Citizenship and Nationality in Britain

In the last decade we have witnessed a tremendous revival of interest in the concept of citizenship. In political science, Michael Moran (1989) has argued that citizenship seems to have overtaken class, market and even democracy as the key concept of the discipline. This is an overstatement of what has occurred, but one can hypothesise that the collapse of the Soviet Empire and disillusion with socialism and social democracy have undermined the dominance of class and class struggle as the motor for extending rights to marginalised groups. Redefining citizenship in a broader and more generous way is seen by many liberal reformers as the path to greater equality and democracy and to a fairer and more inclusive society.