The Competent Citizen: Exploring the Normative Side of Qualified Notions of Citizenship

Abstract

Citizenship is a key notion in political philosophy. Its main content has been discussed in terms of rights and duties. This contribution argues that a recent debate on qualified notions of citizenship sheds new light on the normative discussion. Citizenship is no longer regarded as a unified notion; instead rights, duties and even virtues of political persons are part of a discussion on “economic citizenship”, “the educated citizen” and “environmental citizenship”. This leads to a re-assessment of citizenship in terms of “competences” and its enabling conditions.