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 few rare 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.