The Citizenship Debate: Women, Ethnic Processes and the State

As 1992 is fast approaching, and with all the implications of the Single European Act, many questions arise as to the nature of the future European society, and how relationships between individuals, social groupings, states and the European institutions are going to be affected and shaped. One of the central as well as general questions which arises in this context is what will be the fate, in this 'new Europe', of those social groupings that at present have secondary access to state powers, such as ethnic minorities and women. There is a real danger that the common denominator among the different European states would be the lowest common denominator and that, while some of Europe's inhabitants would get higher degrees of freedom and mobility, others would be doubly discriminated against (Gordon, 1990). It is not surprising, therefore, that 'citizenship' has become a very popular subject of debate recently, appropriated by both Left and Right. Citizenship, not just in the narrow formalistic meaning of having the right to carry a specific passport, but citizenship as an overall concept which sums up the relationship between the individual and the state. As Melanie Philips (1990) has put it, 'There appears to be a great yearning for it, even though no one actually knows what it is'. This paper examines some of the problems that the treatment of the subject of citizenship in the literature reveals. In particular, the paper looks at various attempts by the Left and feminists to resolve the question of citizenship and social difference, especially in regard to ethnic minorities and women. The basic position of this paper is that, for an adequate theory of citizenship, the examination of the differential access of different categories of citizens to the state and the implications this has on relations of domination, is of central importance. At the same