Citizenship as shared fate

After reading Kymlicka & Norman (1994) and Callan (2004). I moved to Melissa Williams' book chapter (2003) that outlines the idea of citizenship as shared fate. This conception of citizenship makes a lot of sense to me. She frames it as an alternative to citizenship as identity – the idea that citizenship, and the obligations that arise from it, is based in the identity of individuals. The individuals either share a culture or basic values, but there is something about how members of a group identify themselves that is common and provides the basis for membership and citizenship. She spends a good portion of the chapter outlining problems with this perspective, which includes the threat to legitimacy that this perspective presents in that it justifies the inculcation of sentiments of loyalty. The alternative she proposes is that citizenship and its obligations are the result of being members of groups of shared fate – groups of individuals whose lives are entangled with each other and have an impact on the lives of others. One of the roles for education, then, is to develop in the young an understanding of with whom and how they are entangled and what responsibilities arise from that entanglement. One of the main responsibilities is reciprocity – the idea that others with whom we are entangled deserve a justifiable explanation for any actions we take which have an impact on them. We generally recognize that people deserve some shelter, so I might justifiably cut down a tree to build my house despite the fact that this might contribute to environmental degradation. However, it seems unjustifiable for me to cut down an entire forest for the same purpose.

Again, I think this is a promising line of argument, but as I was reading, I could not help but think that this is not that new. One reason I got this impression, I believe, is the connection to Dewey, which Williams acknowledges. She notes that her conception of citizenship as shared fate is very close to Dewey's idea of a “public”. I do like anything that points us back to Dewey!

As a side note, I am unconvinced about one of the arguments she makes about the reasons that some groups might justifiably reject the liberal principles of equality and autonomy (which, I would argue, she goes on to affirm as necessary to be inculcated in all groups, though not in their (autonomy and equality's) strongest forms: a position with which I agree). Williams says, “Since the principles of individual equality and individual autonomy have historically been used to deny cultural minorities recognition of accommodation within the law, these minorities have very reasonable reservations about these principles” (p. 221). Reasonable reservations, maybe, but reasonable enough to oppose their acceptance as necessary principles, I think not. I think there is a tendency here to reject principles after poor implementation or misapplication. This is only acceptable if misapplication is inherent to those principles. Though Williams claims that these groups should have reason to reject autonomy, the way in which she frames the discussion demonstrates that she does not allow them to reject autonomy completely because she expects these groups to have reasons for their rejection – this is already a level of critical engagement that constitutes a minimal level of autonomy, one that might be sufficient for citizenship. However, these groups have, through their actions, not outright rejected autonomy, but perhaps its more extreme forms.

Callan, E. (2004). Citizenship and Education. Annual Review of Political Science, 7, 71-90.  

Kymlicka, W., & Norman, W. (1994). Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory. Ethics, 104(2), 352-381.  

Williams, M. S. (2003). Citizenship as identity, citizenship as shared fate, and the functions of multicultural education. In Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies (Vol. 1, pp. 208-248). Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs.