Page 162 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

148 Citizenship

they may also be privileged in relation to public life. Citizens may be
excluded, but they may also exclude. He suggests that a privilege line
could be drawn, at an income level above which it is possible to exclude
others from advantages by withdrawing into private benefi ts unavailable
to the majority of citizens (Scott, 1994 ). Policies aimed at ending social
exclusion should target the wealthy at least as much as the poor, using
taxation on income above a certain level to redistribute resources to a far
greater extent, and ending private education and healthcare. Such policies
would require global coordination; governments are reluctant to levy high
taxes on the wealthy and on corporations for fear that they will discour-
age investment, and encourage the rich to deposit their money in tax
havens out of the state ’ s reach.
Unlike other types of citizens we will look at in this chapter, the poor
are not organized into a social movement. The labor movement is still
important to workers in certain sectors of the economy, and unions have
adapted to a changing workforce that no longer consists predominantly
of white, male heads of households. Traditionally, however, unions have
been concerned with workers ’ rights, not with poverty and exclusion. In
addition, the labor movement has been very much weakened by globaliza-
tion, as its coordination across national borders has not matched the

growth of multinational corporations and flows of capital (Sklair, 2002 ).

It is very difficult for the poor to organize specifi cally around ending
poverty as citizens – in fact, historically, poverty has been associated with
the removal of civil and political rights (Lister, 2004 : 164). In part, Lister

argues, these difficulties are related to identity; the very idea of admitting
that you are poor is shameful, especially where the poor are seen as
responsible for poverty. Combined with the fact that, by defi nition, poor
people have fewer resources than others, and that, divided by gender,
ethnicity, and age, they may find little in common, it would require an

extraordinary political will to turn being identifi ed as “ poor ” from a
source of shame into a mark of political activism.

4.3 Citizenship, Sex, and Sexuality

The women ’ s movement and the gay and lesbian movement have been
among the most prominent of social movements contesting the traditional
model of citizenship rights and trying to work out more inclusive models.
Although, as social movements, they developed quite separately, the issues
they raise are analytically linked. Both women ’ s citizenship and rights in
relation to homosexuality problematize traditional roles for the sexes and