Citizenship, Consumption and Rights: A Comment on B. S. Turner's Theory of Citizenship

This paper suggests amendments to the outline of the theory of citizenship recently offered by Turner. In particular, five issues are noted: the necessity of disentangling the normative and the material; the need to recognise the significance of the differential character of experiences of citizenship; the desirability of placing differential experiences within a context which acknowledges class and intra-class divisions, incorporation and exclusion, in a number of separate but related settings; the problems of defining welfare and of a welfare stereotype; and the need to explore more fully the dimensions of property rights claims within notions of citizenship.