Abstract
This chapter looks at citizenship in order to define what it is and to put it in the context of the topic this book is examining: children’s citizenship. It begins by looking at the definitions of citizenship and nationality, thus put the two separable concepts in context. To then take that context toward the central issue, it looks at citizenship and children’s rights. To place it in perspective it is then looked at in history followed by scrutiny of modern principles and theories of citizenship. Social organisation, the duties and responsibilities of citizenship follow. The terminology used throughout the work from this point on is then introduced. Children’s participation and citizenship and their political power using a few brief examples prepare the way for broader examination in later chapters. Finally, in a very broad sense, exclusion from citizenship and suffrage are looked at in terms not only of children but also women, particular groups and individuals and under particular types of political regime with whom children can be compared. The chapter closes by taking a brief insight into democracy and citizenship.
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Notes
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The period of approximately two and a half thousand years is undoubtedly vulnerable to just criticism. We know enough about ancient civilisations such as those in Syria-Mesopotamia who very clearly had citizens to the extent that their membership of a state comparable to a modern concept existed up to 2,000 years before the ancient Greeks. However, we have far less knowledge of the detailed social construction of those civilisations. For a modern social scientist there is consequently too little substantial data for enough to be said for that to be a definitive starting point for my timeline. The Greeks, on the other hand, have given us far more data than actually required. Thus the choice is pragmatic rather than partial.
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The reservations were withdrawn in September 2008 during writing this work.
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An insanity defence is used by criminal defendants and its most common variation is cognitive insanity. Under the test to prove the plea a defendant must have been so impaired by a mental disease or defect at the time of the act that he or she did not know the nature or quality of the act. Furthermore, if a defendant did know the nature or quality of the act, he or she did not know that the act was wrong. Most countries allow defendants to plead a cognitive insanity defence. That defence should not be confused with incompetency. Accused persons who are incompetent to stand trial are held in a mental institution until they are considered capable of participating in the proceedings. This kind of defence reflects a generally accepted notion that persons who cannot understand the consequences of their actions should not be punished for criminal acts. It’s origins as complete madness were first established by common-law courts in late thirteenth century England. By the eighteenth century it had developed into the wild beast test whereby that defence was available only to a person who was ‘totally deprived of his understanding and memory so as not to know what he [was] doing, no more than an infant, a brute, or a wild beast’ (Feigl 1967:161). All people judicially committed to institutions have all citizenship rights withheld or removed until such time as they are assessed as being capable of making informed judgement which may be well after a release back into the community.
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Federal Electoral Law (Bundewahlgesetz, BGW), Section III Franchise and Eligibility, Article 13 Disqualification from Voting, enacted on 7 May 1956 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 383). In the version promulgated on 23 July 1993 (Federal Gazette II p. 1288, 1594) most recently amended by the law of 15 November 1996 (Federal Gazette I p. 1712) it states:
A person shall be disqualified from voting if
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he or she is not entitled to vote owing to a judicial decision.
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a custodian has been appointed not only through a restraining order to attend to all his or her affairs ; this also applies when the custodian’s sphere of duties does not include the affairs set forth in Article 1896, Paragraph (4) and Article 1905 of the Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch),
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he or she is accommodated in a psychiatric hospital under an order pursuant to Article 63 in conjunction with Article 20 of the Penal Code.
See also: Seifert (1976).
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Milne, B. (2013). Citizenship. In: The History and Theory of Children’s Citizenship in Contemporary Societies. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6521-4_3
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