Representation and Citizenship

Concern with representation figures inescapably in the study of citizenship. From the initial formulations of a notion of citizenship in ancient Greece, in which citizens were persons charged with representing the interests of the city-state, concern about who and what gets represented, as well as how and why those people and things get represented, has been central in formulas describing the citizen’s relationship to a political community. Since the seventeenth century, the tension between citizens as representatives of the interests of the state and the state as representative of the interests of its citizens has found both practical and theoretical elaborations in understandings and exercises of citizenship. Today, the concept of representation resonates widely within citizenship studies, and its general ambiguity gives expression to many of the key issues of community membership, creating in this way a critical vocabulary through which those issues can be expressed. It is this vocabulary of representation that this book examines.

Representation and Citizenship is a collection of seven essays that speak to the pull in citizenship studies between founding beliefs that organize political communities and claims for multicultural and cosmopolitan expansions of those community beliefs. Each contributor takes a stance on supporting either founding beliefs or multicultural values, yet none are at the exclusion of the other. The essays explore the relevance of specific national contexts, including the United States, Canada, and Korea, and as a whole, argue that the tension between inclusion and exclusion retains significance for any assertion of what citizenship means.

The audience for this book includes, but is not limited to, students and scholars in citizenship studies, history, law, political science, and social science, especially those interested in issues of patriotism and multiculturalism.