Citizenship or the Right to Be Equal

3.1.1 Citizenship From the Archaic Period to Hellenism

The Classical (Greek-Roman) world is not the only source for Western citizenship and the relative moral–political–legal traditions and institutions. Among a great number of influences – including, for example, Germanic customs, which impacted the Romans and the post-Roman world especially – another unavoidable mention is that of the Jewish-biblical tradition. In the Bible, as well as in Jewish and Christian religious narratives and traditions, one finds a conception of a people that is based on blood ties (Abraham and David's descendants) and, crucially, on religious grounds.

Nonetheless, the term “citizenship” comes from the Latin civitas: it refers to a “city” in the sense of a political community, an association of individuals and parties, in opposition to urbs or oppidum, respectively the words that designate “city” as a space, and a “military fortress.” The Greek equivalent is polis (πόλις), from which descends the term “politics”: “(relative to) the businesses of the city.” The very first entities endowed with sovereign power in Western and Middle Eastern history, indeed, were far less extended than present nation-states, and their citizens composed a community of people living together and frequently meeting each other in person.

While inquiring into the cultural roots of Western society, between the first documents we could consider there are myths and accounts from the Archaic period of Greece. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey are probably to be dated back to this age, as the first cornerstones of Western literature, and somehow a representative of a stage of culture we could consider as primeval. The Homeric world is divided between different city-states whose governors are connected through webs of blood ties and covenants: the war against Troy is the war of a league of cities against a super-power that itself dwells in a single city. In poems and history, the identity of a character is determined by the mention of ancestors and tribes. Achilles, the quintessential hero, is the son of Peleus, and the other soldiers fighting in the Trojan War are presented similarly. Life, at least life for aristocratic adult men, who are the protagonists of these narratives and the most powerful members of a military society, is short, violent, dangerous, a quest for honor whose coronation is to honorably breathe one's last on the battlefield. ⁵ An incidental detachment from the group of peers implies agony in an untamed wilderness while failing to live up to one's duty is equivalent to social death. Philoctetes, whose story was played by all the three major tragedians of Classic Athens (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides), is emblematic of the unbearable doom of the outcast. Life is either social life or it is not: Hector prefers to actually die while hopelessly fighting Achilles than to “die of shame to face the men of Troy and the Trojan women trailing their long robes.” Sociologists and classical scholars such as Ruth Benedict and Eric Dodds have stressed the difference between the “guilt cultures” typical of Western modernity and such classical “shame cultures” (which on some accounts would be closer to the collectivist cultures of Africa and Asia). ^{6 , 7} To quote Moses I. Finley, “The basic values of society were given, predetermined and so were a man's place in the society and the privileges and duties that followed from his status.” ⁸ For our purposes, it is important to underline this feature: humanity consisted of a social status, and almost nothing more, but of a status that was very different from the modern concept of belonging to a national community. The actions that the Homeric hero is able to accomplish and that constitute all his glory and respectability are the legitimization of his being given determinate portions of the spoils of war: in a sense, his warrior virtues are his “dignity.” ⁹ Whoever takes part in the values of civilization, however, is granted hospitality, as it happens to Ulysses on the island of the Phaecians. Refusing hospitality, as the cannibal Cyclopes do most savagely, is the same as belonging to the world of beasts. The flexible boundaries of mutual recognition are those of a scattered elite of warriors: little is told about the precise conditions of the poor and the marginalized. We just know that they were conceived as hanging on their chiefs' and lords' fate, as Hector's farewell speech to his wife and the episode of the swineherd Eumaeus welcoming his king show. The relevant community was that of male kings and fighters, whose “rights” went beyond geographical barriers and overlapped with the frontiers of civilization, of their undertakings, and of their fame and glory. ¹⁰ In that way they responded to the logic of honor, hospitality, transgression, war, and slavery that animates the Homeric poems and, presumably, at least the prominent part of this archetypal Western societies.

The classic era of Greek civilization and philosophy is deeply influenced by the Homeric period and is riddled with references to its imagination. Some authors trace the first origins of the concept of citizenship and its opposition to slavery and servitude in the Greek poleis. ¹¹ As Max Weber has persuasively argued, the Athenian idea of “citizen” was also militarily connoted: citizens were free men, capable of defending themselves and their households, who deliberated autonomously, in contrast to the Persians. ¹² These latter were considered “slave-like” for their subjection to an absolute monarch. Accordingly, the foundational myths of Greek identity are the narrations of the conflicts against the Persian multicultural empire. A citizen defined himself by the differences that divided him from barbarians, women, children, and slaves. This intertwining between military activity, political freedom, and social respectability is “one of the great Western definitions of what it is to be human” but at the same time very restrictive. ¹³ It prescribed that individuals deprived of the possibility of self-government as a matter of fact or, worse, of principle, are not full-fledged human beings. These included slaves, women, and strangers belonging to non-democratic communities. ¹⁴ The towering political works of this era, from Plato's Republic to Aristotle's Politics, clearly show that the requirements of citizenship were very dissimilar from the 18th and 19th centuries' ideals of a commonality of blood, language, and religion. Even if some of these elements played a role in the politics of classic Athens, districts and tribes were not considered insuperable boundaries for the political community. ¹⁵ Granted, Demosthenes' Philippics used ethnicity as an argument against the Macedonian king, and the same reason compelled Herodotus to recall, or perhaps to make up Alexander's participation in the Olympic Games. Also, xenophobic anxieties were institutionalized in law, even in democratic Athens: for instance, in 451 BC Pericles restricted naturalization to the children of two Athenian parents. Years later, all who had allegedly claimed citizenship fraudulently were expelled from the city. Citizenship was so determinant that few Athenians were eager to widen it, and blood ties remained an essential component together with geographic proximity. ¹⁶ However, the borders of the polity, not to mention the nation or the culture, were often blurred and flexible, as illustrated for example by the great expansion of Greek colonies. Nevertheless, some thinkers openly defended the idea of “Greekness” as a sharing in a cultural project, a form of membership accessible to all those who were ready to embrace the values of the Greek communities. Language and the ability to argue one's case were a paramount asset in a democracy based on public deliberation. ¹⁷ According to this view, political ability and intellectual skills were sufficient to endow with powers and rights. It is therefore scarcely surprising that the works expressing such viewpoints, their translation, and interpretation have always been controversial, especially in times of resurgent ethno-nationalism. ¹⁸

Such “cosmopolitan” statements prepared the blossoming of multiculturalism during the age of Hellenism and Hellenic empires. The institution of slavery, the discrimination of women, and the contempt for strangers and metics explain much of the Athenian citizens' jealousy of their exclusive status. But when the classic world became “globalized” thanks to Alexander's conquests and explorations, the strictest criteria of exclusion needed institutional and philosophical revision. Aristotle's well-known sentence that “he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state,” recorded in the first book of Politics, was paradoxically both challenged and validated by Diogenes the Cynic. This latter, according to the biography by Diogenes Laertius, was among the first to define himself as a “citizen of the world,” but the nickname “Cynic” means in fact “similar to a dog.” ¹⁹ Yet even the philosophical schools opposing the Cynics and Epicureans often displayed cosmopolitan features. The Stoics defended them by an account of universal law, or logos, connecting the individual and the conscience to the universe, beyond the mediation of communities. It is this theory that influenced the Roman development of an institution of citizenship even less ethnically rooted and, in the imperial age, also less politically substantial than the traditional Athenian one.

3.1.2 Citizenship in the Roman Empire

Respect for the laws dictated by reason was mirrored in the observance of a detailed list of duties, tailored to each citizen's social standing, as in Cicero's De Officiis. ²⁰ Thus while on the one hand, Pocock defines Athenian citizenship as the right to rule and be ruled, that is, essentially, political freedom under the same law (isonomia), he also sees the Roman legalistic definition of citizen as its reverse, and he employs these two extremes as paradigmatic conceptions explaining much of the history of Western citizenship. According to Gaius, jurisprudence concerned persons, actions, and things: therefore, these latter gained an importance that Aristotle would hardly concede to them. Roman citizenship was indeed a status with property rights at its core. ²¹ Thus the Roman conception of citizenship emphasized civil and economic rights, especially in the postrepublican period. Perhaps, this was no less due to the immense extension of Roman dominions than to internal revolutions. The Roman Empire bounded together many ethnicities but also many political systems which it tried to preserve without putting its own core interests and legitimacy in jeopardy. Therefore, it was easier to provide a common standard on a nonpolitical basis. Roman citizenship was a multilayer, flexible institution, much exploitable as a tool to unify the empire: it was eventually widened so as to gain the loyalty of this or that tribe and nation who had been previously hostile. Roman citizenship was a privilege to be sought for, and it hardly needed the kind of dynamic exertion of Athenian citizenship. Another “modern” feature of Roman citizenship was its inclusiveness. Paul, like many other historical characters, was born far away from Rome, even out of Europe, lacked any blood ties with the Eternal City, was most likely not proficient in Latin, did not share the Romans' religious beliefs: yet not only was he a Roman citizen de jure but this status often proved effective and crucial in his voyages. Hence, the rationale of Roman citizenship is not to be searched for in geographical, genetic, cultural, or linguistic conditions. It is noticeable that this latter was nonetheless the most important requirement, and there seem to have been cases in which someone was denaturalized for the inability to speak Latin. ²² This reminds us of Isocrates' argument about the centrality of language to politics and identity. Still, and contrary to the conditions required by both ius soli and ius sanguinis, a new language can be acquired and is much less bluntly defined than a geographic area of birth or a familial relationship.

3.1.3 Medieval Feuds and Cities and Renaissance Republicanism

In general, the conception of citizenship during the early Middle Ages inherited from the Romans the disregard for political rights. In the age of kings and emperors, the major boundaries were those binding a person to another in the context of a hierarchy, a pyramidal structure based on mutual transactions of concessions and obedience. Leaving aside the “free cities” and comuni, the “burgs” who gave origin to the word “bourgeoisie” by endowing their residents with privileges and exemptions, in general, and as Dora Kostakopoulou notices, feudal ties brought about a link to territories as a consequence of customs and traditions. ²³ Later, the requests for definitions of the nature and limits of powers contributed to the drafting of precocious schemes of citizenship as the Magna Charta Libertatum. Some Medieval thinkers, like Marsilius of Padua, Nicholas Cusanus, and William of Ockham, went even further by claiming the dependence of the power of the sovereign, at least to some extent, on the body of the people. So medieval “citizenship,” or rather the ensemble of powers, claims, and duties originating from social relations, was nonterritorially, nonethnically, and nonculturally restricted, at least not rigidly. ²⁴ Dante's De Monarchia bestows on the German emperor sovereignty over Italy, Europe, and the very universe, not only on Christians but, in the same fashion as the Roman multinational empire, also on Jews, Muslims, and Gentiles. The most relevant and paradoxically “modern” aspect is obviously the transmission of special privileges and duties through birthright: yet these were not rigidly defined, as shown by the possibility of entering the world of nobility by taking part in military conquest or by climbing the hierarchy of the clergy. Birthright aristocracy endured until the beginning of modernity but was already challenged if not rejected by medieval intellectuals invoking a more substantial and universally accessible standard for social prestige. ²⁵ After the development of the feudal order, social and political rights still depended on relationships between individuals and groups like trade guilds and leagues of craftsmen. In those associations, as well as in urban centers, a relative measure of equality was increasingly invoked. Citizenship, in these contexts, meant a share of obligations and advantages and was a pact renewed regularly in a public oath ceremony. ²⁶ These institutions were sometimes able to achieve independence from authorities imposed from above, like in the case of the cities scattered throughout Northern Europe. Despite abhorrent discrimination, for example, the segregation of the Jews, some forms of citizenship consisted of statuses whose acquisition was open to outsiders. This was the case with both membership in the civil leagues, such as those mentioned above, and an entitlement to a large rank of honors and responsibilities. In general, medieval political communities were porous. In some periods, it was common even to appoint a foreign major (podestà), in Italy and elsewhere, to avoid power struggles among local families. In medieval universities, which were, as the name reveals, aiming at uniting all human knowledge beyond borders, “nations” referred merely to colleges or unions of students of a common origin.

The Renaissance greatly developed the partial forms of openness of the medieval period, even if in institutional and practical terms the progression of state and nation-building and centralization of power may have strengthened some geographic and legal borders. With the rise of humanism, classic culture, started playing a role in the identification and shaping of the political community. The rediscovery of Greek and Roman values, and of the associated conceptions of citizenship, had such a great impact that by the time of Erasmus of Rotterdam, the polity intellectuals most cared for was not a particular geographical or institutional framework but rather a “republic of philosophers” or “of literates.” Erasmus's contemporary Niccolò Macchiavelli devoted much of his political thinking and unlucky undertakings to a reconstruction of virtuous republicanism and unification of Italy in a renovated “classic” citizenry. His passionate activity, though, is fully understandable only in the context of the revolutionary changes that were to consolidate modernity and its peculiar political ideals and institutions. In Machiavelli's view, religion was not merely an end, the establishment of which was to be pursued through civil struggles, but rather an instrumentum regni (a “means to rule”) that should be criticized based on its conduciveness to civil and public virtue. On the other hand, the French and Germans were not seen as potential “sacred” emperors anymore, but as “barbarians” the Italian peninsula should be freed of. ²⁷ The “two suns,” toward which Dante's world was oriented, that is, universal authorities spiritual and secular, were setting, and a secular world of distinct nation-states was rising in their place.

3.1.4 Westphalian to Contemporary Models of Citizenship

The result of the diplomatic attempt to solve European religious wars contributed to producing what we now see as the Westphalian model of citizenship, a compromise that distinguished between state, supranational powers, and religion, allowing individuals to choose their private worship and at the same time attributed to the sovereigns the power to decide which cult they wanted to adopt publicly. ²⁸ The Westphalia Treaty is a step toward the modern nation-state endowed with territorial sovereignty and capable of excluding foreign intrusions through the newly developed military, technological, and juridical devices (as well as increasing population density and the growing development of national languages and cultures). ²⁹ In the following centuries, national identities were reinforced, for example, thanks to the invention of printing, and the individual rulers' expanded powers gave way to absolutism.

The French Revolution, which broke out in reaction to this, is key to understanding contemporary citizenship. Through the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the “fundamental paradox of modern citizenship” became explicit: the universality of ideals was coupled with the locality of authority. When the Napoleonic wars secured the spread of one of the first modern empires, almost all the constitutive elements of modern citizenship were developed to completion, and distributed across European national communities - and beyond. ³⁰ There was a conception of sovereignty over a territory and over nationals abroad, a secular moral-legal code of conduct, namely the “rights of the citizen,” and their enforcement granted through the former. Social and economic rights now associated with membership were still defective or lacking altogether since they advanced only in the 19th and 20th centuries, but the emergence of a modern-contemporary conception of democracy had as its temporary byproduct the enforcement of feelings of nationality. Peoples finally shared in their sovereigns' political power but also in their bellicosity, as required by the introduction of mass conscription, again with the French Revolution. The sovereign was still able to define membership and to claim unquestionable authority: instead of kings by divine right, we had assemblies and sovereigns by natural right. ³¹ Foucault argues hereon that the modern subject is understandable only if framed within a conception of human nature. ³² Coherently with this idea of political sovereignty, ³³ Western states tried to universalize in practice what was already recognized to be universal in principle. Each state identified itself with the mission of human progress and civilization, and the religious colonialism of the Middle Ages was substituted by a secular duty of carrying on the “White Man Burden” (Rudyard Kipling), Zivilisation/Kultur (Max Weber), Civilisation (Émile Durkheim), etc., all interpreted according to the national ideology. ³⁴ The 18th century is therefore the origin of contemporary citizenship, with its components and problems: at least until its crisis and revision in the recent process of (de)globalization.

A critical regard can be cast on these historical and political processes. The English and French revolutions had vindicated different versions of self-government: much of the sought-after structure of “government” was explicitly debated, but the definition of “self” was sometimes strongly presupposed. But who were the people, this new sovereign, the protagonist of this progress? ³⁵ All humanity, or a special race whose destiny was that of enlightening other nations, and maybe that of dominating them until their emancipation, or forever? Romanticism often shaped the identity of the democratic sovereign indirectly, mingling the rationality of the Enlightenment – and its neoclassic institutional ideals – with claims for culture, and tradition. ^{36 , 37} In the extreme, the idealization of ethnicity and territory anticipated the duo “blood and soil.” ³⁸ The late 19th century's “scientific” racism could be seen as a rationalization of, or an addition to, this mishmash. Nationalistic myths and ethnocentric philosophies of history were used to back up the assumption that the cause of humanity coincided with the cause of some particular nation tasked with its “redemption.” ³⁹ The notion of citizen was ambiguous, subject to definition and redefinition by the political power and so was the idea of “human,” doomed to be narrowed or denied by Darwinian, eugenicists, Nietzschean, and finally and most blatantly, Nazi theorists, and “scientists.” From the very beginning, though, those who seized the power to itemize the rights of men were thereby enabled to suspend them if, according to the “general will,” it would have been convenient. Agamben's theory is that the notions of “state of exception,” “state of siege,” and similar, which were created to deal with exceptional circumstances but soon engulfed the ordinary political process, are inherent to the shaping not only of the institution of citizenship but of modern politics altogether. ⁴⁰ Foucault and Agamben's views partially converge on these points, but the former notices that for complicate reasons, among which there might be also the growth of the population and the development of modern technologies, the modern sovereign powers started dealing with matters of anthropology, race, and culture in a way much different from what was achievable before. ⁴¹ What happened as a consequence is that educational, military, and apparently neutral institutions and practices, like poetry, music, and literature, contributed to strengthening the modern citizens' perception of national belonging as a “second nature.”

3.1.5 Nationalism and Performative Citizenship

Endowed with freedom from external interference and a unified national project as a catalyst for social cohesion, the modern state's consolidated institutions needed to instill enduring loyalty into its subjects: the result was the belief and sentiment that national membership is a firm and stable feature and one of the greatest relevance. ⁴² The “constitutional” power of the modern state does not concern merely the state itself: it molds and informs its citizens' lives. In its dramatic, demiurgic comprehensiveness and effectiveness, it can coexist and compete with other quintessential identities: humanity, cultures, and even familiar ties.

In the modern age, the fount of rights resides in the nation. “We, the People,” was subjectively only the declarant of rights all persons were “endowed by their Creator,” but objectively the legitimate sovereign entitled to their interpretation and enforcement. ⁴³ Another presupposition is to be noted here. The backdrop of this supposedly universal and self-evident ideal of “people” included racial conceptions that often did not need even be spelled out. ⁴⁴ In several contexts, these prejudices added to the most explicit restrictions imposed on those who were not “white male property owners” by the “democratic constitutions” of the time. The problem does not lie exclusively with the content of such discrimination, since the sphere of citizenship progressively expanded to include people of any income, women, ex-slaves, and so on. The most relevant difficulty is the tacit restriction imposed on this potentially universal demos, the form of exclusion that, once again, characterizes sovereignty. In other words, what most matters for this critical appraisal of nationality and citizenship are the decisions that precede democratic deliberations, and are presupposed by it. This should not belittle what was a very advanced, or maybe even the most advanced expansion of franchise achievable at the time. On the contrary, once that light is cast on the complex relations between its statement and enforcement, between principles and institutions, between depth and scope of values, it is possible to envisage a new direction which it is to take for a coherent development. According to Agamben, these political paradoxes are embodied in the historical process of the French Revolution: from the people fighting to free themselves from themselves, in the period of the Terror, to the long state of exception in which Napoleon took over, and in the end even established something very close to a new absolutism. Since in this era human rights were laid down “by the people for the people,” but only by one national or “civilized” people, without any other limit to restrain them, or rationale to expand them, one could suggest that in addition to the definition of absolute monarchy, a system whose chronological limits are included approximately between the Westphalia treaty and the French Revolution, one could also speak of “absolute democracy” to characterize some of the institutions and conceptions that dominated the world, from then until at least the end of the Second World War. ⁴⁵

In the heyday of nationalism, even more striking contradictions took place. Consider two problematic cases: late unification and state-building that, in both cases, soon gave way to Nazi-Fascism.

The unification of Italy, like other national struggles of the time, was pursued from the perspective of vindicating political institutions in harmony with the authentic local culture and ethnicity of the country. This was, at least, the ideological justification for the role of liberator claimed by the House of Savoy. It is worth stressing that this nobility were natives of Chambéry (in the homonymous High-Savoy region), now in Southern France, and this place had remained their capital city for centuries. The Savoy were even used to speaking French within their courts and as an official language, and so did their Prime Minister the Count of Cavour when he wrote to Massimo d'Azeglio that the state of Italy had eventually been created. ^{46 , 47} To Cavour's correspondent is attributed in turn this famous maxim: “Italy is made, now we have to make the Italians.” ⁴⁸ Institutional celebrations of these founding fathers have long taught Italians to see in such a statement an invitation to rise national sentiment and patriotism to match the their nation-state. But a more sobering philological and historical interpretation suggests that this expression implied that a sense of “Italianness” was in part to be invented, at least for the masses. And contrary to the usual rhetoric of “popular liberation,” the process of creation worked actually from the top down. The ideological underpinning of the process of unification – natural unity of language and culture – was in fact a desired and partly artificial outcome. Even more complicated was the case with the third component of romantic national identity: religion. Catholicism was immediately adopted as a symbol by the new state, and established as the official creed, but many of the protagonists of state-building, including Cavour himself, were excommunicated for endorsing the military campaign against the Papal States. In a circular process of justification, 19th-century Italian nationalism, no less than others, shaped the cultural unity that it presupposed as its very reason for existence, while ironically, the unity “of language, of creed, of territory” was established by an excommunicated élites of French speakers. ⁴⁹

In Germany, the cause of Einheit, Freiheit, und Macht (unity, liberty, strength) was also pursued in the same years with a similar ambiguity. Sometimes “unification” came closer to “conquest,” as in the 1866 war between Prussia and the Austrian Empire. The existence of Austria witnessed to the plurality of religions, customs, and institutions in the German world until the Nazi annexation, and so did the ancestors of the contemporary “free states” which are now part of the German Federal Republic. According to historian Geoffrey Barraclough, the public opinion in the German states and in Europe was, at the time of the Prussian campaigns, leaning toward Austria. ⁵⁰ Even after the unification it was necessary to re-educate the subjects through what is now known as Kulturkampf (“culture struggle”). Once again, after the making of Germany, it was necessary to make Germans, and Bismarck knew this well.

Instances of the institutionalization of the modern idea of citizenship as the counterpart of national identities were not limited to the European scenario. European colonists exported their belief in a racial hierarchy in parts of the world where, for lack of centralization of power and sovereign independence of the Westphalian kind, the existence of the very concept of “nation” was until then dubious. ⁵¹ Through contact with other civilizations, and sometimes by mimicking these, traditions were invented and strengthened, so to provide the bedrock for resisting the influence exerted by aliens. They also contributed to the integration of those who willingly welcomed the political power of the rulers. Daily practices were pervaded by the terms and tones of national identification, from flag-raising ceremonies at the workplace or school to the hymns that accompanied parades and festivals. ⁵² This way, citizenship was performed to such an extent that national customs were repeated as often as eating or sleeping, and as solemnly as religious rites: and these performances were soon turned into “traditions.” ⁵³ Hence the loop that connected, first, the individual sphere, (the inner, sentimental perception of belonging to a group); second, social practices like jubilees, independence days, and so on; and finally, the most essential institutions of a country (the armed forces, the police, but also the public assistance, on the wake of the modern, state-managed welfare state). The scheme appears similar to the following:

• National feelings of attachment.

• Social coordination and solidarity.

• Institutionalized performances.

This process works in both ways: from the individual persuasion of belonging to a nation stems the motivation to act in his or her group's interests and from these actions derive practices that can establish institutions. Conversely, the collective example of one's neighbors, led by state incentives, eventually elicits one's conformity. With the help of arts and literature, what Benedict Anderson defines as “imagined communities” were powerfully reinforced, and they ceased to be mere imaginations from the legal and political – although not the sociological – perspective. The media also had an important role in this, as revealed by the use of national broadcasting institutions not only by dictators, even if outstandingly by them, but also by democratic programs sincerely committed to, say, alphabetization. Dictionaries and schools became another instrument for the consolidation of nationalism. National languages gradually replaced Latin, Arabic, or, in southern Asia, Sanskrit, and by this very process, they absorbed something of the religious sacredness of their predecessors. ⁵⁴

3.2.1 Subjective and Objective Citizenship: Main Distinctions

Subjective citizenship is the set of normative relations (rights and duties) that an individual possesses within the context of the individual's community. ⁵⁶

What is of central relevance here is the word “community.” Consider the citizenship of a country. Thanks to, say, Danish citizenship, one has the right to vote (that is, among other rights, the power to enable some of one's fellow citizens to create, modify, and repeal national laws, therefore altering one's normative condition), the right and duty to pay taxes (a liberty right, coming with a claim right not to be asked to pay it twice, etc.), the right to cross some borders (e.g. within the EU) without a VISA (again, essentially a liberty right) and many others. ⁵⁷ But one also has rights and duties with respect to fellow human beings, according to the Universal Declaration and many other written and unwritten moral and legal codes, both at the national and international level. In short, with the Universal Declaration's opening of the age of cosmopolitan norms, the community recognizing the subjects of rights enforcement switches from the nation-state to humanity as such.

Except for extraordinary circumstances, such as the fictional encounter between Robinson Crusoe and Friday, two apparently obvious reasons make the “citizenship gap” less visible in practice:

1. The majority of human beings (except for some stateless and citizens of failed states) already belong to a state that is relatively capable of enforcing laws, that is, to realize rights and duties. This means that in many cases, subjective citizenship is almost completely realized nationally, and that universal subjective citizenship would simply be, in this fashion, a reinstantiation or abstraction of minimal national citizenship on a global scale.

2. When people de facto lack such citizenship, the perspective solution that is naturally considered is merely the adoption of a national citizenship (naturalization in the case of the stateless; state reform when it comes to failed states). So in the framework of the already existing cosmopolitan rights, rights that bind together directly individuals and international institutions, it is undeniable that one acts as a member of a community when one infringes rights or duties in regards to any individual. ⁵⁸

Objective citizenship is the set of laws, institutions, and organizations through which a community secures the enjoyment of the rights and the fulfillment of the duties possessed by its members.

Objective citizenship might also be presented as a symmetric counterpart of subjective citizenship: the set of normative relations[…] of a community with respect to each of its members. Of course, the matching between the two dimensions is a matter of perspectives, as well as of the material and practical realization of the normative relations that hold – morally, legally, politically, etc.– at the subjective level. ⁵⁹ There is a reason, though, that suggested substituting “norms” with the objective realizations responsible for their enforcement. The mismatch between subjective and objective is in fact less apparent, even if just as substantial, with specular definitions. Again rephrasing, subjective citizenship is the endowment with rights (concretely, the citizen endowed with rights and duties), while objective citizenship consists of the appointee to rights enforcing (the community the subject belongs to in all its components). Examples of objective citizenship at work might be those of defense forces who must protect fellow citizens from an ongoing emergency, or the national healthcare that campaigns in a territory to prevent diseases, and the like. Subjective citizenship is the mere endowment, even in principle, with rights, such as through the Universal Declaration – a pillar of (subjective) global citizenship.

3.2.2 Subjective and Objective Citizenship: A Closer Inspection

The distinction just introduced is as important as it is open to misunderstandings. To clarify, consider the Hohfeldian incidents mentioned in Section 1.1.1. All those listed hereunder are legal rights. ⁶⁰ The example is meant to illustrate that, for what concerns national citizenship, rights are specified in detail and they are immediately and clearly linked to institutionalized realizations. International human rights are different: it is left unclear who is to provide, for example, a right to a shelter (Universal Declaration Art. 25), namely whether it is the state itself or the organizations and individuals in the country, whether the right is positive (one is entitled to be given a shelter) or negative (one is entitled not to have their shelter destroyed), etc.

It has therefore been argued that citizenship stands for a bundle of normative relations (between right holders and duty bearers, and everyone may hold both roles at once) whose most fundamental and original instantiation consists in human rights (and their correlative duties). Now, while we can see the subjective component of this condition widely realized, the objective component is far from established globally, as many individuals do not have their fundamental rights protected nor can they exercise them lacking an adequate institutional structure that enforces them. This lack of a realization is not only due to practical difficulties but also to the incompleteness of the global framework of rights and duties. All persons are endowed with rights such as those listed in the Universal Declaration, but the issues become more complex and contested when it comes to the complete analysis of these rights and their correlative duties in terms of their ascription to national and international institutions (and the individuals within them). The difficulty is first of all theoretical since we are not used to thinking outside the box of the nation-state. It must be stressed that this leap in thinking does not merely amount to abandoning the framework of the nation-state: beyond is not a synonym for without.

The distinction is therefore aimed at highlighting both the subjective and the intersubjective aspects of citizenship. These latter become more apparent when we consider the correlative duties that rights impose on other persons. From a strictly legal positivist perspective, it would be hard to disentangle the subjective existence of a right from its effective enforcement. In this way, the two components of citizenship would simply represent parts that cannot be disjointed. The distinction would thus collapse into something very close to the Hegelian couple “abstract right – Sittlichkeit.” ⁶¹

A question thus naturally follows: are the duties of objective citizenship merely a complex aggregate of individuals' and institutions' duties? Or perhaps in this case as well the whole is more than the sum of the parts? This depends on whether we accept a form of moral/political emergentism or a moral/political reductionism, a problem that would need specific research to be properly addressed, and that verges on metaphysics. Here I use the word community to leave the door open to emergentism, but I will not rule out the possibility that problems of collective agencies are avoided simply by employing a complete analysis. Furthermore, the word community is of classic usage in similar contexts. ⁶²

The problem with the current world order – and I refer to its de jure condition, not merely to its rather concerning state de facto – is that much objective citizenship is missing. States are essentially, constitutively focused on the human rights and national rights of their subjects, sometimes confounding the two. While I will later elaborate on the merits and legitimacy of these national priorities, it is also true that the state derives its ultimate and most substantial legitimization from the prevention of human rights abuse against all. This is also implied by the theories of the state of exception, and of the natural ties arising from the state of nature, that have been recalled above. The many local and particular justifications, such as the origin of the state as a “family” of people with tight blood ties, can accompany and integrate but cannot substitute this central legitimization. When one reflects upon it, the very idea of the international recognition of sovereignty and the limitations to the state of war are both predicated on each state being recognized as an entity compatible with the freedom and rights of all and not merely with its citizens.

States are therefore legitimated by justice, in the twofold sense of the word that, as we have seen, Rawls attributed to it: (1) the establishment of just institutions and (2) the establishment of just distributions under them. ⁶³ Noncitizens’ human rights can appear as “subsidiary” rights, as it happened historically. But in reality, these rights are far from accidental. If individual A has a human right to X, state B has also a natural duty to enable A to enjoy X – either by acting or abstaining – no matter if (s)he is a national or not. If A is not a national of B, A might hold another state responsible, and therefore B's direct duty would be principally or exclusively a negative duty not to interfere. Probably, the state will have a much more restricted possibility to intervene in this latter case than if the right were to be claimed within its borders. Yet theoretically, this can imply only an inferior degree of liability: the relationship is not qualitatively different. The existence of a world order of independent nation-states disguises this state of things, since each state protects its members' rights, be they human rights or rights of a different sort. A more fundamental relationship between citizens and political authorities becomes visible in rare cases like migrations, collapsing states, and above all refugees. If the general cause of nation-states conflicted with human rights, there would be no doubt that the latter has precedence over it. Yet this needs not to be the case. What happened historically – for instance, with Nazi Fascism – is that this or that particular state made its existence incompatible with human rights for all. And it was the state that ultimately had to yield: as a matter of fact that aligns with a matter of principle.

3.2.3 Objective National Citizenship, Subjective International Citizenship, and Objective International Citizenship

It seems that at least two reasons back the assumption that we would require much stronger international institutions and possibly also a more workable distinction between the essence of any given nation-state and the essence of citizenship based on human rights. The first is that a great deal of coercion, the certainty of state's intervention, and well-defined legal rights are necessary before violations of human rights end. The largest national expenses are usually on healthcare, other essential services, and armed forces, rather than matters that would be so culturally determined to appear obscure to other countries. The state's gird is the defense of human rights, and its self-preservation – that is, sovereignty. And the interests manifested by the people, say in protests or voting, very often revolve around these very issues. There is little hope that tasks that the nation-states find arduous to solve can be settled without a great level of international integration. In short, the domestic and international legitimacy of a nation-state is based on its respect for human rights more than anything else. Yet the understanding of these human rights should be all-encompassing rather than a culturally determined cherry-picking based on a peculiar perspective. Also, this core legitimacy does not imply the existence of a more or less formal international tribunal tasked with assessing any given state's legitimacy.

The second reason has to do with procedures, it has to do with the way rights are discerned and enforced: without an international, impartial, and stable order, the sanctioning of justice will be exposed to the risks of arbitrariness and paternalism. We have seen that the right “to rule and be ruled” played a very important role in the history of citizenship. It is at least dubious that without some reciprocity in the relation between world citizens and world sovereigns both sides of citizenship, the subjective and the objective, would develop substantially. If world institutions are to hold any authority, they are to be ruled in turn. They need to be the genuine and equitable expression of the entire world's population, of humanity as such. And this is no mere practical challenge. It has to do with what Benhabib sees as the central feature of the “cosmopolitan right.” ⁶⁴ “International norms of justice” consist of direct normative relations according to which, as in the case of Eichmann, an international institution or a state acting as a proxy for it can act sovereignly over an individual. ⁶⁵ This kind of norms superseded the previous model, that of international treaties understood as agreements among sovereign states only. But the counterpart to these “cosmopolitan norms” is still lacking. If there are new laws, it is not unreasonable to expect new forms of lawmaking and also new forms of control for law enforcement. An assembly of nations, such as the UN, despite its centrality in this new age, might not be enough for such a requirement: they would at least require radical reform. ⁶⁶ World citizens still lack direct and equitable political relations with the international order. In short, even the subjective parts of international citizenship need institutions and rules to be correctly administered. Thus the objective element of citizenship needed to give rise to a substantial international, human rights-based citizenship is still partly missing too.

3.2.4 National and Universal Citizenship

In well-established nation-states, though, the objective citizenship that is lacking is, of course, not the same for all. A national relies on institutions enforcing all his or her rights and asking from him or her the fulfillment of his or her duties, be they “human” (universal) or merely national. Still, according to the definitions of citizenship I suggested, one is objectively a citizen in many senses, depending on the community considered. The international order endows one with rights and duties toward humanity, independently from one's belonging to one's own country or any country at all. In this sense, one has some clear normative relations, even if these are mostly subjective and not immediately enforceable. If citizenship is a set of rights and duties, in reality, every human being is already a “citizen of the world.”

Global citizenship: A is a global (minimal, non-national, essential[…]) citizen of B if and only if A has a “right to have rights” under B's sovereignty. ⁶⁷

In fact, if we accord rights to human beings only, one bearing rights implies that one is also endowed with human rights and that one is a member of the international community which in turn, according to “cosmopolitan norms of justice” is directly bound by international institutions, states, and states' assemblies at all levels. ⁶⁸ What is more problematic, though, is the mention of sovereignty. Since it is not appropriate to speak of global sovereignty as though such a principle were already fully realized, I believe that, at any rate, for the moment a very thin form of global citizenship is generally enjoyable, for example by a tourist, only within the territory of some nation-states and depending on the bilateral relations between these. ⁶⁹ Another and more restrictive formula can represent national citizenship:

National citizenship: A is a national (maximal, local, accidental) citizen of B if and only if A has a “right to (full) national rights” under B's sovereignty.

Some clarifications are in order. First, the second formula is merely a specific instantiation of the previous, since one must possess the right to have rights of any sort to be endowed with national rights. ⁷⁰ In other words, national citizenship is a subset of global citizenship. There is nothing counter-intuitive in this specification. What sounds unnatural, and for someone perhaps wrong or absurd, is calling national citizenship “accidental.” This adjective is not meant to suggest that national citizenship is “less relevant”: to the contrary, I have claimed that objective citizenship – be it national or global – is currently realized by and large by national institutions. Let me voice for a moment possible reasoning by a “classic nationalist,” according to which national differences are first of all a fact. There are many reasons to consider citizenship as inherently bound to at least one nation state. Some of these reasons are statistical or historical: almost all of us are national citizens by birth, and our states have been for millenniums the only appointees to rights enforcement. ⁷¹ One could respond to these that as a matter of fact there are also people who lack any national citizenship and then recall the normative requirements of the Universal Declaration which sanctions the existence of a right not only to have citizenship but to change citizenship, which is here more relevant. ⁷² Few that they may be – and they are not so few in reality – there are stateless and denaturalized people, refugees, and exilees. Citizenship in a particular country is neither innate nor impossible to loose: it is accidental also in the sense that some of the rights it specifically protects are additional to fundamental rights, while others are a national interpretation of the former.

3.2.5 National and International Rights

It would be hard to spell out every aspect of citizenship in Hohfeldian terms. National citizenship entails a large bundle of rights and duties, indeed all the legal rights and duties that were conceivable until a very recent time. The national sphere encompassed, especially in the past, another large share of the moral obligations one felt compelled to observe in one's life. The “right to have rights” involves liberties and claims, immunities, and powers since it affects the whole sphere of normative relations between citizens and the state. ⁷³ Powers are among the most distinctive characteristics of national citizens, as they allow them to modify other norms (e.g. through voting). Nonetheless, the divide between the two cuts across the whole spectrum of normative incidents.

The “citizenship gap” is understandable not merely as a gap between subjective and objective citizenship but also as a gap between global and national rights, and in particular as a difference in terms of powers and immunities. The citizenship of the future might consist in the empowerment of noncitizens rather than a dismissal of the nation-state, and in a reappraisal of national rights as backed up by international, fundamental citizenship. The full accomplishment of decolonization, the reform of the UN, and the establishment of more equitable mutual relationships between all states are some of the central pillars among the desirable developments in objective global citizenship. As it happens, none of these threatens “national rights” per se.

3.2.6 TheRequirements of Global Citizenship

How is it possible for the development of global citizenship to take place? As mentioned in Section 1.2.2, I believe that the safest and most appropriate way to deal with issues related to global citizenship is by contrasting injustices that arise systematically and progressively: “locally,” so to speak, that is, one by one. This means that practices are needed in order to improve each party's ability to resolve inequalities and other problems through agreements rather than force or coercion of any kind. Possible examples are a renewal in international relations to encompass both multi and bi-lateral cooperation and institutions, activism, and information campaigns, but legal reform will necessarily accompany practices on many occasions.

No social class or nationality should be excluded: cosmopolitanism is actually both a fact and an urgency since according to IOM data, in 2020 there were about 281 million people living outside their country of birth, that is 3.6% of the global population.

Possible agencies for the improvement of global citizenship are easy to find: besides already existing international institutions and the activism of concerned citizens – or even more concerned stateless and displaced people – the push for progress should come from reasonable states. These latter would share with citizens the interest to lay the foundations for a harmonious, pluralistic, cooperative international community that every individual and every people can consider a home.

For the moment, I merely consider some of the features of the world order that would be consistent with such global citizenship, in particular with the objective international citizenship that I believe to be especially in need of development. There would also be very relevant practices and legal reforms to be realized at the national level to which Bohman's expression “cosmopolitanism at home” is particularly suited. Yet the variability of national contexts is too great to advance general considerations in this sphere. In the following Chapter 3, I will expound more on this duality and discuss to which extent it is substantial rather than apparent. Another specification is needed: consistently with the method I delineated already, I do not need, in Marx's words, to write “recipes for the cookshops of the future”: that is, to spell out a complete global structure. ⁷⁴ It should suffice to specify that the model I have in mind differs from a global state and also from a federation. This is why I generally talked of institutions or world-order or similarly general terms thus far.

The first problem to consider is coercion. As I recalled before, Blake suggests this feature as the distinguishing characteristic that allows for a stricter distributive standard. It is not necessary to reject such a claim. It suffices to remark that, in the actual world order, states sometimes possess even larger coercive powers against nonnationals than against nationals. For the moment, states have only a few direct commitments to the improvement of the most basic human rights in a foreign country but for a matter of “charity.” ⁷⁵ States, therefore, take part more or less at their discretion in assistance programs, and ordinary diplomatic and economic relations, which affect the quality of human-rights observance in other countries, even without considering distributions concerned with relative deprivation. Through these means, a state influences another in ways that are hard to measure but virtually unconstrained. Suppose state A is a powerful and affluent country that established with B, a very poor and under-developed country, close ties of cooperation. B is dependent on A's monetary aid, especially as regards vaccine campaigns to eradicate mortal diseases. At one point, the two states come into conflict over a completely independent matter, say B's reform of the education system. By threatening to stop financing B's health system, A coerces it to adopt its favorite policies instead of what B's citizens and authorities prefer. Such a threat, through skilled diplomacy, need not be explicitly formulated. If B does not comply with A's requests, many citizens will be abandoned to death. And therefore a foreign government influences sovereign decisions to an extent that would be impossible domestically, as a government cannot threaten the withdrawal of life-saving measures in order to be re-elected. Such international blackmails, which define the two-tier model of domestic and international justice elaborated by “global justice theorists,” would also be technically legal. ⁷⁶ Redirecting millions originally destined for humanitarian aid can be as coercive as punishing a crime, and yet this is something sovereign states can do freely. A perhaps greater source of coercion is to be seen in military power. Historical reasons, including colonialism, have provoked an enormous gap between countries in such matters. About one-tenth of the world population contributes for more than half of the military expenditures. ⁷⁷ And the countries with the largest armed forces are those very ones that are members of the UN Security Council. With the liberty that nation-states actually enjoy about military expenditures, there is no way to avoid coercion – both perceived and exerted – stronger than that applied to the country's nationals: against these latter, at least, waging war is not possible. Outright violence explodes only in rare circumstances. But obviously, potential coercion is in politics effective coercion. Finally, besides the economic, diplomatic, and military imbalances that have been recalled, one should not forget other means, ranging from mediatic influence to intelligence agencies. Unless the coercive power is distributed and more safely controlled than at present, and possibly also globally diminished, there is no hope of obtaining equal global citizenship in the near future.

A similar argument applies to the distribution of goods and resources. Again, I am not rejecting Nagel's distinction between two different standards, domestic and global, for distributive justice. However, one of the assumptions of Nagel's argument itself is that the issue of absolute deprivation should be tackled independently. As with military power, economic influence can make one country's sovereignty fade together with its citizens' autonomy. If the means to achieve a standard of mere subsistence are controlled by foreign powers over which one lacks any direct influence, nondomination becomes impossible to achieve. As Sangiovanni writes, the fact that we have two legitimate and different rationales for distribution does not mean that there is no global distribution required by justice. ⁷⁸ This leaves the door open to a distribution that makes economic resources sufficient for the establishment and the protection of human rights regimes worldwide and maybe even more just than that bare minimum.

Another issue I would signal briefly is the problem of political representation that I mentioned before. In the actual conditions, persons are represented in international institutions almost exclusively through their nation-states’ mediation. This creates blatant democratic imbalances, with states whose population exceeds one billion people having one vote only, just like a tiny island state. Thus, internal lacks of democracy are also magnified by international institutions. An oligarchy representing the interests of a minority can therefore use the international system as a platform to extend its domination to other countries, instead of being pushed by it to give it up. As I mentioned in a previous note, I do not believe that Daniele Archibugi and David Held's proposals for cosmopolitan direct representation independent of nationality would be the solution.

The main perspective to solve such problems is rather a reform of global institutions based on the sovereign equalities of peoples and states, as well as on democratic principles granting global masses a corresponding voice. It is not concessions, “charity,” or “mercy” that are needed. What is called for is the dissolution of colonial ties and of the imbalances that put poorer and less technologically developed countries on an uneven playing field.

Two last directions for the evolution of global citizenship are in my opinion worth stressing. As proved by the history of nation-states, culture, and social ties are indispensable means to create and maintain cohesion. If we are left without common languages for communication, and secure contexts for strengthening the “global civil society,” institutions will appear distant, void, and ineffective. The lack of a global demos is not only a matter of fact: it is also a considerable obstacle on the way of addressing issues of global injustices already present. ⁷⁹ National media and information are in some cases too limited to encompass all the relevant effects of actions and inactions. Direct access to independent sources, alternative points of view, and personal exchanges would facilitate the removal of prejudices and undermine the ability of national agencies to reshape reality according to restricted horizons. We need a cosmopolitan education centered on equality and diversity: of languages, experiences, and, to some extent, even values. Only by unleashing the energies of humanity by removing any reins of unilateral domination can global understanding and ultimately, global citizenship flourish.

These listed are just some possible directions along which world citizenship could evolve. They are all compatible with the survival of the nation-state – they actually require it to play a reasonable, balanced, and healthy role, to some extent – but they would integrate its intact sovereignty within the framework of a harmonic global community that dares realize substantially the promise of global citizenship.

3.2.7 Negative and Limited Rights

The rights of universal citizenship might not be always distinguishable from national rights since the state has been and to some extent still remains the source of both. Two features of universal rights may be stressed, despite their not being enough for a full account. ⁸⁰

First, a significant range of universal rights consists of negative rights. Sometimes, refraining from interference – or protecting from interference – is all that is due to nationals and human beings in general. This is evidently true if we consider again the natural and implicit ties that, according to Waldron, bind each human being to just institutions. If a foreign state is effectively safeguarding its nationals' rights, one is not allowed to reject the state's authority. This does not rule out human rights violations in foreign countries only but also nationalistic dismissals of a foreign state's dignity. As to noncitizen momentarily or permanently living outside of their countries, their negative rights may include them not being deported if unnecessary, their being exempted from observance of some national customs if avoidable and so on. Nonnational citizenship is composed, of course, mainly of essential rights like liberty rights which are considered human rights, and the associated claims have as correlatives negative duties of non-intervention by the state. In some cases, however – say assistance to shipwrecked foreigners – duties and rights are of a positive nature, even when it comes to non-citizens.

Second, thanks to the international order it presupposes, international citizenship implies also indirect and limited rights, with some exceptions (like in the extreme case of refugees). If a foreigner falls ill and is in need of immediate assistance, (s)he can be given it and then be returned to his or her motherland as soon as possible, instead of receiving the follow-ups that would be dedicated to nationals. In many particular cases, it would prove convenient for the state itself to provide additional help, but in the theoretical scheme of global citizenship, I think there could be a place for continuing to reserve services and resources to nationals only. The very same holds with regard to welfare, healthcare, and so on. Since international citizenship is conceptually paired with international institutions, many positive rights it requires could be met through indirect interventions by the nation-states, through conventions and treaties between states or through direct intervention backed up by international assistance. In general, my point is that global rights often consist of negative and limited rights; therefore, the realization of objective global citizenship is not necessarily onerous.

3.2.8 The Problem of Enforcement

What happens when human rights – and objective global citizenship – are violated by a state?

Some cases are and will remain controversial. An example could be the toleration of polygamy: according to a majority, this institution violates a human right to equality between the sexes, but according to many others it does not. In a context where the right (not) to marry freely is beyond dispute and emigration is always an option – and notice that both are granted by the Universal Declaration already – the issue will spark controversies and elicit legal, political, cultural, philosophical and anthropological reflections, but would not amount to a massive violation that demands intervention.

Other cases are more problematic: for instance, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Here we consider a grave violation of bodily integrity. Yet by no coincidence, there is no state in the world where the practice is explicitly legalized. Therefore, the responsibility does not lie entirely on states' institutions, and intervening in them would often be off the mark. A different case is represented by the death penalty, especially when carried out relatively often and with cruel and degrading means. Yet once again, opinions on the subject vary widely: many would argue that capital punishment is not incompatible with human rights, and even those who are of the opposite persuasion would believe that direct, coercive intervention would be illegitimate and/or counterproductive. For all these three examples, intercultural dialogs, research, and sensitization campaigns seem more appropriate.

Finally, there are exceptional, rare, and dramatic circumstances where state institutions are responsible for massive, grave violations of human rights. I am thinking of the clearest example of genocidal actions carried out against one's own people or against foreigners. In such cases, when the dozens, the hundreds, and the millions are threatened with loss of limbs and life, intervention can be a proportionate response. Sometimes armed intervention is possible and appropriate. Other times, coercion through international pressure, sanctions, embargoes, and other means will suffice. In any case, the ethical principle of nonmaleficence ⁸¹ – and a strict proportionality – you cannot kill a million innocents to save a 100,000 – should be strictly adhered to. Calculations on these matters should be comprehensive and include consequences in the long run: when in doubt, prudence and caution should prevail over the impulse to interfere.

In a subset of cases – the exceptions within the exceptions – it will be within the remit and duties of one state to act rapidly. But in most cases, it will be the international community as a whole that decides democratically through its established mechanisms. No state should arrogate the monopoly of “humanity” to pursue its unilateral goals and agendas at the expense of global justice and peace.

What I am sketching is of course no new theory: rather I hope to offer a balanced interpretation of the principles already enshrined in the Charter of the UN and in the more recent reflection on the Responsibility to Protect as detailed in the Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit.

3.2.9 Globalizing Marshall

Thomas H. Marshall famously argued that citizenship rights widened gradually in the last two to three centuries, from civil rights in the era of revolutions to political rights between the 19th to mid-20th centuries to full socioeconomic rights in the contemporary age. It is not clear whether something similar is likely to happen globally since the Declaration and the following documents issued by the UN and international institutions cover a broad range of diverse rights. It is also true that the very analysis by Marshall is somewhat at tension with the mutual support these rights give one another: the right to vote facilitates the introduction of welfare measures, and the welfare enables people to cultivate their political conscience, for instance. As mentioned, the key lack in objective global citizenship is in political rights, but of course, world hunger plays a fundamental role in diminishing the influence of poor countries, so once again we witness a vicious cycle. What seems to be crucial here, though, is not the particularity of each set of rights described by Marshall, as much as the insight he had on the function socioeconomic rights performed in establishing a standard of equality that allowed other inequalities to take place. Through socioeconomic rights, the nation-state was able to secure social peace and loyalty by providing even the worse off with a platform of fairness and a source of gratitude. ⁸² I think this model should be applicable to matters of global justice. What matters is not, as Nagel has shown, the illegitimate claim for the abolition of relative inequalities. It is rather that a minimal standard is met, so as to allow less vital inequalities – or rather, differences – to take place. This “globalization” of Marshall's argument has two dimensions. One concerns material equality: all human beings must be helped reach a threshold of decent life. ⁸³ Otherwise, discussing international justice would always be as dramatic as dealing with war. The other dimension of the “globalization of Marshall” is the cultural dimension I already stressed when emphasizing the role of education for global citizenship. After that a universal, humane standard is met, national differences are not only welcomed, but cherished. The problem is not the prevailing of this culture over the other, but that of identifying and defending a common measure of humanity that all cultures, all nation-states, can embody. For example, patriotic beliefs should be tolerated and encouraged, as long as they shun racism and discriminatory practices. So the two “floors” of equality on which inequalities could legitimately stand are (1) providing the necessary for subsistence in a very literal sense and (2) the basic acceptance of human rights and the inherent dignity of all persons, after which cultural disagreements and peculiar practices find their proper place.

3.2.10 Latitudinal Citizenship

Marshall pays almost no attention to transnational diversity. He sets forth an explanatory model that can be successfully applied to many European and non-European nation-states, even if it naturally assumes an Anglo-centric perspective. ⁸⁴ In fact, the dawn of modern citizenship coincides with universal declarations recognizing civil rights to all human beings, thereby creating tension between the national and international dimensions of citizenship. According to Marshall, citizenship is inherently international because parallel standards of equality can be created in different nation-states, as happened in Europe in the last century. It comes as no surprise that nationals somehow see their foreign neighbors as peers, since most substantial sources of identification, like lifestyle and economic standing, have been met to the same extent by all of them. If citizenship is a set of rights and duties, we have also latitudinal citizenship(s) which cuts across national borders and gathers together people with the same culture, with the same income, job, religion, language, or even the same ethnicity. ⁸⁵ From diplomacy to business, from religion to sports, people find their “fellow citizens” across borders when they unite in the pursuit of shared causes and interests. And this happens at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid as well: with low-class employees in fast-food chains, migrant plantation workers, or even laborers who solidarize as they are exploited in sweatshops, which is the case analyzed by Ahiwa Ong. Her account is particularly focused on economics, but I hold that the concept of “latitudes of citizenship” is a useful device while confronting transnational memberships of other forms also. In Ong's analysis, “latitudes of citizenship” are more of a description of contemporary anthropological realities. But in my view, they cast light on the possible status of global citizenship that to some extent has already been realized, even if often without a conscious effort. Global citizenship is a “latitudinal” citizenship that coexists with national citizenship: the human rights regime should cement a solid membership in a world community where a minimal standard of human rights is accepted and met, while other issues are resolved in a national and local fashion and give rise to communities centered on different aspects of life. Each of us enjoys membership in a diversity of layers or dimensions and communities. So for example a politician, a professor, a trader, and a refugee are all part of transnational communities that, despite not directly impacting citizenship and not creating a citizenry themselves, can heavily influence the “longitudinal” citizenship, namely citizenship as membership in a nation-state: through lobbying, through their organizations, through spontaneous solidarity and exchanges.

3.2.11 Rethinking “Special Ties”

Iris Marion Young's “social connection model” suggests a possible source for the ties of global citizenship. ⁸⁶ She endorses a distinction between duty and responsibility while remaining normatively demanding, as it suggests responsibilities are no less compelling than duties but are characterized by a variety of possibilities to be carried out. ⁸⁷ As sketched in the first chapter, the responsibilities implied by human rights are enormous and broad-ranging and it is difficult to identify which are to be addressed first if an individual together with her society is to face the demands of justice, and especially of global justice, without being overburdened. Young singles out four parameters to discern responsibilities: power, privilege, interest, and collective ability. ⁸⁸ Individuals are trans-nationally connected by normative relations of a particular strength (1) if they have the power to influence the lives of others, principally as regards human rights; (2) if they benefit from injustices, whether they consented to them or not; (3) if they are directly interested in bringing about changes or (4) if they are capable of collective actions. ^89–92 Correspondingly, it is possible to trace “latitudes” of citizenship linking the empowered and the powerless, the privileged and the disadvantaged, and transnational communities gathered for a common cause, the socially influential and the marginalized. This also illuminates the definition of citizenship itself. The normative relations that compose it are “equal” not in the sense that they affect each member in the same way, but rather in the sense that they create a reasonably substantial equality as an outcome, and that they hold in the same way when the same configuration is presented. A wealthy adult holds stricter duties than a poor child, because equality, in the global inasmuch as in the local system of norms, is to be achieved holistically. Such an understanding of justice is coherent with the ordinary experience that many systems whose components are in themselves relevantly different are capable of producing an almost equivalent “amount” of justice: “There are many ways up Mount Fuji,” claims a Japanese proverb. In the same way, different societies and civilizations can organize very differently to reach human excellence and justice.

Spelling out a full account of global justice and global citizenship, though, implies also an attempt at harmonizing local systems to a certain degree. This can be achieved by considering the “latitudinal” impact that national and international actors have beyond the framework of the nation-state. The four elements of Young's account should also be considered in their historical depth. Power, benefit/privilege, interest, and capability are to be considered historically: for instance, a benefit received through a(n unjust) historical process – say, colonialism – should still be considered at present, as its effects are still felt. Even in a completely different account, such as Robert Nozick's principles of distributive justice, the historical dimension is strongly present. ⁹³ In conclusion about latitudinal citizenship, there are at least three kinds of normative ties and relations to be considered. Some are normative relations between fellow citizens, some others between all human beings, and there are also specific relations between, say, the citizens of an ex-colonial empire and those of the ex-dominions. ⁹⁴ Yet these considerations should not lead to destructive revanchism only. A historical perspective should be open toward all its horizons: the account of global citizenship I am offering here is therefore understandable only in relation to its “possible future.”