Transformation of Citizenship: Status, Rights, Identity

In a spirit of stocktaking and identifying frontiers of research, this article reviews recent changes of citizenship in three dimensions: status, rights, and identity. With respect to status, it is argued that access to citizenship has been liberalized. On the rights dimension, there has been a weakening of social rights and rise of minority rights. Citizenship identities today are universalistic, which limits states' attempts to counter the centrifugal dynamics of ethnically diversifying societies with unity and integration campaigns.