenship. It recasts traditional thinking about the concept and pinpoints important theoretical issues and their political and policy implications for women. Themes of inclusion and exclusion (at national and international levels), rights and participation, inequality and difference, are thus all brought to the fore in the development of a woman-friendly, gender-inclusive, theory and praxis of citizenship. Wide-ranging, stimulating and accessible, this is a ground-breaking book that provides new insights for both theory and policy.

Feminist analysis shows that the prevailing concepts of citizenship often assume a male citizen. How, then, does this affect the agency and participation of women in modern democracies? This insightful book, first published in 2000, presents a systematic comparison of the links between women's social rights and democratic citizenship in three different citizenship models: republican citizenship in France, liberal citizenship in Britain, and social citizenship in Denmark. Birte Siim argues that France still suffers from the contradictions of pro-natalist policy, and that Britain is only just starting to re-conceptualise the male-breadwinner model that is still a dominant feature. In her examination of the dual-breadwinner model in Denmark, Siim presents research about Scandinavian social policy and makes an important and timely contribution to debates in political sociology, social policy and gender studies.

The year 1918 was significant in many ways, seeing the end of World War 1. At the same time, the impact and transformational effects of this event enabled civil society activists and politically institutionalised actors in European countries to pick up the threads of democratic social movements and parliamentary aspirations, and make use of “political opportunity structures” to obtain citizen rights for larger parts of the population. One result of this process – albeit with a difference between European states – was that more groups in society gained suffrage. Amongst those were large sections of the working class and women. While the vote was won for some new social groups in European societies, others were still excluded. After one centennium of struggle for political participation, we would like to discuss specific problems of politics of belonging. The question concerning the full recognition of citizen rights was and continually is connected to ideas of a specific membership of a nation state, a fact that denotes the particular problem of membership and non-membership and of inside and outside. This Research Topic will take account of this special field of tension of democratisation – e.g. inclusion through exclusion – from a perspective of social history, political science, gender studies and intersectionality approaches. This analytical foil shall be used to examine the relationship between state or government action and civil society, as well as the reproduction of social and political inequality despite increasing democratisation movements.

Contrary to predictions that it would become increasingly redundant in a globalizing world, citizenship is back with a vengeance. The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship brings together leading experts in law, philosophy, political science, economics, sociology, and geography to provide a multidisciplinary, comparative discussion of different dimensions of citizenship: as legal status and political membership; as rights and obligations; as identity and belonging; as civic virtues and practices of engagement; and as a discourse of political and social equality or responsibility for a common good. The contributors engage with some of the oldest normative and substantive quandaries in the literature, dilemmas that have renewed salience in today's political climate. As well as setting an agenda for future theoretical and empirical explorations, this Handbook explores the state of citizenship today in an accessible and engaging manner that will appeal to a wide academic and non-academic audience. Chapters highlight variations in citizenship regimes practiced in different countries, from immigrant states to 'non-western' contexts, from settler societies to newly independent states, attentive to both migrants and those who never cross an international border. Topics include the 'selling' of citizenship, multilevel citizenship, in-between statuses, citizenship laws, post-colonial citizenship, the impact of technological change on citizenship, and other cutting-edge issues. This Handbook is the major reference work for those engaged with citizenship from a legal, political, and cultural perspective. Written by the most knowledgeable senior and emerging scholars in their fields, this comprehensive volume offers state-of-the-art analyses of the main challenges and prospects of citizenship in today's world of increased migration and globalization. Special emphasis is put on the question of whether inclusive and egalitarian citizenship can provide political legitimacy in a turbulent world of exploding social inequality and resurgent populism.