Chapter Four: State, Government and Citizenship

Chapter Introduction
Dear learners, this chapter discusses the issue of the notion of state, basic features of state, the
role of state and the state structure, government types and systems and citizenship. It starts by
defining the terms and then proceeds to the dimensions and theories of state, government and
citizenship. Though, there are many theories of on these areas, in this chapter we will focus on
the major schools of thoughts and perspectives.

Chapter Objectives
After the successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to:
 Define the terms of state, government, citizen, nationality and citizenship.
 Understand the contending theories of state, government and citizenship.
 Discern the rights and duties of citizens’ vis-à-vis to the attributes of a good citizenship.
 List and explain the differences and similarities of these state, government and citizenship
theories.
 Comprehend the weaknesses and strengthens of the various state structures and government
systems.
 Enumerate and understand the ways of acquiring and losing Ethiopian citizenship.

Understanding State
Brainstorming:
Define state? What do you think are the essential features of the state?

Defining State
The term ‘state’ has been used to refer to a bewildering range of things: a collection of institutions,
a territorial unit, a philosophical idea, an instrument of coercion or oppression, and so on. This
confusion stems, in part, from the fact that the state has been understood in four quite different

1
ways; from an idealist perspective, a functionalist perspective, an organizational perspective and
an international perspective. The idealist approach to the state is most clearly reflected in the
writings of Hegel. Hegel identified three moments of social existence: the family, civil society
and the state. Within the family, he argued, a particular altruism operates that encourages people
to set aside their own interests for the good of their children or elderly relatives. In contrast, civil
society was seen as a sphere of ‘universal egoism’ in which individuals place their own interests
before those of others. Hegel conceived of the state as an ethical community underpinned by mutual
sympathy – ‘universal altruism’. The drawback of idealism, however, is that it fosters an uncritical
reverence for the state and, by defining the state in ethical terms, fails to distinguish clearly
between institutions that are part of the state and those that are outside the state.

Functionalist approaches to the state focus on the role or purpose of state institutions. The
central function of the state is invariably seen as the maintenance of social order (see p. 400), the
state being defined as that set of institutions that uphold order and deliver social stability. Such
an approach has, for example, been adopted by neo-Marxists (see p. 64), who have been inclined
to see the state as a mechanism through which class conflict is ameliorated to ensure the long-term
survival of the capitalist system. The weakness of the functionalist view of the state, however, is
that it tends to associate any institution that maintains order (such as the family, mass media,
trade unions and the church) with the state itself. This is why, unless there is a statement to the
contrary, an organizational approach to the definition of the state is adopted throughout this
book.

The organizational view defines the state as the apparatus of government in its broadest sense;
that is, as that set of institutions that are recognizably ‘public’, in that they are responsible for the
collective organization of social existence and are funded at the public’s expense. The virtue of
this definition is that it distinguishes clearly between the state and civil society. The state
comprises the various institutions of government: the bureaucracy, the military, the police, the
courts, and the social security system and so on; it can be identified with the entire ‘body politic’.
The organizational approach allows us to talk about ‘rolling forward’ or ‘rolling back’ the state, in
the sense of expanding or contracting the responsibilities of the state, and enlarging or
diminishing its institutional machinery.

2
The international approach to the state views it primarily as an actor on the world stage;
indeed, as the basic ‘unit’ of international politics. This highlights the dualistic structure of the
state; the fact that it has two faces, one looking outwards and the other looking inwards. Whereas
the previous definitions are concerned with the state’s inward-looking face, its relations with the
individuals and groups that live within its borders, and its ability to maintain domestic order, the
international view deals with the state’s outward-looking face, its relations with other states and,
therefore, its ability to provide protection against external attack. The classic definition of the state
in international law is found in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State
(1933). According to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, the state has four features: a
defined territory, permanent population, an effective government and sovereignty. Let us now
discuss details of the abovementioned attributes as follows:

Population: Since state is a human association, the first essential element that constitutes it is the
people. How much people constitute state? No exact number can be given to such a question.
The fact is that the states of the world vary in terms of demographic strength. There are states
with a population of greater than 1 billion like that of China and India, and with a constituency of
few thousand people like Vatican and San Marino.

Another question that comes up at this stage is whether the population of a state should be
homogenous. Homogeneity is determined by any factor like commonness of religion, or blood,
or language or culture and the like. It is good that population of a state is homogeneous, because
it makes the task of national integration easy. But it is not must, because most of the states have a
population marked by diversity in respect of race, religion, language, culture, etc. All problems
of nation building are solved and people of a state, irrespective of their differences, become a
nation. It signifies the situation of ‘unity in diversity’. In short, it is to be noted that without
population there can be no state, ‘it goes without saying that an uninhabited portion of the earth,
take in itself, cannot form a state.

Defined Territory: There can be no state without a territory of its own. The territory of a state
includes land, water, and airspace; it has maritime jurisdiction extending up to a distance of three
miles, though some states contend for a distance of up to 20 miles. The territorial authority of a
state also extends to ships on high seas under its flag as well as its embassies and

3
legations/diplomat’s

4
residence in foreign lands. As seen in the case of the factor of population, so here it should be
emphasized that the size of a state’s territory cannot be fixed. There are as large states as China
and Russia and as small states of Fiji and Mauritius in respect of their territorial make-up. It also
possible that states may be in the form of islands as Indonesia, Philippines, and Japan. It is,
however, certain that the boundary lines of a state must be well marked out. This can be done
either by the geographical make up in the form of division by the seas, rivers, mountains, thick
forests, deserts, etc., or it may be done by creating artificial divisions in the form of digging
trenches or fixing pointed wire fencing.

Government: Government is said to be the soul of the state. It implements the will of the
community. It protects the people against conditions of insecurity. If state is regarded as the first
condition of a civilized life, it is due to the existence of a government that maintain law and order
and makes ‘good life’ possible. The government is the machinery that terminates the condition of
anarchy. It is universally recognized that as long as there are diverse interests in society, some
mechanism is needed to bring about and maintain a workable arrangement to keep the people
together. The government of a state should be so organized that it enforces law so as to maintain
the conditions of peace and security. The form of government may be monarchical, aristocratic,
oligarchic, democratic, or dictatorial and the like, what really needed is that if there is no
government, there is anarchy and the state is at an end.

Sovereignty: As already pointed out, sovereignty is the fourth essential attribute of the concept
state. It is the highest power of the state that distinguishes it from all other associations of human
beings. Sovereignty, in its simplest sense, is the principle of absolute and unlimited power. It has two
aspects - Internal and External. Internal Sovereignty implies that inside the state there can be no
other authority that may claim equality with it. The state is the final source of all laws internally.
On the other hand, External sovereignty implies that the state should be free from foreign control
of any kind. It is, however, a different matter that a state willingly accepts some international
obligations in the form of membership to some international intergovernmental and other
organizations such as the United Nations. Conceptually, the existence of sovereign authority appears
in the form of law. It is for this reason that the law of the state is binding on all and its violation
is resulted with suitable punishment. It is universally accepted that a sovereign state is legally
competent to issue any command that is binding on all citizens and their associations.
5
 In addition to the essential attributes of the state agreed in the 1933, the contemporary political
theorists and the UN considered recognition as the fifth essential attribute of the state. This is
because, for a political unit to be accepted as a state with an ‘international personality’ of its
own, it must be recognized as such by a significant portion of the international community. It is
to mean that, for a state to be legal actor in the international stage; other actors (such as other
states, international intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations… etc.) must
recognize it as a state. Thus, recognition implies both approaching of the necessary facts and the
desire of coming in to effect of the legal and political results of recognition. Likewise, for a
government of a state to be formally to act on its behalf, the government must be recognized as
legitimate government of the state by other governments.

Rival Theories of State

Brainstorming:
What is the nature of state power, and whose interests does the state represent?

There are various rival theories of the state, each of which offers a different account of its
origins, development and impact on society. Indeed, controversy about the nature of state power
has increasingly dominated modern political analysis and goes to the heart of ideological and
theoretical disagreements in the discipline. These relate to questions about whether, for example,
the state is autonomous and independent of society, or whether it is essentially a product of
society, a reflection of the broader distribution of power or resources. Moreover, does the state
serve the common or collective good, or is it biased in favor of privileged groups or a dominant
class? Similarly, is the state a positive or constructive force, with responsibilities that should be
enlarged, or is it a negative or destructive? Andrew Heywood (2013) classified the rival theories
of state into four: the pluralist state, the capitalist state, the leviathan state and the patriarchal
state.

The Pluralist State

The pluralist theory of the state has a very clear liberal lineage. It stems from the belief that the
state acts as an ‘umpire’ or ‘referee’ in society. This view has also dominated mainstream political
analysis, accounting for a tendency, at least within Anglo-American thought, to discount the state
6
and state organizations and focus instead on ‘government’. Indeed, it is not uncommon in this
tradition for

7
‘the state’ to be dismissed as an abstraction, with institutions such as the courts, the civil service
and the military being seen as independent actors in their own right, rather than as elements of a
broader state machine. Nevertheless, this approach is possible only because it is based on
underlying, and often unacknowledged, assumptions about state neutrality. The state can be
ignored only because it is seen as an impartial arbiter or referee that can be bent to the will of
the government of the day.

The origins of this view of the state can be traced back to the social-contract theories of thinkers
such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The principal concern of such thinkers was to examine
the grounds of political obligation, the grounds on which the individual is obliged to obey and
respect the state. They argued that the state had arisen out of a voluntary agreement, or social
contract, made by individuals who recognized that only the establishment of a sovereign power
could safeguard them from the insecurity, disorder and brutality of the state of nature. Without a
state, individuals abuse, exploit and enslave one another; with a state, order and civilized
existence are guaranteed and liberty is protected. As Locke put it, where there is no law there is
no freedom.

In liberal theory, the state is thus seen as a neutral arbiter amongst the competing groups and
individuals in society; it is an ‘umpire’ or ‘referee’ that is capable of protecting each citizen from the
encroachments of fellow citizens. The neutrality of the state reflects the fact that the state acts in
the interests of all citizens, and therefore represents the common good or public interest. In
Hobbes’ view, stability and order could be secured only through the establishment of an absolute
and unlimited state, with power that could be neither challenged, nor questioned. In other words,
he held that citizens are confronted by a stark choice between absolutism and anarchy. Locke, on
the other hand, developed a more typically liberal defense of the limited state. In his view, the
purpose of the state is very specific: it is restricted to the defense of a set of ‘natural’ or God-given
individual rights; namely, life, liberty and property. This establishes a clear distinction between
the responsibilities of the state (essentially, the maintenance of domestic order and the protection
of property) and the responsibilities of individual citizens (usually seen as the realm of civil
society). Moreover, since the state may threaten natural rights as easily as it may uphold them,
citizens must enjoy some form of protection against the state, which Locke believed could be
delivered only through the mechanisms of constitutional and representative government.
8
These ideas were developed in the twentieth century into the pluralist theory of the state. As a
theory of society, pluralism asserts that, within liberal democracies, power is widely and evenly
dispersed. As a theory of the state, pluralism holds that the state is neutral, insofar as it is
susceptible to the influence of various groups and interests, and all social classes. The state is not
biased in favor of any particular interest or group, and it does not have an interest of its own that
is separate from those of society. As Schwarzmantel (1994) put it, the state is ‘the servant of
society and not its master’. The state can thus be portrayed as a ‘pincushion’ that passively absorbs
pressures and forces exerted upon it.

Two key assumptions underlie this view. The first is that the state is effectively subordinate to
government. Non-elected state bodies (the civil service, the judiciary, the police, the military and
so on) are strictly impartial and are subject to the authority of their political masters. The state
apparatus is therefore thought to conform to the principles of public service and political
accountability. The second assumption is that the democratic process is meaningful and effective. In
other words, party competition and interest-group activity ensure that the government of the day
remains sensitive and responsive to public opinion. Ultimately, therefore, the state is only a weather
vane that is blown in whichever direction the public-at-large dictates.

Modern pluralists, however, have often adopted a more critical view of the state, termed the neo-
pluralist theory of the state. Theorists such as Robert Dahl and Charles Lindblom (1953) have
come to accept that modern industrialized states are both more complex and less responsive to
popular pressures than classical pluralism suggested. Neo-pluralists, for instance, have acknowledged
that business enjoys a ‘privileged position’ in relation to government that other groups clearly cannot
rival. In Politics and Markets, Lindblom (1980) pointed out that, as the major investor and largest
employer in society, business is bound to exercise considerable sway over any government, whatever
its ideological leanings or manifesto commitments. Moreover, neo-pluralists have accepted that the
state can, and does, forge its own sectional interests. In this way, a state elite, composed of senior
civil servants, judges, police chiefs, military leaders and so on, may be seen to pursue either the
bureaucratic interests of their sector of the state, or the interests of client groups. Indeed, if the
state is regarded as a political actor in its own right, it can be viewed as a powerful (perhaps the
most powerful) interest group in society. This line of argument encouraged Eric Nordlinger
(1981) to
9
 develop a state-centered model of liberal democracy, based on ‘the autonomy of the democratic
state.

The Capitalist State

The Marxist notion of a capitalist state offers a clear alternative to the pluralist image of the state
as a neutral arbiter or umpire. Marxists have typically argued that the state cannot be understood
separately from the economic structure of society. This view has usually been understood in
terms of the classic formulation that the state is nothing but an instrument of class oppression:
the state emerges out of, and in a sense reflects, the class system. Nevertheless, a rich debate has
taken place within Marxist theory in recent years that has moved the Marxist theory of the state a
long way from this classic formulation. In many ways, the scope to revise Marxist attitudes
towards the state stems from ambiguities that can be found in Marx’s own writings.

Marx did not develop a systematic or coherent theory of the state. In a general sense, he believed
that the state is part of a ‘superstructure’ that is determined or conditioned by the economic
‘base’, which can be seen as the real foundation of social life. However, the precise relationship
between the base and the superstructure, and in this case that between the state and the capitalist
mode of production, is unclear. Two theories of the state can be identified in Marx’s writings.
The first is expressed in his often-quoted dictum from The Communist Manifesto (1848): ‘The
executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole
bourgeoisie’. From this perspective, the state is clearly dependent on society and entirely dependent
on its economically dominant class, which in capitalism is the bourgeoisie. Lenin thus described
the state starkly as an instrument for the oppression of the exploited class.

A second, more complex and subtle, theory of the state can nevertheless be found in Marx’s analysis
of the revolutionary events in France between 1848 and1851, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte (1852). Marx suggested that the state could enjoy what has come to be seen as
‘relative autonomy’ from the class system, the Napoleonic state being capable of imposing its
will upon society, acting as an ‘appalling parasitic body’. If the state did articulate the interests of
any class, it was not those of the bourgeoisie, but those of the most populous class in French
society, the smallholding peasantry. Although Marx did not develop this view in detail, it is clear
that, from this
10
perspective, the autonomy of the state is only relative, in that the state appears to mediate
between conflicting classes, and so maintains the class system itself in existence.

Both these theories differ markedly from the liberal and, later, pluralist models of state power. In
particular, they emphasize that the state cannot be understood except in a context of unequal
class power, and that the state arises out of, and reflects, capitalist society, by acting either as an
instrument of oppression wielded by the dominant class, or, more subtly, as a mechanism
through which class antagonisms are ameliorated. Nevertheless, Marx’s attitude towards the state
was not entirely negative. He argued that the state could be used constructively during the
transition from capitalism to communism in the form of the ‘revolutionary dictatorship of the
proletariat’. The overthrow of capitalism would see the destruction of the bourgeois state and the
creation of an alternative, proletarian one.

In describing the state as a proletarian ‘dictatorship’, Marx utilized the first theory of the state, seeing
the state as an instrument through which the economically dominant class (by then, the
proletariat) could repress and subdue other classes. All states, from this perspective, are class
dictatorships. The ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ was seen as a means of safeguarding the gains
of the revolution by preventing counter-revolution mounted by the dispossessed bourgeoisie.
Nevertheless, Marx did not see the state as a necessary or enduring social formation. He predicted
that, as class antagonisms faded, the state would ‘wither away’, meaning that a fully communist
society would also be stateless. Since the state emerged out of the class system, once the class
system had been abolished, the state, quite simply, loses its reason for existence. Marx’s
ambivalent heritage has provided modern Marxists, or neo-Marxists, with considerable scope to
further the analysis of state power. This was also encouraged by the writings of Antonio
Gramsci, who emphasized the degree to which the domination of the ruling class is achieved by
ideological manipulation, rather than just open coercion. In this view, bourgeois domination is
maintained largely through ‘hegemony’: that is, intellectual leadership or cultural control, with
the state playing an important role in the process.

Since the 1960s, Marxist theorizing about the state has been dominated by rival instrumentalist
and structuralist views of the state. In The State in Capitalist Society (1969, 2009), Miliband
portrayed the state as an agent or instrument of the ruling class, stressing the extent to which the

11
state elite is disproportionately drawn from the ranks of the privileged and propertied. The bias
of the state in

12
 favor of capitalism is therefore derived from the overlap of social backgrounds between, on the
one hand, civil servants and other public officials, and, on the other, bankers, business leaders
and captains of industry. Nicos Poulantzas, in Political Power and Social Classes (1968),
dismissed this sociological approach, and emphasized instead the degree to which the structure
of economic and social power exerts a constraint on state autonomy. This view suggests that the
state cannot but act to perpetuate the social system in which it operates. In the case of the
capitalist state, its role is to serve the long-term interests of capitalism, even though these actions
may be resisted by sections of the capitalist class itself. Neo-Marxists have increasingly seen the
state as the terrain on which the struggle amongst interests, groups and classes is conducted.
Rather than being an ‘instrument’ wielded by a dominant group or ruling class, the state is thus a
dynamic entity that reflects the balance of power within society at any given time, and the
ongoing struggle for hegemony.

The Leviathan State

The image of the state as a ‘leviathan’ (in effect, a self-serving monster intent on expansion and
aggrandizement) is one associated in modern politics with the New Right. Such a view is rooted
in early or classical liberalism and, in particular, a commitment to a radical form of individualism.
The New Right, or at least its neoliberal wing, is distinguished by a strong antipathy towards
state intervention in economic and social life, born out of the belief that the state is parasitic
growth that threatens both individual liberty and economic security. In this view, the state,
instead of being, as pluralists suggest, an impartial umpire or arbiter, is an overbearing ‘nanny’,
desperate to interfere or meddle in every aspect of human existence. The central feature of this
view is that the state pursues interests that are separate from those of society (setting it apart from
Marxism), and that those interests demand an unrelenting growth in the role or responsibilities of
the state itself. New Right thinkers therefore argue that the twentieth century tendency towards
state intervention reflected not popular pressure for economic and social security, or the need to
stabilize capitalism by ameliorating class tensions but, rather, the internal dynamics of the state.

New Right theorists explain the expansionist dynamics of state power by reference to both
demand-side and supply-side pressures. Demand-side pressures are those that emanate from
society itself, usually through the mechanism of electoral democracy. The New Right argue that

13
electoral competition encourages politicians to ‘outbid’ one another by making promises of
increased spending and more generous government programs, regardless of the long-term
damage that such

14
 policies inflict on the economy in the form of increased taxes, higher inflation and the ‘crowding
out’ of investment. Supply-side pressures, on the other hand, are those that are internal to the
state. These can therefore be explained in terms of the institutions and personnel of the state
apparatus. In its most influential form, this argument is known as the government oversupply
thesis. The oversupply thesis has usually been associated with public-choice theorists, who examine
how public decisions are made on the assumption that the individuals involved act in a rationally self-
interested fashion.

While Marxists argue that the state reflects broader class and other social interests, the New
Right portrays the state as an independent or autonomous entity that pursues its own interests. In
this view, bureaucratic self-interest invariably supports ‘big’ government and state intervention,
because this leads to an enlargement of the bureaucracy itself, which helps to ensure job security,
improve pay, open up promotion prospects and enhance the status of public officials. This image
of self-seeking bureaucrats is plainly at odds with the pluralist notion of a state machine imbued
with an ethic of public service and firmly subject to political control.

The Patriarchal State

Modern thinking about the state must, finally, take account of the implications of feminist
theory. However, this is not to say that there is a systematic feminist theory of the state. Feminist
theory encompasses a range of traditions and perspectives, and has thus generated a range of very
different attitudes towards state power. Moreover, feminists have usually not regarded the nature
of state power as a central political issue, preferring instead to concentrate on the deeper
structure of male power centered on institutions such as the family and the economic system.
Some feminists, indeed, may question conventional definitions of the state, arguing, for instance,
that the idea that the state exercises a monopoly of legitimate violence is compromised by the
routine use of violence and intimidation in family and domestic life. Nevertheless, sometimes
implicitly and sometimes explicitly, feminists have helped to enrich the state debate by
developing novel and challenging perspectives on state power.

Liberal feminists, who believe that sexual or gender equality can be brought about through
incremental reform, have tended to accept an essentially pluralist view of the state. They
recognize that, if women are denied legal and political equality, and especially the right to vote,
15
the state is

16
biased in favor of men. However, their faith in the state’s basic neutrality is reflected in the belief
that any such bias can, and will, be overcome by a process of reform. In this sense, liberal
feminists believe that all groups (including women) have potentially equal access to state power,
and that this can be used impartially to promote justice and the common good. Liberal feminists
have therefore usually viewed the state in positive terms, seeing state intervention as a means of
redressing gender inequality and enhancing the role of women. This can be seen in campaigns for
equal-pay legislation, the legalization of abortion, the provision of child-care facilities, the
extension of welfare benefits, and so on.

Nevertheless, a more critical and negative view of the state has been developed by radical feminists,
who argue that state power reflects a deeper structure of oppression in the form of patriarchy.
There are a number of similarities between Marxist and radical feminist views of state power. Both
groups, for example, deny that the state is an autonomous entity bent on the pursuit of its own
interests. Instead, the state is understood, and its biases are explained, by reference to a ‘deep
structure’ of power in society at large. Whereas Marxists place the state in an economic context,
radical feminists place it in a context of gender inequality, and insist that it is essentially an
institution of male power. In common with Marxism, distinctive instrumentalist and structuralist
versions of this feminist position have been developed. The instrumentalist argument views the
state as little more than an agent or ‘tool’ used by men to defend their own interests and uphold
the structures of patriarchy. This line of argument draws on the core feminist belief that
patriarchy is rooted in the division of society into distinct ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres of life,
men dominating the former while women are confined to the later. Quite simply, in this view, the
state is run by men, and for men.

Whereas instrumentalist arguments focus on the personnel of the state, and particularly the state
elite, structuralist arguments tend to emphasize the degree to which state institutions are
embedded in a wider patriarchal system. Modern radical feminists have paid particular attention
to the emergence of the welfare state, seeing it as the expression of a new kind of patriarchal
power. Welfare may uphold patriarchy by bringing about a transition from private dependence
(in which women as ‘home makers’ are dependent on men as ‘breadwinners’) to a system of
public dependence in which women are increasingly controlled by the institutions of the
extended state. For instance, women have become increasingly dependent on the state as clients
17
or customers of

18
 state services (such as childcare institutions, nursery education and social work) and as employees,
particularly in the so-called ‘caring’ professions (such as nursing, social work and education).

The Role of the State

Brainstorming Questions:
What should states do? What functions or responsibilities should the state fulfil, and which ones
should be left in the hands of private individuals?

Contrasting interpretations of state power have clear implications for the desirable role or
responsibilities of the state. With the exception of anarchists, who dismiss the state as fundamentally
evil and unnecessary, all political thinkers have regarded the state as, in some sense, worthwhile.
Even revolutionary socialists, inspired by the Leninist slogan ‘smash the state’, have accepted
the need for a temporary proletarian state to preside over the transition from capitalism to
communism, in the form of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Nevertheless, there is profound
disagreement about the exact role the state should play, and therefore about the proper balance
between the state and civil society. Among the different state forms that have developed are the
following:

 Minimal states
 Developmental states
 Social-democratic states
 Collectivized states
 Totalitarian states
 Religious states

Minimal States
The minimal state is the ideal of classical liberals, whose aim is to ensure that individuals enjoy
the widest possible realm of freedom. This view is rooted in social-contract theory, but it
nevertheless advances an essentially ‘negative’ view of the state. From this perspective, the value
of the state is that it has the capacity to constrain human behavior and thus to prevent individuals
encroaching on the rights and liberties of others. The state is merely a protective body, its core
19
function being to provide a framework of peace and social order within which citizens can
conduct their lives as they

20
 think best. In Locke’s famous simile, the state acts as a night watchman, whose services are
called upon only when orderly existence is threatened? This nevertheless leaves the ‘minimal’ or
‘night watchman’ state with three core functions. First and foremost, the state exists to maintain
domestic order. Second, it ensures that contracts or voluntary agreements made between private
citizens are enforced, and third it provides protection against external attack. The institutional
apparatus of a minimal state is thus limited to a police force, a court system and a military of some
kind. Economic, social, cultural, moral and other responsibilities belong to the individual, and are
therefore firmly part of civil society.

The cause of the minimal state has been taken up in modern political debate by the New Right.
Drawing on early liberal ideas, and particularly on free-market or classical economic theories,
the New Right has proclaimed the need to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’. In the writings of
Robert Nozick (1974), this amounts to a restatement of Lockean liberalism based on a defense of
individual rights, especially property rights. In the case of free-market economists such as
Friedrich von Haye and Milton Friedman, state intervention is seen as a ‘dead hand’ that reduces
competition, efficiency and productivity. From the New Right perspective, the state’s economic
role should be confined to two functions: the maintenance of a stable means of exchange or
‘sound money’ (low or zero inflation), and the pro motion of competition through controls on
monopoly power, price fixing and so on.

Developmental States
The best historical examples of minimal states were those in countries such as the UK and the
USA during the period of early industrialization in the nineteenth century. As a general rule,
however, the later a country industrializes, the more extensive will be its state’s economic role.
In Japan and Germany, for instance, the state assumed a more active ‘developmental’ role from
the outset. A developmental state is one that intervenes in economic life with the specific
purpose of promoting industrial growth and economic development. This does not amount to an
attempt to replace the market with a ‘socialist’ system of planning and control but, rather, to an
attempt to construct a partnership between the state and major economic interests, often
underpinned by conservative and nationalist priorities.

21
 The classic example of a developmental state is Japan. During the Meiji Period (1868–1912), the
Japanese state forged a close relationship with the Zaibutsu, the great family-run business
empires that dominated the Japanese economy up until World War II. Since 1945, the
developmental role of the Japanese state has been assumed by the Japanese Ministry of
International Trade and Industry (MITI), which, together with the Bank of Japan, helps to shape
private investment decisions and steer the Japanese economy towards international
competitiveness. A similar model of developmental intervention has existed in France, where
governments of both left and right have tended to recognize the need for economic planning, and
the state bureaucracy has seen itself as the custodian of the national interest. In countries such as
Austria and, to some extent, Germany, economic development has been achieved through the
construction of a ‘partnership state’, in which an emphasis is placed on the maintenance of a close
relationship between the state and major economic interests, notably big business and organized
labor.

More recently, economic globalization has fostered the emergence of ‘competition states’, examples
of which are found amongst the tiger economies of East Asia. Competition states are
distinguished by their recognition of the need to strengthen education and training as the
principal guaranteeing economic success in a context of intensifying transnational competition.

Social Democratic (Welfare) States

Whereas developmental states practice interventionism in order to stimulate economic progress,
social-democratic states intervene with a view to bringing about broader social restructuring, usually
in accordance with principles such as fairness, equality and social justice. In countries such as Austria
and Sweden, state intervention has been guided by both developmental and social democratic
priorities. Nevertheless, developmentalism and social democracy do not always go hand-in-hand. As
Marquand (1988) pointed out, although the UK state was significantly extended in the period
immediately after World War II along social-democratic lines, it failed to evolve into a
developmental state. The key to understanding the social-democratic state is that there is a shift
from a ‘negative’ view of the state, which sees it as little more than a necessary evil, to a positive
view of the state, in which it is seen as a means of enlarging liberty and promoting justice. The
social-democratic state is thus the ideal of both modern liberals and democratic socialists.

22
 Rather than merely laying down the conditions of orderly existence, the social-democratic state is an
active participant; in particular, helping to rectify the imbalances and injustices of a market economy.
It therefore tends to focus less upon the generation of wealth and more upon what is seen as the
equitable or just distribution of wealth. In practice, this boils down to an attempt to eradicate
poverty and reduce social inequality. The twin features of a social democratic state are therefore
Keynesianism and social welfare. The aim of Keynesian economic policies is to ‘manage’ or
‘regulate’ capitalism with a view to promoting growth and maintaining full employment.
Although this may entail an element of planning, the classic Keynesian strategy involves
‘demand management’ through adjustments in fiscal policy; that is, in the levels of public
spending and taxation. The adoption of welfare policies has led to the emergence of so called
‘welfare states’, whose responsibilities have extended to the promotion of social well-being amongst
their citizens. In this sense, the social-democratic state is an ‘enabling state’, dedicated to the
principle of individual empowerment.

Collectivized States
While developmental and social-democratic states intervene in economic life with a view to guiding
or supporting a largely private economy, collectivized states bring the entirety of economic life under
state control. The best examples of such states were in orthodox communist countries such as the
USSR and throughout Eastern Europe. These sought to abolish private enterprise altogether, and
set up centrally planned economies administered by a network of economic ministries and
planning committees. So-called ‘command economies’ were therefore established that were
organized through a system of ‘directive’ planning that was ultimately controlled by the highest
organs of the communist party. The justification for state collectivization stems from a
fundamental socialist preference for common ownership over private property. However, the use
of the state to attain this goal suggests a more positive attitude to state power than that outlined in
the classical writings of Marx and Engels (1820–95).

Marx and Engels by no means ruled out nationalization; Engels, in particular, recognized that,
during the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, state control would be extended to include factories,
the banks, transportation and so on. Nevertheless, they envisaged that the proletarian state would
be strictly temporary, and that it would ‘wither away’ as class antagonisms abated. In contrast,

23
the collectivized state in the USSR became permanent, and increasingly powerful and
bureaucratic.

24
 Under Stalin, socialism was effectively equated with statism, the advance of socialism being reflected
in the widening responsibilities and powers of the state apparatus. Indeed, after Khrushchev
announced in 1962 that the dictatorship of the proletariat had ended, the state was formally
identified with the interests of ‘the whole Soviet peoples.

Totalitarian States
The most extreme and extensive form of interventionism is found in totalitarian states. The
essence of totalitarianism is the construction of an all-embracing state, the influence of which
penetrates every aspect of human existence. The state brings not only the economy, but also
education, culture, religion, family life and so on under direct state control. The best examples of
totalitarian states are Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR, although modern regimes such as
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq arguably have similar characteristics. The central pillars of such regimes are
a comprehensive process of surveillance and terroristic policing, and a pervasive system of
ideological manipulation and control. In this sense, totalitarian states effectively extinguish civil
society and abolish the private sphere of life altogether. This is a goal that only fascists, who
wish to dissolve individual identity within the social whole, are prepared openly to endorse. It is
sometimes argued that Mussolini’s notion of a totalitarian state was derived from Hegel’s belief
in the state as an ‘ethical community’ reflecting the altruism and mutual sympathy of its
members. From this perspective, the advance of human civilization can clearly be linked to the
aggrandizement of the state and the widening of its responsibilities.

Religious States
On the face of it, a religious state is a contradiction in terms. The modern state emerged largely
through the triumph of civil authority over religious authority, religion increasingly being
confined to the private sphere, through a separation between church and state. The advance of
state sovereignty thus usually went hand in hand with the forward march of secularization. In the
USA, the secular nature of the state was enshrined in the First Amendment of the constitution,
which guarantees that freedom of worship shall not be abridged, while in France the separation
of church and state has been maintained through a strict emphasis on the principle of laïcité. In
countries such as Norway, Denmark and the UK, ‘established’ or state religions have
developed, although the

25
 privileges these religions enjoy stop well short of theocratic rule, and their political influence has
generally been restricted by a high level of social secularization.

Nevertheless, the period since the 1980s has witnessed the rise of the religious state, driven by
the tendency within religious fundamentalism to reject the public/private divide and to view
religion as the basis of politics. Far from regarding political realm as inherently corrupt,
fundamentalist movements have typically looked to seize control of the state and to use it as an
instrument of moral and spiritual regeneration. This was evident, for instance, in the process of
‘Islamization’ introduced in Pakistan under General Zia-ul-Haq after 1978, the establishment of
an ‘Islamic state’ in Iran as a result of the 1979 revolution, and, despite its formal commitment to
secularism, the close links between the Sri Lankan state and Sinhala Buddhism, particularly during
the years of violent struggle against Tamil separatism. Although, strictly speaking, religious states
are founded on the basis of religious principles, and, in the Iranian model, contain explicitly
theocratic features, in other cases religiously-orientated governments operate in a context of
constitutional secularism.

Understanding Government
Brainstorming:
What is government? What are the functions of government? Discuss on the systems of
government?

What is Government?
In its broadest sense, to govern means to rule or control others. Government can therefore be
taken to include any mechanism through which ordered rule is maintained, its central features
being the ability to make collective decisions and the capacity to enforce them. A form of
government can thus be identified in almost all social institutions like families, school,
businesses, trade unions and so on. However, government in our context, is to refer to the formal
and institutional processes that operate at the national level to maintain public order and facilitate
collective action. It is a body or organ that administers a country and main organization dealing
with affairs of the whole country. Thus, government is one of the most essential components and
also an administrative wing of the state.
26
In other words, government can also refer to political organization comprising individuals and
institutions authorized to formulate public policies and conduct affairs of state. Governments are
empowered to establish and regulate the interrelationships of the people within their territorial
confines, the relations of the people with community as a whole, and the dealings of the
community with other political entities. Thus, government applies both to the governments of
national states, for instance the federal government of Ethiopia and to the governments of
subdivisions of national states such as the regional states, provinces, and municipal governments,
etc. of Ethiopia. Any form of government, to be stable and effective, must possess two essential
attributes: authority and legitimacy.

Authority: In politics, the word authority implies the ability to compel obedience. It can simply
be defined as ‘legitimate power.’ While power is the ability to influence the behavior of others,
authority is the right to do so. Authority is therefore, based on an acknowledged duty to obey
rather than on any form of coercion or manipulation. Thus, authority is the legitimacy,
justification and right to exercise that power. Authority can be expressed as naked force and
terror as was the case in many undemocratic governments or through a series of more or less
transparent public hearings as in the case of most democratic states.

Legitimacy: The term legitimacy (from the Latin word legitimare, meaning ‘to declare lawful’)
broadly means rightfulness. Thus, legitimacy is the attribute of government that prompts the
governed to comply willingly with its authority. It confers on an order or commands an authoritative
or binding character, thus transforming power in to authority. Thus, legitimacy is the popular
acceptance of a governing regime or law as an authority.

Legitimacy is considered as a basic condition to rule; without at least a minimal amount of

legitimacy, a government will deadlock or collapse. Thus, as long as legitimacy stays at a certain
level, stability is maintained, if it falls below this level it is endangered. For instance, most of the
times regimes are seen as requiring the consent of a large proportion of the population to retain
power, but this is not necessarily be the case, since many unpopular regimes have been known to
survive provided they are seen as legitimate within a small but influential elite. Therefore,
legitimacy is gained through the acquisition of power in accordance with recognized or accepted
standards or principles. That is to say that a legitimate government will ‘do the right thing’ and

27
therefore deserves

28
 to be respected and obeyed. The concept legitimacy differs from legality in the sense that the
term legality does not necessarily guarantee that a government is respected or that its citizens
acknowledge a duty of obedience.

Purposes and Functions of Government

One of the central questions of political philosophy is the purpose of government. Many great
political philosophers have conceived themselves with this question. One common formulation is
that the main purpose of the state is to protect rights and to preserve justice. There are several
ways to conceive the differences between the different political views. For example, one might as
in what areas should the government have jurisdiction, to what extent it may intervene in those
areas, or even what constitutes intervention in the first place. A lot of institutions can be said to
exist only because the government provides the framework for their existence; for instance,
Marxist argue that the institution of private property only exists due to government. Mostly, the
constitutions of various countries codify views to the purposes, powers, and forms of their
governments, but they tend to do so in rather vague terms, which particular laws, courts, and
actions of politicians subsequently flesh out. In general, various countries have translated vague talk
about the purposes of their governments in to particular state laws, bureaucracies, enforcement
actions, etc.

Evidently, depending on the character of the society of which they are an expression, different
governments may serve various purposes and functions. In the contemporary world, however,
the purposes and functions of governments have greatly expanded with the emergence of
government as the most active force vehicle in the political, social, and economic developments.
Accordingly, the major purposes and functions of government include, among other things, the
following:

 Self-Preservation: Nearly all governments at least claim to have as their purposes the
establishment of an order that permits predictability, which in turn promotes a sense of
security among the governed. This may be true whether a government is authoritarian or
democratic. Sovereign states also take as a primary purpose the defense of the country’s
territory against external attack. Thus, as their first and primary purpose and function,
governments are responsible to prevail order, predictability, internal security, and external
29
 defense.
 Distribution and Regulation of Resources: All governments invariably play the role of
distributing resources in their societies. In addition, governments are the only institutions that

30
 determine whether resources are going to be controlled by the public or private sector. Some
governments may decide that the resources should be controlled by the public, which commonly
known as socialist states and others may decide to be controlled by the private sector, which
are capitalist states. In addition, other states may place in between, that is the resources could
be controlled by both the public and private sector.
 Management of Conflicts: Governments usually develop and consolidate institutions and
procedures for the management of conflicts. These may include the legislative, executive,
and judicial institutions with established procedures for the supervision and resolution of
conflicts that may arise in the society.
 Fulfillment of Social or Group Aspirations: In addition to the aforementioned purposes
and functions, governments also strive to fulfill the goals and interests of the society as a
whole and of various groups within the society. These aspirations may include the promotion
of human rights, common good, and international peace.
 Protection of Rights of Citizens: Some governments, especially those of constitutional and
democratic governments, are established for the protection of every citizen’s human,
democratic, political, social, economic and cultural rights. Constitutional and democratic
governments are created to serve and protect every citizen’s rights, not to dominate them.
 Protection of Property: States or governments provide means such as police and the court
systems that protect private and public property. As such, protection of private and public
property is, therefore, one among the major purposes and functions of any government.
 Implementations of Moral Conditions: Some governments’ attempts to improve the moral
conditions of their citizens that is why, in all countries, laws and institutions are designed to
shape citizens character in accordance with some standard of morality.

 Provision of Goods and Services: Some governments, especially those of the poor
countries, participate heavily in the provision of goods and services for the public. Some of
the necessary common goods and services provided by governments may include, provision
of healthcare, education, development of public works, provision of food, shelter, clothing
for the public, Developing social services, etc.

31
Understanding Citizenship

Brainstorming Question:
What does the term citizenship means for you?

Defining Citizenship
As you can remember, in chapter one of this course, we have seen the definitions of citizen and
citizenship. In simplest terms, citizen refers to the person who is a legal member of a particular
State and one who owes allegiance to that State. To describe it in a different mood, citizen is a
person who is legally recognized as member of a particular, officially sovereign political community,
entitled to whatever prerogatives and encumbered with responsibilities.

The means by which we determine whether a person is legal member of a particular State or
otherwise is called ‘citizenship’. At the formal level, citizenship simply denotes to the network of
relationships between the State and the citizen. As such, citizenship refers to the rules regulating
the legal/formal relations between the State and the individual with respect to the acquisition and loss
of a given country’s nationality. However, from political and social perspectives and at a
substantive level, citizenship is beyond a legal status. Though many agree that citizenship is a
political and legal artefact that creates a condition of civic equality among those who possess it
with regard to the prerogatives and responsibilities it bestows and requires, the term citizenship
has been defined differently by scholars and practitioners. For this reason, citizenship is a
polysemy term which has had different meanings depending on the historical legacies, political
organization of the state, ideologies and socio-cultural context of societies. Several countries
refer to the term citizenship in their national language as expressing merely the judicial
relationship between the citizen and the State while others denote it with the social roles of citizens
in their society. Generally, the concept of citizenship varies from society to society, depending on
the place, the historical moment and political organization. Although differences may exist, there
are common elements such as rights, duties, belonging, identity and participation one can find in
definitions of the term.

i) Citizenship as a Status of Rights: The mere fact of being a citizen makes the person a
32
creditor of a series of rights. In this sense, current political discourse often tends to identify
citizenship with

33
rights. Marshall 1998, distinguishes three types of rights that historically have been established in
succession: the civil, or the rights necessary for the development of individual liberty; political, i.e. the
right to participate in the exercise of political power, as an elected member or as a voter and
social rights, which are those that guarantee the right to public safety, health, the right to
education, etc., that is the right to a decent life (these rights are discussed in detail in Chapter
four of this module). It is precisely these rights that give us the status of citizens, to enjoy these
means to be a full member of a democratic society. Each right is often pursued in specific
institutional forums: legal/civil rights are mainly exercised in the courts; political rights are used in
voting booths, legislatures and street protests; social rights are often activated or disputed in
government buildings.

Oldfield (1990), Mouffe (1992) and Lister (1997) conceptualize citizenship as both a status and
an active practice. Citizenship as a status accords a range of rights and obligations. That is why;
Jones and Gaventa (2002) assert that rights and obligations lie at the heart of the language of
citizenship. Hence, legally and sociologically speaking, a citizen is a person who has the
privilege to enjoy the citizenship rights that are essential for agency. Hohfeld (1978), for
instance, discovered four components of rights known as ‘the Hohfeldian incidents’ namely,
liberty (privilege), claim, power and immunity.

a) Liberty Right: is a freedom given for the right-holder to do something and there are no
obligations on other parties to do or not to do anything to aid the bearer to enjoy such rights. The
beholder got benefits from liberty rights without obliging others. Furthermore, no one including
the State has any legitimate authority to interfere with the citizen’s freedom except to prevent
harm to others. For instance, every citizen has the right to movement. His/her right to movement
goes to the level where another’s claim right limits his/her freedom (see also through articles 25 to
34 of the FDRE constitution). But what does it means by claim rights?

b) Claim Rights: are the inverse of liberty rights since it entails responsibility upon another
person or body. The duty bearer has to accomplish something that is indispensable for right
holders to enjoy the claim rights. That is, there must be somebody who is there to do or refrain
from doing something to/for the claim holder, i.e., claim rights are rights enjoyed by individuals
when others discharge their obligations. Hence, in contrast to liberty rights, claim rights impose a

34
corresponding duty on others to help respect and protect the bearers. For instance, social
rights such as

35
unemployment and public service benefits are claims that directly depend on taxes paid by others. To
mention, a contract between employer and employee confers on the employee a right to be paid
his/her wages. The employee has a claim that the employer has a duty to the employee to pay
those wages. Article 41(3 and 4) of the FDRE constitution underlines the responsibility of the
government to avail publicly funded social services such as health and education since all Ethiopian
citizens have the rights to enjoy such basic privileges, claim rights.

Liberty and claim rights termed as primary rules, rules requiring that people perform or refrain from
doing particular action. There are two other rights termed as secondary rules, according to
Hohfeldian incidents. These secondary rules specify how agents/beholders can introduce, change
and alter the primary rules (liberty and claim rights).

c) Powers Rights: are rights regarding the modification of first-order rights. They are
cooperative controls that are imposed on others. The holder of a power, be it a government or a
citizen, can change or cancel other people and his/her own entitlements. For example, Article
40(1) of the FDRE constitution asserts that Ethiopian citizens have the rights to the ownership of
private property and to modify, sale, donate or transfer their property to a third party. As it is
stated in Article 33(3) the FDRE constitution, every Ethiopian citizen has the right to renounce
his/her Ethiopian citizenship/nationality which shows the power rights of the citizens. Similarly,
a government has also the power to modify legal rights through imposing to or removing duties
from citizens.

d) Immunity Rights: allow bearers escape from controls and thus they are the opposite of power
rights. Immunity rights entail the absence of a power in other party to alter the right-holder’s
normative situation in some way. For instance, civil servants have a right not to be dismissed
from their job after a new government comes to power. Witness in the court has a right not to be
ordered to incriminate himself/herself. Additionally, as it is affirmed in Article 18(3) of the
FDRE constitution, “no one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour”.
Immunities also comprise compensation for rights violations that occurred in the past and at least
partially make up for past injustices or uneven burdens.

Discussion Question:

36
Assume that you have a smart phone. Then, discuss with your class mates about your liberty, claim,
power and immunity rights over your smart phone.

ii) Membership and Identity: Citizenship is associated with membership of a political community,
which implies integration into that community with a specific identity that is common to all
members who belongs to it. The criteria for membership have been linked to shared territory,
common culture, ethnic characteristics, history, etc. However, nowadays, we often use citizenship to
signify not just membership in some group but certain standards of proper conduct. Some people
–those who contribute to the well-being of their community are understood to be the ‘true’
citizens. Those who free-ride are mere members who do not seem to understand, embrace, or
embody what citizenship really means. When communities, public or private, bestow citizenship
awards to some of their members, it is this usage they invoke. It obviously implies that only
‘good’ citizens are genuine citizens in the full meaning of the term.

iii) Participation: Participation occupies a key position in citizenship. Nonetheless, individuals

differ in what approaches they find important – some people focus on their private affairs while
others actively participate in the life of the society, including politics. There are two approaches
in this regard; minimalists and maximalists. A minimalist approach to citizenship characterized
by a kind of basic passive compliance with the rules of a particular community/State, while the
maximalist approach imply active, broad participation of citizens engagement in the State.

However, as Ferguson (1999) asserts, people cannot realize their rights (be it social, economic
and political rights), if they fail to exercise their democratic rights to participation in decision-making
that affect, directly or indirectly, their affairs. Since citizens are embodies with social relations, “to act
as a citizen requires a sense of agency: the belief that one can act; acting as citizen, especially
collectively” (Lister, 1998: 38). Therefore, framing citizenship as agency place undue obligation
on people to consciously exercise their citizenship rights. For example, the involvement of
service users in the decision-making process of public services helps them to consider
themselves as active agents making and creating the services they receive rather than being
passive beneficiaries. That is why there is a dichotomy between passive and active citizenship.

iv) Inclusion and Exclusion: All individuals living in a particular state do not necessary mean that

37
all are citizens. For instance, there are non-citizens visiting, working and living in Ethiopia
branded

38
 as foreigners/aliens. Foreigners have the likelihood of staying in the territorial administration of
Ethiopia as far as they have authorized visas. The aliens, therefore, have rights just like the
Ethiopian citizens such as the right to life, movement, and protection of the law. Additionally,
there are also responsibilities shared by both the non-citizens and citizens domiciled in Ethiopia
particularly in respecting the laws of the country. However, citizens are fundamentally different from
aliens in enjoying privileges and shouldering responsibilities. There are some political and economic
rights that are reserved to and duties to be discharged by citizens only. For instance, an Ethiopian
citizen has the right to get access to land, vote and to be elected and get Ethiopian passport.
Likewise, defending the constitution as well as Ethiopia territory from foreign aggressors are
solely the duty of Ethiopian citizens. Generally, citizenship as legal relationship between a
person and a State is different from the specific legal relation exist between foreigners and the
host State.

Citizenship status, however, is not only restricted to persons. Organizations and [endemic]
animals could also be considered as citizens. The term "corporate citizenship" (CC) has been
used increasingly by corporations, consultants and scholars to echo, underscore, extend, or
reorient certain aspects of corporate social responsibility. This is important, for it offers
innovative conceptual aspect for understanding business-society relation, and in particular for
identifying specific roles and responsibilities for corporate, governmental, and other actors in
society. Just like citizens, corporations and private organizations do have the right to make profits
and maximize their benefits. As well, they have the duty to pay tax and protect the environment
similar to individual persons of citizens. In the modern time, corporations’ duty is not restricted
to protecting the environment and paying tax. Beyond the formal responsibilities, they have also
corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR requires corporations to engage in social and
development affairs such as helping individuals with disabilities, HIV/AIDS carriers, constructing
schools and health centers. Moreover, in the era of globalization, it has become increasingly
customary to use ‘citizen’ in a different way to indicate membership of a person beyond a particular
political community, the State. Terms like ‘global citizen’ or ‘cosmopolitan citizen’ are commonly
used to refer to every human living in the earth planet.

Theorizing Citizenship

39
Citizenship is not an eternal essence rather a cultural artifact mold by people through time and
that is why the notion of citizenship and the meaning attached to it changes with the change in
political

40
thoughts, ideologies, policies and government. While some States relies on markets to allocate
citizenship rights with very restricted government/State intervention, other States acknowledge
government intervention in the market. Besides, all citizenship rights haven’t got institutional
recognition at the same period. Some of the citizenship rights such as women’s rights are
recently endorsed into law. For instance, the way citizenship has been framed and defined in the
post-1991 Ethiopia is different from the time before, and the list and scope of constitutional
rights too. Citizenship obligations vary too, ranging from States where military service is required
(like Eritrea and North Korea) to those states (including Ethiopia) where every citizen, under
normal circumstances, is not obliged to take military trainings or serve. As a result, various
citizenship theories emerge out of such historical trajectories.

Therefore, to realize the notion of citizenship, what it is and what it could become, understanding
its theoretical explanations come out to be the crucial one. Though there are different approaches
to citizenship, most contemporary works that address the issue of citizenship speak of the
following four approaches: liberal, communitarian, republican and multicultural citizenship.

Citizenship in Liberal Thought

Class Discussion:
Have you ever heard the word liberalism? What comes to your mind when you heard/read the
word?

Liberal theory of citizenship begins with the individual person (the self). The self exists as the
true symbol of liberal theory. Accordingly, it gives a strong emphasis to the individual liberty of
the citizen, and rights that adhere to each and every person. The self is represented as a
calculating holder of preferences and rights in a liberal society. Hence, in liberalism the primary
political unit as well as the initial focus of all fundamental political inquiry is the individual person.

Liberals insist that individuals should be free to decide on their own conception of the good life,
and applaud the liberation of individuals from any ascribed or inherited status. Advocators of this
though argue that individual citizens act rationally, corresponding to the constitutions and laws
of the State, to advance their own interests. As well, individuals conceive of themselves and of
one another as having the moral power to have a conception of the good. John Locke (1960),
41
one

42
among the influential early expositors of liberal theory, viewed individuals as endowed with
reasoning skills, through which they can discern and act upon the dictates of divinely given
natural law. If individuals act irrationally, it means that they debase their natural faculties and
misapprehend what natural law requires. Locke argued that natural law and the reason to
apprehend compel individuals to consider their own and others interests, to enter into civil and
political society, act in the community and thus to value social cooperation and self-restraint. Thus,
the individual is morally prior to the community: the community matters only because it
contributes to the well-being of the individuals who compose it. If those individuals no longer
find it worthwhile to maintain existing cultural practices, then the community has no independent
interest in preserving those practices, and no right to prevent individuals from modifying or
rejecting them.

Likewise, liberals deem internal factors as the primary reasons that determine personal identity. They
provide little consideration to the environmental factors in the process of shaping the self.
Beyond this, liberalists claims that the individual person shapes all other social aggregations,
including the state. Therefore, citizenship and other political institutions in a given State are
means that are accepted only conditionally – i.e., as long as they, in the individual’s calculations,
foster the maximization of the citizen’s preferences/benefits. John Stuart Mill, for instance,
regarded individuality and self-interest as the source of social, not just personal, progress and
well-being. He has insisted that untrammeled freedom of individual thought, inquiry, worship, and
expression is the surest path to truth and social improvement. Under this thought, the role of the
State is to protect and create convenient environment to help citizens enjoy and exercise of their
rights; the State has an instrumental function. According to Mill, individual liberty and State
action tend to be opposed to each other. Increasing the power of the State means reducing
individual liberty describing the myopia, corruptibility, and other defects of state officials
exercising coercive powers, the better outcomes when individuals pursue their own ends, and the
natural sociability of private actors in a liberal.

The pursuit of one’s own interests that do not affect others is entirely the province of the
individual, within which one must be free to do as one pleases without the law’s interference. It
follows that individuals have the right to choose their level of participation in the community in
order to fulfill and maximize their own self-interest. If they choose not to do so, their citizenship
43
is not jeopardized. Where others’ interests are affected, however, the State may be justified in
regulating

44
the activity. There are three fundamental principles which a liberal government must provide and
protect: (1) equality, whereby the government has to treat individuals who are similarly situated
in the same way and afford them the same rights; (2) due process, such that the government is
required to treat individuals over whom it exercises power fairly; and (3) mutual consent by
which membership in the political community rests on the consensual relationship between the
individual and the state. By protecting these three values, the government ensures that it provides
protection for individuals' rights and liberties, so they can effectively participate in the political
sphere.

In line with this, Berlin (1969) and Held (2001) consider a dual characterization of liberalism ranging
from a protective, defensive, conservative liberalism focused on negative liberty, subjective
rights and individualism, ideals that emphasize individuals’ right to be left alone and to pursue
their own projects free of the State compulsion, all the way to a liberalism oriented to
development, which is affirmative, progressive and focused ‘positive liberty’ notions. Common to
positive liberty accounts is the claim that the State should act affirmatively to create or secure
those substantive entitlements (e.g. income, health care, and education) that individuals need in
order to lead the dignified, independent lives essential to their freedom. However, freedom under
government, as John Lock (1960 cited in Schuck, 2002: 133) has already described it, embraces
living in conformity with a predictable, non-arbitrary law to which one has directly or indirectly
consented.

Generally, the bedrock principles of liberal theory of citizenship are: individuals are free to form
their own opinions, pursue their own projects, and transact their own business untrammeled by
the State’s political agenda and coercive power, except in so far as individual actions implicate
the interests of other members of society. Liberal citizens are thus left to their own devices
without much guidance from the state. They must decide for themselves how to use their
constitutionally secured freedoms, decide what kind of citizen to be – including the possibility
that they will decide to forswear any political activity at all, preferring to retreat into an entirely
private world of family, friends, market transactions, and self-absorption and gratification, into a
world largely indifferent to any public goods not generated within these parochial domains.
Citizenship cannot be defined based on shared identity or a common culture; the individual
chooses his own affections, and any identification with other individuals is rather a product of their
45
legal status as citizens. Equal rights bind citizens together in a legal community of free individuals.
This does not imply the complete rejection of culture and identity as such, but identity and culture
are not a priori foundations for citizenship.

46
Group Discussion:
Do you agree that liberal theory of citizenship is the current guiding citizenship approach of
Ethiopia?

Critics of Liberal Theory of Citizenship

First, how can individuals be/are prevented from destroying each other and from destroying the
basis of their mutually beneficial interaction? The most common problems related with
advocating individualism are free-raiders problem and the tragedy of the commons.

The free raiders problem occurs when those who benefit from resource or service do not pay for
it, which results in an under provision of the resource/service. Particularly it occurs when
property rights are not clearly defined and imposed. Whereas, tragedy of the commons is a
dilemma arises when individuals act independently and rationally consulting their own self-
interest ultimately deplete shared limited environmental resources. Since no one owns the
commons, e.g. atmosphere and grazing lands, each individual has an incentive to utilize common
resources as much as possible they can. Consequently, environmental pressures and humanitarian
emergencies pose great challenges to liberal States, demanding a larger State role in allocating
scarce resources, rights, and statuses among competing interests often bearing compelling moral
claims. Action to protect the environment involves international agreements to collectively
reduce emissions or regulate other activities. These sorts of agreements involve countries giving
up short-term advantages for a longterm common benefit and are designed to prevent any one of
them free-riding on the actions of others – for example, by continuing to pollute while other
countries cut their emissions, thereby reaping the environmental advantages without paying any
of the costs.

Second, liberalists affirmatively valorize the privatization of personality, commitment, and activity.
Hence, the problem has to do with is the ways in which individuals and their ideas are framed.
The preferences and insights of autonomous individuals might originate from impure process,
the information they were provided might be biased or meaningless, or their preferences might
have arisen from a fit of anger.

47
Third, as we have seen in the above, individuals have absolute freedom either to actively engage
in politics or ignore at all. Deducing from this, the citizens do not only have the right to
participate in

48
the political affairs of their country but also the right not to engage in it and then retreat into their
private pursuits if they wish. Needless to say, liberal thought facilitate the pursuit of wealth and
the indulgence of material pleasures and thus, as a matter of fact and preference, liberal societies tend
to be less egalitarian. This not only leaves less time available for public regarding activities but
also diminishes the social prestige. All in all, if many citizens are not willing to devote time or
give attention to politics, power will become an instrument of the few rather than of the many,
and polity’s very survival in a democratic form will be endangered.

Fourth, liberalists justify that inequalities arise out of differences in individual talents, values,
and choices – differences, moreover, that the State cannot seek to efface without endangering
citizens’ liberties. Perhaps the most daunting challenge to liberalism, then, is to reduce inequalities to
socially acceptable and politically sustainable from the views of the disadvantageous groups,
while at the same time vindicating the liberal commitment to the protection of individual
liberties. For several reasons, however, liberalism may actually increase economic and other
kinds of inequalities rather than reduce them. The persistence of inequalities among liberal
citizens and between them and aliens are bound to engender much social and political unrest and
tensions, unless and until the benefits of market-driven economic growth ‘trickle down’ to the
socially disadvantaged. Structurally, as well as ideologically, liberal states make redistributive
policies difficult to enact, implement, and legitimate. In a liberal social system, the private sector
controls most of the incentive systems that drive and shape individual and group behavior; these
systems are largely immune from State control. More fundamentally, liberalism contrives to keep
the State weak and permeable to private interests, institutionalizing its endemic fear of state
power through political structures and practices that widely disperse and carefully confine the
state’s influence.

Finally, liberalism posits a State that maintains substantial normative neutrality. In this
conception, the liberal State should neither choose among competing visions of the good society
nor place its thumb on the scales in other ways, such as redistributive policies, that favor
particular visions. It should instead play a far more modest, supplementing role, facilitating
individuals’ pursuit of their own projects or visions. The issues of how liberal State’s role
remains modest become a matter of great controversy and of course history has proved
impossibility of the State to maintain neutral. Hence scholars in the field devise alternative thoughts
49
to citizenship like republican, communitarian and multicultural approaches to citizenship.

50
Class Discussion:
Discuss with your classmates about the criticisms of the liberal citizenship approach.

Citizenship in Communitarian Thought

The debate on citizenship as the expression of community revived with the emergence of
communitarianism since the 1980s. Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer and
Alisdair MacIntyre are some among the proponents of communitarianism. Mainly, Taylor’s Sources
of the Self (1989) Walzer’s Spheres of Justice (1983), Sandel’s Liberalism and the Limits of Justice
(1982) and MacIntyre’s After Virtue (1981) established the foundations of communitarianism.

Communitarianism is as an approach emphasizes on the importance of society in articulating the

good. The communitarian (also known as the nationalist) model argue that the identity of citizens
cannot be understood outside the territory in which they live, their culture and traditions, arguing
that the basis of its rules and procedures and legal policy is the shared common good. The
political subject, above all, belongs to a community, a community to which he/she owes
allegiance and commitment. Thus, rather than viewing group practices as the product of
individual choices, communitarians view individuals as the product of social practices.

Moreover, communitarians often deny that the interests of communities can be reduced to the
interests of their individual members. Privileging individual autonomy is seen as destructive of
communities. A healthy community maintains a balance between individual choice and protection of
the communal way of life and seeks to limit the extent to which the former can erode the latter.
As a result, the good of the community is much above individual rights and citizenship comes
from the community identity, enabling people to participate. The State must provide a policy for the
common good, according to the way of life of the community. Communitarians examine the ways
shared conceptions of the good are formed, transmitted, justified and enforced.

“Whether citizenship as membership of a political community rests on the individual or a prior

cultural or moral community is what divides the protagonists, the liberal and communitarian theories
of citizenship” (Delanty, 2002: 159). For liberalists, citizenship rests on the individual and it is
the individual that determines its aspects, but for Communitarians citizenship is rooted and lies with
the people who surround the individual. Communitarianism claims that an individual’s sense of
51
identity

52
is produced only through relations with others in the community that nourish him/her. An
individual person cannot escape from the control of his/her culture and thus the self/individuality
is culturally constructed, socially-embedded. Describing in another mood, whatever individuality
the citizen has is derived from and circumscribed by the community. According to this thought,
individual interests, identity, freedom and equality can only be meaningfully practiced and
realized through the prioritization of the common good, and once the members of the polity share
common virtues and goals.

All in all, the two defining features of communitarian perspective are: first, no individual is
entirely self-created; instead the citizen and his/her identity is deeply constructed by the society
where he/she is a member. Newcomers such as children and immigrants to a society must
assimilate themselves in order to participate in community activities. Only when an individual
successfully assimilates can the society achieve its common goals and become effective. Second,
as a consequence of assimilation, a meaningful bond is said to occur between the individual
person and his/her community. Insofar as an individual understands that what is good for the
community is good for him as well, he will also understand that if he does not participate in the
community, the common good will be diminished.

Communitarian citizenship thought has been criticized for various reasons. Communitarianism is
hostile towards individual rights and autonomy – even that it is authoritarian since it melts the
self into the society. A community push people to sacrifice large parts of their individual
differences in order to follow shared values. Other critics argue that communities are dominated
by power elites or that one group within a community will force others to abide by its values.

Communitarian theorists tend to emphasize the communal construction of social individuals and
social formations, and of values and practices. A problem is that these constructive processes
themselves need to be analyzed in terms of power - power which can account for when
individuals manage to reconstruct their circumstances, when they move from context to context,
when they get trapped, when they rest content.

Group Discussion:
Discuss, in group, the strong and weak sides of communitarian citizenship approach.

53
 Citizenship in Republican Thought
Republican citizenship theory put emphasis on both individual and group rights. Means
republican though attempts to incorporate the liberal notion of the self-interested individual
within the communitarian framework of egalitarian and community belonging. Like communitarian
thought, it emphasizes on what bind citizens together in to a particular community. Citizenship
should be understood as a common civic identity, shaped by a common public culture. It requires
citizens to bring together the facets of their individual lives as best they can and helps them to
find unity in the midst of diversity. However, republicans don’t pressurize individuals to
surrender their particular identities like the communitarian thought. Instead, it is underpinned by
a concern with individual obligation to participate in communal affairs. It encourages people to
look for the common ground on which they stand, despite their differences, as citizens. At this
juncture, an effective balance between toleration and obligation is required. Toleration involves
citizens participating politically as advocates of particular interests, with their concern focused on
‘fairness between different sections of the community and the pursuit of common ends.

Just like liberal citizenship though, republican school advocate self-government. Yet, republican
thought do not agree with the case that all forms of restraints deprive people’s freedom.
Liberalism, as we have already discussed, advocates absolute freedom of individuals and gives
insignificant consideration towards nurturing the public virtues that lead people to do their duties
as citizens. In contrast to liberalism, individuals must overcome their personal inclinations and
set aside their private interests when necessary to do what is best for the public. Republicans,
thus, acknowledge the value of public life. To them, public life draws people out, and it draws
them together. It draws out their talents and capacities, and it draws them together into
community – into connection and solidarity, and occasionally conflict, with other members of
the public.

In view of that, there are two essential elements of the republican citizenship: publicity and self-
government. Publicity basically refers to the condition of being open and public. The public is
not a mere collection of people but a sphere of life where people joined by common concerns
that takes them beyond their private lives. Besides, public affairs such as politics, as the common
concern of the public, must be conducted openly in the public for reasons of convenience. In this
case, the rule of law and civic virtue are central elements. Politics requires public debate and
54
decisions, which in turn require regular, established procedures – the rule of law is the
standard formula for the

55
republicans. The citizens and governments in a republican State shall not act arbitrary,
impulsively, or recklessly but according to the laws of the State.

However, without citizens who are willing to take an active part in the government, a republic
State could not survive. True citizenship requires commitment to the common good and active
participation in public affairs – civic virtue. Republics must thus engage in what Sandel (1996: 6)
calls “a formative politics… that cultivates in citizens the qualities of character that self-government
requires”. Constitutional safeguards may be necessary to resist corruption in the forms of
avarice, ambition, luxury, and idleness, but they will not suffice to sustain freedom under the rule
of law in the absence of a significant degree of virtue among the citizens. To say that ‘Amare’ is
a citizen of a republican State, it is to mean that he enjoys the protection of the State’s laws and
is subject to the laws. It is also to say that, as a citizen, ‘Amare’ is supposed to be on an equal
footing with other citizens. The rule of law thus requires not only active and public-spirited
participation in public affairs – the civic virtue of the republican citizen – but also the proper
form of government.

Republican citizenship has been criticized by scholars who advocate multicultural and other
approaches of citizenship. The first is that the republican conception of citizenship is no longer
realistic. Republican citizenship is an irredeemably nostalgic ideal in this age of globalization. To be a
citizen, in the republican view, is to be a partner in a common enterprise, and people will be likely
to put the common interest ahead of their own – to act as true citizens – only when they feel
themselves to be part of such an enterprise. The Internet and satellite television are unlikely to
inspire this sense of community on a global basis. The second is that the conception poses a
threat to an open, egalitarian, and pluralistic society. This second criticism is put forcefully by Young
(1990: 117), who detects a denial of ‘difference’ in republican attempts because in practice
republican politicians enforced homogeneity by excluding from citizenship all those defined as
different. To be sure, Young’s point is that the search for common ground serves to justify the
dominance of a particular – and typically male – group.

The third point concerns the claim that citizenship involves a false ideal of impartiality. Here, the
republican response is to deny that the ideal is false. We should indeed strive to think and act,
when establishing laws and policies, as members of the public rather than self-interested

56
individuals. But

57
this does not mean that we cannot take account of the particular needs and interests of the people
–even people who ‘stand in different social locations’ – who compose the polity.

Multicultural Citizenship
The increasing diversity in States challenges particularly the liberal conceptions of citizenship.
The liberal view the rights of the individual as paramount and group identities and rights as
inconsistent with and inimical to the rights of the individual. A number of factors have caused
scholars to raise inquires about the liberal analysis and expectations for identity groups in
democratic States. These factors include the rise of the ethnic revitalization movements
demanding recognition of group rights as well as individual rights; the structural exclusion of
racial, gender, ethnic, and language groups; and increasing immigration throughout the world
that made States multinational and polytechnic. They raise complex and divisive questions about
how States can deal effectively with the problem of constructing civic communities that reflect
and incorporate the diversity of citizens and yet have an overarching set of shared values, ideals,
and goals to which all of the citizens of a State are committed. Consequently, the conception of
citizenship in a modern State should be expanded to include cultural rights and group rights
within a democratic framework.

There is a need to move towards a new type of multicultural citizenship appropriate to highly
diverse societies and contemporary economic trends. Recognition of group difference implies
departing from the idea of all citizens as simply equal individuals and instead seeing them
simultaneously as having equal rights as individuals and different needs and wants as members
of groups with specific characteristics and social situations which is basically the focus of
multicultural citizenship discuss four principles of multicultural citizenship which are presented
here under.

i) Taking equality of citizenship rights as a starting point. It is essential to ensure that all members of
society are formally included as citizens, and enjoy equal rights and equality before the law. Just
like the liberal perspective, multicultural citizenship concerns with the universal rights of members.

ii)Recognizing that Formal equality of rights does not necessarily lead to equality of respect, resources, opportunities or
welfare. Formal equality can mask and legitimize disadvantage and discrimination. It is necessary to

58
consciously recognize group difference and to understand its causes. While liberal theorists
believe that the universal rights accorded through citizenship safeguard the cultural membership
of individuals, theorists within multicultural school of thought envisage the need for additional
rights

59
for vulnerable minority groups, in order for such groups to sustain themselves amidst the
dominant culture(s).

iii)Establishing mechanisms for group representation and participation. Despite formal equality, disadvantaged
groups are often excluded from decision-making processes. It is necessary to make arrangements
to ensure the participation of people directly affected, wherever important decisions are made.

iv) Differential treatment for people with different characteristics, needs and wants. Liberalists’ universal
conception of citizenship within a stratified society results in the treatment of some groups as
second-class citizens because group rights are not recognized and the principle of equal treatment
is strictly applied. Treating people equally, despite the fact that past actions have made them
unequal, can perpetuate inequality. Government should take measures to combat barriers based
on gender, sexual preference, age, disability, location, Aboriginality, ethnicity, religion, area of origin
and culture (Castles, 1999: iii). In this view, multicultural citizenship allows for marginalized voices
to be heard. A differentiated conception of citizenship is needed to help marginalized groups attain
civic equality and recognition in multicultural democratic nations. Society is formed of different
groups which are either dominant or oppressed (Young, 1989). This strand of differentiated
citizenship therefore concerns the denouncing of universal rights and the provision of special
rights for oppressed groups. This suggests a politics for difference and not one geared towards
the possibility of integration.

Critics of differentiated citizenship worry that if groups are encouraged by the very terms of
citizenship to turn inward and focus on their 'difference' (whether racial, ethnic, religious, sexual,
and so on), then the hope of a larger fraternity of all Americans will have to be abandoned.
Citizenship will cease to be a device to cultivate a sense of community and a common sense of
purpose. Nothing will bind the various groups in society together and prevent the spread of
mutual mistrust or conflict.

Critics also worry that differentiated citizenship would create a "politics of grievance." If, as
Young implies, only oppressed groups are entitled to differentiated citizenship, this may
encourage group leaders to devote their political energy to establishing a perception of
disadvantage-rather than working to overcome it-in order to secure their claim to group rights
(Kymlicka and Norman, 1994: 372).
60
 Group Discussion:
What is the citizenship theory that fits to Ethiopia?

Modes/Ways of Acquiring and Loosing Citizenship

Citizenship right was one of the rights guaranteed to individuals by the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights adopted in 1948. According to Article 15 of the declaration, “everyone has a right
to a nationality” and that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.” Hence, in the
following sections we will discuss the ways of acquiring and loosing citizenship.

Ways of Acquiring Citizenship

Since the grant of citizenship remains within the discretion of the state concerned, the means of
acquiring a particular State’s citizenship vary from country to country. However, the common
ways of acquiring citizenship can be grouped in to two: citizenship by birth and citizenship
through naturalization/law.

i) Citizenship from birth/of Origin: individuals can get citizenship status of a particular State
either because he/she is born in the territorial administration of that or his/her mother and/or
father are citizens of the State in question. That is, there are two principles of citizenship from
birth commonly known as Jus Soli (law/right of the soil) and Jus Sanguinis (law/right of blood).
Whereas Jus Soli is a principle whereby an individual is permitted to obtain citizenship status of
a particular State because he/she was born in the territorial administration of that country, Jus
Sanguinis is a norm where citizenship acquired claiming one’s parents citizenship status.
However, jus soli could not apply to children born from diplomats and refugees live in a host
State. Children born from diplomats in a host State where jus soli is allowed do not have the right
to claim citizenship status of the host country because of two special principles (international
diplomatic immunities): extraterritoriality and inviolability principles.

ii) Citizenship by Naturalization/Law: is the legal process by which foreigners become citizens
of another country. The common sub-principles of acquiring citizenship through naturalization
are the following. Political case (secession, merger and subjugation), grant on application,
marriage, legitimatization/adoption, and reintegration/restoration. Citizenship by political case is a

61
process by which an individual person acquires citizenship of a certain State following the
conquest or cession

62
of a territory. In case a particular territory is merged to or subjugated by another country, people
domiciled in that territory would acquire a new citizenship. Besides, in cases of secession option may
be given to individuals to choose either country’s citizenship. Let us now discuss the remaining ways
of acquiring citizenship vis-à-vis to Ethiopia.

The Modes of Acquiring Ethiopian Citizenship

Before the 1930, there wasn’t officially inscribed legal document that deals with citizenship. But
in 1930 Ethiopia adopted a legal document named as “Ethiopian Nationality Law”. Recently, this
nationality law has replaced by another legal document called “Ethiopian Nationality Proclamation NO.
378/2003” which was adopted in 2003 by the House of People’s Representatives. This proclamation
is enacted in accordance to article 6 and 33 of the 1995 FDRE constitution and affirmed that a
person can acquire Ethiopian citizenship either by birth or naturalization. Now, let’s discuss the
modes of acquiring Ethiopian citizenship included in the 2003 nationality proclamation.

1) Acquisition by Descent: the 1930 Ethiopian nationality law asserted that “any person born in
Ethiopia or abroad, whose father or mother is Ethiopian, is an Ethiopian subject.” In its Article
6(1), the 1995 FDRE constitution stated that “any person of either sex shall be an Ethiopian
national where both or either parent is Ethiopian.” In line with this, Article 3 of the 2003
nationality proclamation ascribed two principles under the acquisition of Ethiopian citizenship by
decent. One, “Any person shall be an Ethiopian national by descent where both or either of
his/her parent is Ethiopian;” second, “An infant who is found abandoned in Ethiopia shall, unless
proved to have a foreign nationality, be deemed to have been born to an Ethiopian parent and
shall acquire Ethiopian nationality.” According to the proclamation, any person can’t acquire
Ethiopian citizenship through the principle of Jus Soli (law of soil). It means that children born in
the territorial administration of Ethiopian do not have the right to acquire Ethiopian citizenship.
Birth place of a child is not a requirement to acquire Ethiopian nationality. Wherever a child was
born, he/she has the right to attain Ethiopian citizenship if, and only if, he/she is born from an
Ethiopian father or mother or both Ethiopian parents.

2) Acquisition by Law (Naturalization): Article 6(2) of the 1995 FDRE constitution also avers
that aliens can get Ethiopian citizenship. Under naturalization, there are various ways of
acquiring Ethiopian citizenship in accordance with of the amended Ethiopian nationality
63
proclamation of

64
2003 recognized by the provisions of Articles 5 to 12 of the 2003 nationality proclamation.
These are:

a) Grant on Application (registration): happens when an alien requests a host state to be

granted citizenship status of the country in question. However, host countries, including
Ethiopia, do not simply grant citizenship status to those who apply unless they fulfill certain
requirements. The common ones are applicant’s age, length of residence in the host country,
criminal conviction, income and moral character. But the criteria vary from country to country.
For instance, according to Article 5 of the 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation, an applicant
shall get Ethiopian nationality if, and only if, he/she (1) reach the age of majority, 18 years; (2)
lived in Ethiopia for a total of at least four years; (3) has sufficient and lawful source of income
(economically self-reliant);
(1) is able to communicate in any of the indigenous languages spoken in Ethiopia; (5) has a good
character; (6) has not recorded criminal conviction; (7) has been released from his/her previous
nationality or the possibility of obtaining such a release upon the acquisition of Ethiopian nationality
or that he/she is a stateless person; and (8) takes the oath of allegiance indicated in Article 12 of
the proclamation: “I , solemnly affirm that I will be a loyal national of the federal democratic republic of
Ethiopia
and be faithful to its constitution”.

b) Cases of Marriage: an alien who is married to an Ethiopian citizen have the possibility of
acquiring Ethiopian citizenship. Yet, there are certain preconditions set in Article 6 of the
proclamation in which the marriage and the alien married to an Ethiopian citizen must fulfill just
to allow the foreigner acquire Ethiopian nationality by law. One, the marriage shall be thru in
accordance with the laws of Ethiopia or the State where the marriage is contracted; second, the
marriage shall lapse at least for two years; third, the alien married to an Ethiopian citizen have to live
in Ethiopian for at least one year preceding the submission of the application; and fourth, the
alien have to reach the age of majority, be a morally good person, and lastly take the oath of
allegiance stated under Article 12 of the proclamation.

c) Cases of Adoption (Legitimating): this process whereby an illegitimate child get citizenship
status of his/her caretaker’s nationality. In this case, Article 7 of the nationality proclamation

65
asserts that a child adopted by and grown under the caretaker of Ethiopian citizen has the right to
acquire Ethiopian citizenship. But, the child could get Ethiopian citizenship if the adopted child
has not

66
attained the age of majority; lives in Ethiopia together with his/her adopting parent; and has been
released from his/her previous nationality or the possibility of obtaining such a release upon the
acquisition of Ethiopian nationality or that he/she is a stateless person. However, where one of
his/her adopting parents is a foreigner, in writing, such a parent has to express his/her agreement
that his/her adopted child gain Ethiopian nationality.

d) Citizenship by Special Cases: as it is labeled in Article 8, an alien who has made an

outstanding contribution in the interest of Ethiopia may be conferred with Ethiopian nationality
by law without undergoing the pre-conditions stated in Article 5 (sub-articles 2 and 3) of the
2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation. That is, he/she is not required to live in Ethiopia for a
total of four years and may lack the ability to communicate in any of the languages spoken in
Ethiopia.

e) Re-Admission to Ethiopian Nationality (Reintegration/Restoration): this is a process by

which a person acquires his/her lost citizenship. The 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation
acknowledges this principle in its Article 22. That is, a person who has lost Ethiopian citizenship
status may get back Ethiopian nationality. However, there are requirements in which the person
is expected to fulfill. In this case, the person could be readmitted to Ethiopian nationality if
he/she applies to the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority for re-admission. In
addition, he/she has to return and domiciled in Ethiopia and renounces his foreign nationality to
get back Ethiopian nationality.

Examining and Deciding upon an Application to acquire Ethiopian Citizenship

An application to obtain Ethiopian nationality by law shall be accompanied with relevant documents
and shall be submitted to the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority (Article 10 of the
proclamation). Then, the application shall be examined by the Nationality Affairs Committee
(Article 11 and 23 of the proclamation), a committee comprises five members, namely; (i) a
representative of the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority (chairperson); (ii) a
representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (member); (iii) a representative of the Ministry
of Justice (member); (iv) a representative of the Federal Police Commission (member); and (v) a
representative of the Authority (member and secretary). The Committee has to submit its
recommendation to the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority. If the committee’s

67
recommendation got approval of the Authority, the applicant shall take the oath of allegiance
(see

68
article 12 of the proclamation) in front of the committee. Lastly, the applicant confers with a
certificate of naturalization and become legally an Ethiopian national.

Class Discussion:
Do you think that a person could acquire more than one country’s citizenship? Discuss with your
classmates the possibility of acquiring dual/multiple citizenship.

Dual Citizenship
Dual citizenship is the condition of being a citizen of two nations. Of course, a person may
acquire more than two States which is called multiple citizenship. Duality/multiplicity arises
because of the clash among the Jus Soli, Jus Sanguini and naturalization. For example, a baby born to
a French family visiting the United States would acquire U.S. citizenship by Jus Soli and French
citizenship by Jus Sanguinis. A child born from a mother and father of two different countries
could acquire dual citizenship through decent. Besides, on the one hand, a State may allow its
naturalized citizens to keep their original citizenship, an on the other, a State may refuse its
citizen to revoke his/her citizenship for various reasons which are cause for dual/multiple
citizenship. People who declared that they no longer were citizens of such a country and became
naturalized in another still would be claimed as citizens by the original nation.

Today just under half of all African countries still prohibit dual citizenship on paper—though in
many cases the rules are not enforced, so that a citizen can acquire another citizenship without
facing adverse consequences in practice. Ethiopia prohibits its citizens to have dual citizenship.
Article 20(1) of the 2003 nationality proclamation assert that “any Ethiopian who voluntarily
acquires another nationality shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced his Ethiopian
nationality.” However, a person who retains another country’s citizenship or voluntary renounces
his Ethiopian nationality may not be allowed to release his/her Ethiopian citizenship if he/she
hasn’t discharged his/her outstanding national obligations and/or has been acquitted or served the
penalty for the crime he/she accused of or convicted (see Article 19(4) of the 2003 Ethiopian
nationality proclamation). Therefore, under this condition which is called indelible allegiance,
the person would remain dual/multiple citizen, an Ethiopian and the country he/she acquires
citizenship through law (see also Article 20(4) of the 2003 nationality proclamation).

69
Ways of Loosing Citizenship
Citizenship can be lost when a State provides for lapse or withdrawal of citizenship under certain
conditions, or when a citizen voluntary renounces it. The primary rational for loss of citizenship
is the absence of a genuine link with the state. Many citizenship laws also provide for loss if
there has been fraud in the course of acquiring citizenship. Some States have provisions for
depriving people of citizenship in cases where their behavior is considered to demonstrate disloyalty
towards the state.

One can imagine a number of reasons why a nation might want to terminate citizenship of
individuals. Aleinik off put denationalization grounds into three categories: allegiance,
punishment, and public order. One may lose a country’s citizenship when he/she demonstrates a
lack of allegiance which could be explained through what we called active disloyalty (for example,
treason) or simply no loyalty at all (apathy or unconcern about the fate of the nation). Citizenship
is related with enjoying rights in one nation. However, a country may seek to deny such benefits
to people it believes are unworthy of enjoying them. Denationalization, on this account, may be
justified as punishment. For example, the U.S. Congress has enacted several denationalization
grounds that fall within this category, such as violation of laws against subversion, draft evasion,
and desertion from the armed forces in time of war. Also, the time that a citizen deemed to be a
threat to public order, dangerous to national security or who embroil the state in foreign
controversies, the State may denationalize the person. Generally, the commonly discussed ways
of losing citizenship are deprivation, renunciation, lapse/expiration and substitution.

Deprivation is an involuntary loss of citizenship which arises while government authorities or court
take a decision to nullify an individual’s citizenship. It is on the assumption that the burden of
justification for the loss of citizenship of an individual lies on the state. The citizen may be
deprived of his/her citizenship for reasons of uncovering national secrets, non-compliance with
citizenship duties (duty of loyalty), loss of genuine link with his/her state, flawed acquisition of
citizenship, promising loyalty to and/or serving in armed force of another country, trying to
overthrow the government by force, seriously prejudicial behavior, and becoming naturalized in
another country. But, the 1995 FDRE constitution asserts that “no Ethiopian national shall be
deprived of his or her Ethiopian nationality against his or her will.” Similarly, in its Article 17,

70
the 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamation prohibits the possibility of losing Ethiopian nationality
through deprivation.

71
Lapse/expiration is another way of losing citizenship which is not applicable to Ethiopia. Lapse
is a mode whereby a person loses his/her citizenship because of his/her permanent residence or
long term residence abroad beyond the number of years permitted by the country in question. For
example, if an Indian citizen stays outside his/her country continuously for more than seven
years, he/she automatically loses his/her Indian nationality by the principle of lapse.

Renunciation is the voluntary way of losing citizenship. The UDHR (1948) guarantees the right
of a person to change his/her nationality. Loss of citizenship is voluntary only if it is intended
and initiated by the individual concerned. An Ethiopian national has the full right to renounce
his/her Ethiopian nationality if he/she wishes according to Article 33(3) of the FDRE constitution
and Article 19 of the 2003 Ethiopian nationality proclamations. However, the person who has
renounced a country’s nationality may not be actually released from that status until he/she has
discharged his/her obligations towards that particular State or accused of a crime. This situation
is called indelible allegiance. According to Article 19(4) of the 2003 Nationality Proclamation,
an Ethiopian who has declared to renounce Ethiopian nationality may not be released until: (i)
the citizen has discharged his/her outstanding national obligations or until he/she has served the
penalty for the crime he/she has accused of or convicted.

Substitution: citizenship may be lost when the original citizenship is substituted by another
state, where it is acquired through naturalization. On the other side, this may also take place
when a particular territory is annexed by another state; the inhabitants’ citizenship within the
annexed territory will be replaced by the citizenship of the subjugator. Generally, an Ethiopian
citizen can lose his/her Ethiopian nationality through renunciation and upon acquisition of other
country’s nationality stipulated in article 19 and 20 of the 2003 nationality proclamation,
respectively.

Statelessness
Statelessness is the condition of having citizenship of any country and with no government from
which to ask protection. According to the international law, stateless person is a person who is
not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law. Statelessness almost
always results when state failure leads people to flee – be it due to invasion and conquest by
another state, civil war, famine, or an oppressive regime – from their home country. Individuals could
72
also become stateless persons because of deprivation and when renouncing their citizenship
without gaining

73
nationality in another State. Some people become stateless as a result of government action. To
settle such conditions, the UN has adopted a convention on the protection and reduction of
stateless persons.

Chapter Summary
The chapter tries to present the basic notions of state, government and citizenship. An effort has
been made to clearly show the relationship among the concepts of state, government and
citizenship. State is an institutions created to ease the complex relationships and interactions
among individuals and groups. There are various theories and perspectives on the structure and
purpose/role of the state in collective life. Government is the administrative wind of that
institution which is empowered to take care of the business of the state. Citizenship refers to the
rules regulating the legal/formal relation between the State and the individual with respect to the
acquisition and loss of a given country’s nationality. However, from political and social perspectives
and at a substantive level, citizenship is beyond a legal status and seen as a practice, as active
participation in affairs of the state for the good of the wider community. For this reason,
citizenship is frequently described as a contested concept which has had different meanings
depending on the historical legacies, political organization of the State, ideologies and socio-
cultural context of societies. Citizenship status, however, is not only restricted to individual
persons.

Self-Check Exercise
Essay
1. Describe the state in your own words very briefly.
2. Discuss the difference and similarity between the state and government.
3. Explain the core arguments of the capitalist state theory.
4. Discuss the differences between communitarian and republican citizenship theory.
5. Explain some of the criticisms of liberal citizenship theory.
6. Define the multicultural citizenship thought and discuss some of its features.
7. List and discuss the ways of acquiring citizenship thorough naturalization.
8. Discuss the requirements where a foreigner is expected to fulfill in order to acquire Ethiopian
citizenship through application.
74
References
Banks, J. A. (2008). Diversity, Group Identity, and Citizenship Education in a Global
Age. Educational Researcher, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 129–139, DOI:
10.3102/0013189X08317501, April 2008
Baubock, R., and Paskalev, V. (2015). Cutting Genuine Links: A Normative Analysis of
Citizenship Deprivation. Geo. Immigr. LJ, 30, 47.
Bellamy, R. (2008). Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press,
Published in the United States, Oxford University Press Inc., New York
Castles, S. (1999). Globalization, Multicultural Citizenship and Transnational Democracy.
The Future of Australian Multiculturalism, Sydney: Research Institute for Humanities and
Social Sciences.
Castles, S. (1999). Multicultural Citizenship. Consultant to Social Policy Group, Research
Paper, No. 16 1995-96, Published by the Department of the Parliamentary
Library. 1999
Dahl, R. and C. Lindblom (1953) Politics, Economics, and Welfare. New York: Harper &
Row.
Etzioni, A. (2014). Communitarianism revisited. Journal of Political Ideologies,Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Vol. 19, No. 3, 241–260Elizabeth
Frazer, F. (1999). The Problems of Communitarian Politics: unity and conflict. Oxford
University Press
Heywood, A. (2013). Politics (4th Ed.). UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Isin, E. F. and Turner, B. S. (Ed.) (2002). Handbook of Citizenship Studies. Edited
by. SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi
Jones, E. and Gaventa, J. (2002). Concepts of citizenship: A Review. Institute of
Development Studies, Bringhton, Sussex, England
Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kymlicka, W. (2001). Politics in Vernacular; Nationalism, Multiculturalism and
Citizenship. Oxford University Press.
Lell, H. M. (2014). The Concept of Citizenship: Multicultural Challenges and Latin
American Constitutional Democracy. Birkbeck L. Rev., 2, 87.
Locke, J. ([1690] 1960) Two Treatises of Government, ed., Peter Laslett. New York:

75
 New American Library
Manby, B. (2010). Citizenship Law in Africa: A Comparative Study. Second edition,
Published by Open Society Foundations, New York, USA, October 2010

Marshall, T. H. (1964). Class, citizenship, and social development: Essays of T. H. Marshall.

Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Merrifield, J. (2001). Learning citizenship. Learning from Experience Trust. A
Discussion Paper Prepared for Institute of Development Studies Participation
Group, Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), August 2001
Moon, J., Crane, A. and Matten D. (2005). Can Corporations be Citizens? Corporate
Citizenship as a Metaphor for Business Participation in Society. Business Ethics
Quarterly, Volume 15, Issue 3, ISSN 1052-150X, pp. 429-453
Nozick, R. (1974) Anarchy, State and Utopia. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Schwarzmantel, J. (1994). The State in Contemporary Society: An Introduction.
London and New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Smith, R. M. (2002). Modern Citizenship. In Handbook of Citizenship Studies, edited
by Engin F. Isin and Bryan S. Turner, 145-57. Thous and Oaks: Sage
Publications, 2002

76