Kock, Christian and Lisa Villadsen (2015). “Citizenship Discourse.” In Karen Tracy (General Editor),
Cornelia Ilie and Todd Sandel (Associate Editors), The International Encyclopedia of Language and
Social Interaction. Malden, MA (Wiley).
Citizenship Discourse
Christian Kock and Lisa Villadsen
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
<ab>Citizenship discourse refers to the discursive practices of members of a society
and the study hereof. Citizens’ access to and engagement with civic life are issues that
have long, and increasingly, occupied scholars, politicians, and educators alike.
Citizenship discourse designates the particular aspect of this endeavor that has to do
with how society as a whole and citizens individually or as a group understand and
take on their role as citizens with a ”voice” and a measure of agency. The term thus
refers both to (1) discourse about citizenship, and (2) discourse enacting citizenship.
This article presents both understandings, traces their development and scope, and
finally illustrates ways in which the term has been brought to bear in research. The
article concludes with a brief discussion of its implications for communication
scholarship.
“Citizenship discourse” as discourse about citizenship
“Citizenship discourse” here refers to metadiscourse on the notion (or notions) of
citizenship, that is, ways of conceptualizing citizenship and of talking about it. It is
possible to distinguish between scholarly, political, educational, and popular
citizenship discourses.
Scholarly citizenship discourse
Since antiquity, two main conceptions of citizenship have crystallized: republican
citizenship, emphasizing citizens’ participation in governance for the common good;
and liberal citizenship, emphasizing individuals’ freedoms and rights. These two
conceptions may be seen as originating and embodied in Greek city-states and the
Roman Republic, respectively.
In recent scholarly discourse on citizenship there is a prevalent tendency to
see citizenship primarily as the set of rights being extended to subjects in a state. It is
also a widely accepted view that, broadly speaking, these rights evolved in western
industrialized states in three incremental stages: civil citizenship (citizens’ legal
rights); political citizenship (the right to political participation via an open public
sphere, suffrage, etc.); and social citizenship (the rights to social provisions that
abate the inequalities of capitalism).
Critics since then have increasingly held that the rights-based notion of
citizenship needs a counterbalancing emphasis on activities, responsibilities and
duties; and citizenship is increasingly conceptualized as involving identity and
recognition of gender, culture, ethnicity, religion, and so forth.
A useful generalization about recent scholarship is that four major citizenship
discourses stand out: those of inclusion, erosion, withdrawal, and expansion.
Canadian political philosopher Kymlicka (1995) may be cited as representing
inclusion discourse, emphasizing who counts as a citizen (and who does not). He
believes liberal democracy and “group-specific” rights are reconcilable, sometimes
even mutually necessary. In the United States, the term “cultural citizenship” is
widely used to argue that the Hispanic population has the dual right to be counted as
full US citizens and yet be different in specific respects.
Erosion discourse is concerned that citizens’ rights, particularly social rights,
are eroded, primarily by neoliberalist policies; this is a criticism made by several
scholars and debaters not only from the center-left of the political spectrum, but also
by thinkers representing traditional conservative views. Particularly after the onset of
the financial crisis in 2008 it has been widely argued that investment in an active
citizenry and concerns for solidarity and the public good have given way to a oneeyed emphasis on productivity, competition, and individual self-reliance.
Withdrawal discourse sees citizens’ participation in civic life as decreasing.
This stance may be exemplified by political scientist Robert Putnam, who laments
(2000) the fact that Americans are increasingly “bowling alone” and who sees this as
a symptom of their dwindling “social capital” (the glue that holds a society together
in co-operation and trust).
Expansion discourse focuses on emergent conceptions of citizenship, mainly
in the wake of internationalization, such as dual or “nested” citizenship (as held by
EU citizens). Jürgen Habermas’s study of the transformation of the public sphere
(1962/1991) embodies expansion discourse with its focus on the communication
practices of the bourgeoisie, heralding an interest in communication of, and for, a
middle-class public sphere. Habermas, in later writings, developed notions of
“postnational” identity and citizenship in which citizens’ mutual solidarity is formed
by their participation in collective deliberative opinion formation.
Political citizenship discourse
Particularly before the financial crisis of 2008 several western governments invoked
“citizenship” to warrant their policies; in the United Kingdom, for example, the
Conservatives wrote a “Citizens’ Charter” in 1991, and New Labour commissioned the
“Crick Report” and then introduced compulsory Citizenship education in schools in
2002.
Educational citizenship discourse
Citizenship, variously conceived, is taught in schools in many countries. While
studies show that teaching practices and materials in western democracies have
primarily reflected the Enlightenment-inspired discourses of republican and liberal
citizenship, it is a discernible trend that duties are being increasingly emphasized,
compared with rights, and among duties, those that concern citizens’ participation in
the economy rather than their participation in democracy.
Popular” citizenship discourse
Few studies have investigated how particular social groups speak about and
conceptualize citizenship; one pattern suggested by existing research is that nonelite
citizens tend to associate the concept of citizenship more with constructive
community-oriented behavior than with legal and civic rights.
“Citizenship discourse” as discourse enacting citizenship
Complementing the study of citizenship discourse as discourse about citizenship is
the study of citizenship discourse as a practice. Studies that focus on how citizens
discursively engage with each other across various forms of public fora offer insight
into both macro and micro practices. Central to such studies is the notion of agency
understood as the individual’s speaking position, both in terms of access to a
meaningful public or semi-public forum and individuals’ conception of themselves as
legitimate voices in public debate and their concrete discursive practices.
A few selected examples of scholarship by rhetoricians and discourse analysts
representing this conception of citizenship discourse follow. Such studies may lead to
insight into how the practices analyzed reflect ruling discursive norms or
assumptions that are sometimes at odds with more abstract idealizations of civic
discourse. Case studies thus supplement more quantitative studies by bringing to
light phenomena that are considered marginal or exceptional but which nevertheless
are interesting; both because they complement a bigger picture and because they
often document alternative strategies for entering into the public realm. For
example, rhetorical critics of minority and women’s rhetoric have expanded our
understanding and appreciation of the multiple ways in which rhetorical citizenship
is manifested.
Gring-Pemble (1998), for example, analyzed how a private correspondence
between two women exemplifies one way in which the women’s rights movement
was able to develop in the 1800s. Their letters formed a space for discussion bridging
public and private lives, and thus marginalized voices became significant for the
community both in terms of agenda setting and expanding the range of citizens
participating in civic discourse.
On a larger scale, Charland’s (1987) work on “constitutive rhetoric”
illuminated how civic collectives discursively create or adopt a self-understanding of
their identity as citizens. Discourse may shape the audience it addresses as the
discourse unfolds. Invoking Althusser’s “interpellation,” Charland sees audiences as
(ideologically) created when “hailed” as a collective group. According to him, the
persuasive power of the Québecois independence movement lay less in particular
arguments for sovereignty than in the citizen identity offered to Québecois as a
people with a distinct heritage and particular interests.
Another strand of studies of citizenship discourse focused on the role of
ordinary people’s various communicative practices in the public sphere. Thus,
Hauser’s (1999) work on “vernacular rhetoric” took issue with Habermas and with
the quantitative approach to studying popular sentiment, turning scholars’ attention
to the ways ordinary people express and exchange viewpoints, departing from
traditional norms. Vernacular discourse such as street corner conversations, street
art, and collective memory help create and sustain identity and community. Thus,
citizenship is discursively generated and contextually defined.
Extending a similar line of thinking, Brouwer and Asen (2010) sought to
widen scholars’ understanding of what constitutes citizenship by attending to fluid,
quotidian modes of enactment that better reflect individuals’ understanding of their
role as citizens. Focusing on just how citizenship is enacted, they draw attention to
modes outside traditional norms for political deliberation and debate, and their
concept of “modality” enables us see public life as practically crafted and
conceptualized in various forms of engagement—public, institutional, or private—
that create and reformulate social worlds. Their understanding of publics (in the
plural) as found in verbal and visual symbols, narrative testimony, consumerism,
and many other manifestations makes their work relevant to the notion of
discursively enacted citizenship where citizens' symbolic and discursive practices
undergird the life of the community. This view allows us to see how citizenship
engagement is central in refashioning social norms and beliefs and in redefining
activities that traditionally would have fallen outside the scope of “political”
discourse.
A significant contribution to scholarship on citizenship discourse focuses on
various forms of public hearings and community meetings, mapping and analyzing
the conditions, means, and nature of citizens’ discursive participation in debate over
societal issues.
The study of individual citizens’ utterances has different levels. Most
fundamentally, there is a descriptive element in simply mapping how individuals,
whether elite or “common,” actually present arguments or positions in the public
realm. In her work on “ordinary democracy,” discourse analyst Karen Tracy has
challenged idealized notions of democracy and its practice. In The Prettier Doll
(2007) Tracy, McDaniel, and Gronbeck, analyzed the same controversy from
different theoretical and methodological vantage points, illuminating differing views
on racial ideologies, political inclusion and liberalism, in short: ordinary people’s
understanding of citizenship.
Studying citizenship as a range of communicative events occurring at
community meetings, town hall debates and the like, scholars have studied how
people position themselves and others as citizens in such events and how they
negotiate their circumstances and constraints. Buttny (2010) studied public hearings
with an eye to how citizens invoke “folk assumptions” about communication norms
to gain a stronger footing against authorities. For example, metadiscursive appeals
about their expectation to be heard and the mode of interaction are seen as ways for
citizens to flag perceived problems in the communication and as attempts to
structure or depart from the prescribed format. Despite some skepticism regarding
the value of public hearings as a format for public deliberation, Buttny recognizes a
potential for enlarging citizen perspectives through interaction even when marked by
disagreement. Such observations about the nature and effect of discursively enacted
citizenship may bring a fuller understanding of ordinary people’s involvement in
public deliberation.
A vast domain for the discursive enactment of citizenship has been opened by
the development of Internet-based facilities and services, especially those that
provide avenues for “many-to-many” communication, where, in principle, any citizen
can simultaneously be rhetor and audience. Early optimism about the democratic
potential of the Internet as a citizens’ free-for-all meeting ground has not been
unambiguously confirmed; one well-documented concern is that online fora that
allow free debate—in particular those that accept anonymous entries—may become
echo chambers, in which like-minded individuals often drift toward shrill extremism,
discouraging rather than helping dialogue across disagreements.
A recent contribution to the study of how citizenship is, in numerous ways,
enacted discursively is the notion of “rhetorical citizenship” (Danisch, 2011; Kock &
Villadsen, 2012). Danisch draws primarily on the inspiration from Dewey’s thinking
on democracy and its crucial role in communication in local communities. Kock and
Villadsen, with their use of the term “rhetorical citizenship,” call attention to the
many ways in which members of a polity enact their citizenship through the
discourse, public or vernacular, that they perform, but also to those instances of
public debate where citizens are only indirectly involved, for instance, as observers or
receivers of mediated debate, yet where their critical reflection is just as important.
Rhetorical citizenship, in this conception, is a deliberately broad concept, inviting
cross-disciplinarity. It involves issues of agency as well as of normative evaluation of
discourse from a deliberative viewpoint, subsuming both that of the active
participant and that of the reflective recipient; similarly, it emphasizes not just
citizens’ rights and rightful expectations, but also their civic duties and
responsibilities in a broad sense.
Future of citizenship discourse
As the two trends of globalization and digitalization increasingly redefine society
with respect to issues of competition and access to and spread of information,
citizenship discourse is as topical as ever. Societies marked by increasing racial,
religious, and cultural diversity, combined with escalating differences in wealth
distribution and impending environmental challenges, will still need timely policies
of citizenship involvement. One particular challenge in this respect concerns
individuals’ interest in getting involved in civic life. Increasingly, low-level, local,
intermittent, or periodic, issue-oriented political engagement coincides with growing
popular disaffection with formal democratic systems. Whereas young adults in some
countries seem more likely to mark a social or political point of view by joining
environmental groups, for example, there is a paradox in the fact that while digital
technology makes it ever easier to seek information and participate in, for example,
online discussions or petitions, it seems that more and more people are in fact
turning away from civic life and instead toward more semi-private forms of
communication in the social media. A particular challenge for citizenship discourse
scholarship in this connection is to track and analyze developments in what counts as
citizen involvement, both in terms of form and content.
Another avenue for further scholarship conceives citizenship discourse as a
pedagogical project, where the task is to educate growing generations about their
roles and obligations in civil life. This would involve not just training citizens in the
practical skills required to participate actively in a complex society, but also teaching
them to critically observe and weigh the discourse they hear, thus, enabling them to
be, in a truer sense, deliberating citizens.
SEE ALSO: Argument Discourse; Deliberative Democracy Discourse; Dialogue;
Public-Meeting Discourse
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