ABSTRACT
Despite its centrality to modern political life, the concept of citizenship has been, for the most part, of marginal significance to International Relations (IR) theory (Linklater 1990). Transformations and developments in citizenship and national identity have been treated as domestic issues, and therefore of little concern to mainstream IR. The inside/outside distinction that is the constitutive core of IR is fundamental to understanding the marginalization of citizenship. According to this distinction, citizens are subjects of the domestic realm where they can enjoy the protection of their persons and property through domestic laws, police and courts; they further enjoy the security of the community through border security and military preparedness. Outside this realm is the anarchical space of the international, which enjoys no such security and sureties. The only ‘international citizen’ of relevance is the state, whose diplomatic (and warring) practices represent the focus of much of international political analysis. Even in perspectives that are open to a plurality of state and non-state actors, citizenship is rarely given central place. Instead, citizen activity is incorporated into other categories such as ‘global civil society’. As a result, conventional IR approaches such as realism and liberalism provide little analytical utility for understanding citizenship in international politics.
