By using ‘citizenship’ here to denote the
status of full membership in a society, I effect
only a slight improvement. After all, this
definition, like others, begs two key questions:
what are the relevant determinants of
membership? and what are the indicia of fullness?
In his magisterial approach to these two
questions, T.H. Marshall emphasized the
political, social, and economic dimensions of
membership and elaborated his own understanding
of the conditions necessary to fully
achieve them (Marshall, [1950] 1992). But
Marshall’s idea of citizenship, published in
1950 at a time of heady enthusiasm about the
welfare state among many intellectuals and
others, has achieved no more canonical status
than has any other.1 Indeed, given the high
stakes in how a society conceives of citizenship,
any particular formulation – especially
in a discussion as brief as this one must be –
is readily contestable.