Divide and Rule

Academic discussion of citizenship focuses primarily on the citizen in relation to the particular state of which s/he is a member. From this perspective the modern spread of citizenship, first in a few western states and then somewhat more generally, is usually regarded as a definite advance in human well-being, as turning what had once been the privileges of the few into the rights of the many. This paper aims, if not entirely to undermine, then at least to unsettle this celebration of citizenship. It suggests that an understanding of the impact of citizenship in the modern world must consider not just its role in bringing together members of particular sub-populations and promoting some of their interests, but also the effects of rendering the global population governable by dividing it into sub-populations consisting of the citizens of discrete, politically independent and competing states.