A Study On Republican Citizenship

As the important basis of political practice and basic concept of political theory, citizenship has always been a key issue of the west political thought. In the mid-20th century, Marshall's studies on citizenship and social classes further stimulated people's interest in the issue of citizenship, and promoted the construction of welfare state in Europe and North America. And after a quiet period, in 1990s, the issue of citizenship became a popular term and hot topic again, as a result of a series of major political events, social issues and the debate on academic theory.Citizenship may seem simple, but in reality, it is a very complex term. Its complexity, to a large extent, is caused by a number of different and conflict explanation traditions and theories. Taking into account the inherent correlation of the republican citizenship, the substantial value of the concept of republican citizenship and the significance to the construction of China's democratic politics, the paper selects a republican perspective for the study.The original meaning of citizenship or republican citizenship, stressing freedom, participation and virtues, can be traced back as early as the sixth century BC to the Greek city states represented by Sparta and Athens. With the establishment and expansion of the Roman Republic, citizenship had been expanded to a broader scope. Citizen belonged to city states and participated in governance of public life. Citizenship was strongly exclusive, because the access to citizenship was strictly depended on property and origin. During Hellenistic and the Roman Empire period, citizenship began to decay, and citizens gradually degenerated into subjects. In the Middle Ages, with the Christian dominating the Europe, politics was unprecedentedly weak. People became God's sons, the king's subjects, and citizenship was disappear. In the late middle Ages, with the city's renaissance and the self-government movement, citizenship began to appear again in Europe, especially in some northern Italy cities. In the beginning of the 14th century, the vast majority of city republican governments began to succumb to the rule of despot, and citizenship was disappear too. Later, with the Renaissance and the spread of humanism, the Reformation Movement and the promotion of individual freedom, the Enlightenment and the rise of the concept of contract and rights, the development of capitalism and the change of socio-economic and political structures, the consciousness of citizenship renewed and the system of citizenship established again in Europe and America with the victory of the bourgeois revolution. However, it is clear that the traditional explanation of the republican citizenship has given way to the liberal discourse system which adheres to the negative freedoms and individual rights.Theoretically, the basic concept and the fundamental demands of the republican citizenship are freedom, participation and republica. Republican freedom is different from the negative freedom and positive freedom that elucidated by Berlin, but a third freedom, which Pettit alleged the freedom as non-domination. Since ancient Greek and Roman, the freedom as non-domination is an important symbol of citizenship; however, the enslavement and domination are closely related to the slave status. Only in the Republic free from foreign oppression and inner despotism, can the citizens have possibility to enjoy such freedom as non-domination. It is clear that this free republic is a constitutional republic, is an empire of law rather a kingdom of a man, is the people's common interests and project rather than one or a small number of people's private property. To protect civic liberties and realize the common interests of the people, an appropriate regime and a moderate territory is also essential. The traditional republicanism insisted mixed balance and small-scale city Republic, however, the modern republicanism adhered to the separation of powers, checks and balances and large-scale composite Republic. At the same time, the realization of civic liberties and republican ideals also need citizens to control the political arena, and participate in self-governance of the political life actively. Traditional republicanism advocated the direct participation in discussion, trial and administrative rule, however, modern Republicanism insists on representation, taking into account the size of the country and the limitation of people's capacity for self-government.Moreover, in order to maintain the quality of citizenship or civic virtue, republicanism insists that it is necessary to realize the ideal of freedom, republic and participation in a constitutional republic, so does the civic education. Whether Aristotle, the main elucidator of the ancient virtues, or Machiavelli, the corrector, or any other republican, all of them think that civic virtue is the character and capacity for a citizen to serve the public interest and protect the freedom of Republic and the citizen. This character or capacity is manifold, of which courage, dedication, eloquence, prudence, patriotism are the most important. The reason why civic virtues are stressed by republicanism is that civic virtue is a necessary condition for law to operate smoothly, an inherent power for citizens to enhance the public interest and good medicine for Republic to resist the corruption. If we want to cultivate civic virtue, the ways and means by public education, civic religion, political participation and good governance by law is indispensable.It is obvious that republican citizenship is still of great value and significance under the era of post-modern and globalization, though liberal citizenship is dominant today. According to liberal point of view held by Locke, Marshall and Rawls, individual freedom and rights are paramount; accordingly, state must reduce the requirements of civic responsibility and intervention to individual life. The advantages of liberal citizenship are obvious, but at the same time it also has caused a lot of serious political and social problems. For example, the isolated atomism with the radical individualism, the Market-oriented politics with the consumer image of citizen, the weak democracy with a moderate despotism, and so on. To overcome the drawbacks of liberal citizenship, it is necessary to absorb the reasonable component of republican citizenship. In general, the intrinsic moral, integrative and educational dimension of republican citizenship helps to train good citizens. The intrinsic participating dimension of republican citizenship can promote democracy's development and function. It is just based on citizenship and active participation, can Barber's strong democracy, Gutmann and Thompson's deliberative democracy and Pettit's contestatory democracy be built outstandingly. The civic culture and social capital that republican citizenship contains contribute to the stability and efficiency of democracy. Of course, the republican citizenship has a lot of contradictions and problems criticized by some people, for example, the demands of equality and elitism color of citizenship, the gender discrimination and male chauvinism of citizenship, the single model of citizenship and the challenges of multi-citizenship, and so on. To overcome these problems and challenges and adapt to today's society, some scholars have conducted fruitful exploration, for example, Gunsteren's new republican citizenship model, Dagger and Heater's Republican liberal citizenship model and Sunstein's liberal republican citizenship model, and so on.There is no doubt that the republican citizenship has important inspiration and significance to China's political development today. During axial age, China was different from the ancient Greek and Roman in which formed a well-developed city states and civic political culture. Under the influence of Confucian ethical politics, China formed the concept of home-country integration, despotism and subject. During the process of salvation, the concept of citizenship as the exotic began to rise. The birth of the Republic of China declared citizenship era. After the founding of new China, especially since the reform and opening up, with the development of the market economy, China's system and practice of citizenship has greatly improved. However, due to some historical and practical factors, there are still some problems in our country, such as unreasonable citizenship system, weak citizenship consciousness and low capacity of political participation.If we say that the imperfect of our country's citizenship system and the democratic politics provides necessity for the appliance to the republican citizenship, the accommodation between the traditional culture represented by Confucianism, contemporary socialist culture and republican citizenship provides possibility for the republican citizenship's use in china. Concretely speaking, the excellent resources of Chinese political culture from justice for all in the world to people's republic, from democratic governance to people's democracy, from harmonious yet different to harmonious society, from saint and nobleman to citizen, respond republican citizenship's pursue of republic ideal, self-governance, mixed banlance and ideal personality, which lays the solid foundation for China to absorb the reasonable component from republic citizenship.To draw lessons form republic citizenship and promote our country's citizenship system and practice, we need start from China's actual conditions. According to this thought, the dissertation think that it is necessary for our country to deepen political system reform, expand civic political participation, nurture civil society, increase the social capital, improve civic education and train qualified citizens in new era.