Page 149 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

Citizenship 135

4.1 T . H . M arshall: Citizenship, Social Class, and the
Nation - State

The classic starting point for a discussion of citizenship is the historical -
sociological analysis of Thomas Humphrey Marshall. It is very much a
product of its time and place, written at the peak of optimism concerning
the post - war welfare state in Britain, and it is therefore of limited rele-
vance for an understanding of contemporary society. Nevertheless, the
analytic framework Marshall provides, in which citizenship is seen as
comprising civil, political, and social rights, is useful and widely adopted.

Furthermore, a number of the deficiencies of Marshall ’ s model clearly
illustrate the directions in which the new political sociology of citizenship
has developed in relation to the cultural politics of social movements and
processes of globalization.
Marshall analyzes citizenship as consisting of three types of rights: civil,
political, and social. Civil rights involve the protection of individual free-
doms, including “ liberty of the person, freedom of speech, thought, and
faith, the right to own property and to conclude valid contracts, and the
right to justice ” (Marshall, 1992 : 8). Associated with the modern institu-
tions of the civil and criminal courts of justice, Marshall sees civil rights
as developing in the eighteenth century. Political rights involve the right
to “ participate in the exercise of political power as a member of a body
invested with political authority or as an elector of the members of such
a body ” (1992: 8). Already existing for some, according to Marshall, they
became citizenship rights only in the twentieth century with the extension
of universal suffrage to all adults. This established the principle that they
depend on personal status rather than on economic means. In terms of
institutions, they involve the development of parliament and the councils
of local government formed in the nineteenth century. Social rights
Marshall sees as developing in the twentieth century in their modern form,
with the institutions of the welfare state, including the national system of
compulsory education and those of health and social services. Marshall ’ s

definition of social rights is more abstract than his definition of civil and

political rights, reflecting the wide view he takes of them:

By the social element I mean the whole range from the right to share in a
modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share to the full
in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilised being according to
the standards prevailing in the society. (1992: 8)