Today, then, the core meaning of citizenship
is membership with at least some rights
of political participation in an independent
republic that governs through some system
of elected representatives – parliamentary,
presidential, bicameral, unicameral, or some
other variation. Such citizenship is understood
to embrace not only various rights and
privileges, including rights to participate
politically, but also an ethos of at least some
willingness to exercise these rights in ways
that contribute to the common good. But the
polity-wide assembly in which all citizens
sit, deliberate and vote has effectively
vanished from the modern world, as much
or more than the hereditary aristocracies and
monarchies that the American and French
revolutionaries first assaulted. Only a fewrare vestiges of direct, active, collective
self-governance by the whole body of relevant
citizens now exist, within sub-units
such as small towns, counties, and school
districts. And with the demise of the allcitizens
assembly, expectations that most
citizens will in fact be extensively involved
in activities of political self-governance
have also faded. As many have argued, citizenship
in most modern societies rarely
involves a strongly participatory public
ethos or vigorous democratic practices (e.g.
Barber, 1984, 1995).