The aim of this work is to describe and analyze the concept of the state citizenship in general and in the Czech Republic from a theoretical and practical point of view. At the theoretical level, this work explores the concept of state citizenship and the related terms such as nationality analyzed in the first chapter that has a broader conceptual content. Nationality is used as a benchmark concept to distinguish vertical and horizontal levels of state citizenship. At the vertical level, often referred to as functional citizenship, the focus is on the relationship between the state and its citizens. By contrast, the horizontal level concentrates on ties between citizens within a state that are based on solidarity and collective sense of belonging. This leads to the particular role of state citizenship that provides an individual with a set of privileges such as legally enshrined special treatment by the state. The second chapter of this work studies dual or multiple citizenship that are of particular interest especially given the current integrative and global trends that have gradually been changing our thinking about them. Conflict of faith commitments and indivisible state sovereignty have been sidelined in favour of the individual. The concept of dual citizenship is also relevant for homeless,...

There are seventeen million people in the world who are stateless, not considered as citizens by any state. They suffer due to the current function of citizenship in the nation-state system, occupying a legal space outside of the system, yet, their lives are very much blighted by the system itself. This research examines the possibility that global citizenship could be a means to address statelessness. Global citizenship, unlike (national) citizenship, is, in theory, inclusive, and membership is based on our shared humanity. However, when approaching the global citizenship literature, two concerns became apparent. First, there is a significant lack of theorisation on the stateless in the discourse, and second, some scholars make the assumption that a global citizen has citizenship of a state – which the stateless do not. To begin to overcome these concerns, this research develops and implements a stateless centric perspective on global citizenship, using it to analyse the situation of the stateless in the case of Lebanon. The stateless centric approach developed here, views global citizenship through the actions and perspectives of those addressing statelessness. With four large and protracted stateless populations, Lebanon provides an empirically rich context, within which to undertake this research. The findings of the stateless centric perspective problematise the received wisdom of citizenship, the nation-state and allows for the exploration of the expressions and tensions in the practices of global citizenship. Drawing on a contextualised understanding of these practices, a ‘patchwork’ approach to global citizenship is proposed. This sees the creation of a public political space as an act of global citizenship, when it draws on universal principles. These universal principles are used to justify this space, taking on an instrumental role. It is a patchwork as these spaces can be seen in the wider global context, as either directly or indirectly connected, through their shared use of universal principles. By centralising the stateless in our conceptualisations of the nation-state, citizenship and global citizenship, the value of taking a stateless centric perspective, and its ability to draw out further nuances in the debate, is shown.

European citizenship is a concept whose importance has increased since it was introduced in the Maaastricht Treaty. One significant actor, perhaps the most significant actor, for making EU-citizenship into more than a symbolic concept. However, the Court has been criticised, most notably by Fritz Scharpf (2009), for undermining national sovereignty and legitimacy of the Member States and strenghtening the EU’s liberal character, at expense of the republican element in national democracies. This study takes a stand against Scharpf’s portayal of the EU-as an extremely liberal polity by examining six of the Court’s rulings on Union citizenship. It  answers  the  research question:  how closely does  the  EU-citizenship  align with either a  republican or liberal  understanding of citizenship? The results points towards a greater presence of republican mores in EU-citizenship than one might expect and that the Court takes an active role in strengthening republican elements.

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International global citizenship practica programs abound in universities and high schools across North America; indeed, they are a growing trend. However, there has been little research into their long-term impact, particularly of high school practica. This dissertation explores the influence of a high school global citizenship practicum through the perspectives, perceptions, and lives of its participants eight years later, and subsequently examines implications for personal vocation, global education practice and global citizenship practica. The research questions are embedded in cares arising from my years teaching high school Social Studies and are inspired by the global citizenship practicum in question, one which I initiated and co-facilitated. They are informed by conceptions of global citizenship and a philosophy of experiential learning. The research project itself is framed as a case study; its approach is qualitative and interpretist in nature. The research findings derive largely from interviews and written communication with 11 of 14 former practicum participants, including the practicum’s co-facilitator. They are supplemented with memories and perspectives of the author-researcher and enlightened by scholarly literature. Findings show that high school global citizenship practica, ones that include a home-stay experience, can be effective and transformative in cultivating enduring traits commensurate with global citizenship. However, these practica face potential and critical impediments and challenges in accomplishing those ends. Teacher-facilitators play important, perhaps indispensable roles in helping address these challenges and in creating learning environments that foster global perspectives and critical awareness.

International global citizenship practica programs abound in universities and high schools across North America; indeed, they are a growing trend. However, there has been little research into their long-term impact, particularly of high school practica. This dissertation explores the influence of a high school global citizenship practicum through the perspectives, perceptions, and lives of its participants eight years later, and subsequently examines implications for personal vocation, global education practice and global citizenship practica. The research questions are embedded in cares arising from my years teaching high school Social Studies and are inspired by the global citizenship practicum in question, one which I initiated and co-facilitated. They are informed by conceptions of global citizenship and a philosophy of experiential learning. The research project itself is framed as a case study; its approach is qualitative and interpretist in nature. The research findings derive largely from interviews and written communication with 11 of 14 former practicum participants, including the practicum’s co-facilitator. They are supplemented with memories and perspectives of the author-researcher and enlightened by scholarly literature. Findings show that high school global citizenship practica, ones that include a home-stay experience, can be effective and transformative in cultivating enduring traits commensurate with global citizenship. However, these practica face potential and critical impediments and challenges in accomplishing those ends. Teacher-facilitators play important, perhaps indispensable roles in helping address these challenges and in creating learning environments that foster global perspectives and critical awareness.

This thesis examines whether Muslims qua Muslims can regard as legitimate the demands of citizenship in a non-Muslim liberal democracy. This involves asking whether requirements such as living in and being loyal to a non-Muslim state, regarding non- Muslims as political equals with whom one might co-operate socially and politically, contributing to non-Muslim welfare and participating in non-Muslim political systems can be regarded as legitimate practices. It is an exercise in what John Rawls referred to as 'conjecture', or the attempt to examine and argue for the existence of an overlapping consensus between a liberal political conception of justice or citizenship and a particular comprehensive ethical doctrine. Chapter One examines the status of conjecture in political theory and the place of the idea of an overlapping consensus in liberal justification, followed by a proposal for a methodology for this type of comparative political theory. Chapter Two deals with the precise demands liberalism places on citizens, and the particular concerns of Muslims living in non-Muslim states. I show that before we can discuss the central liberal concerns of justifying state neutrality and individual freedoms to revise one's conception of the good, it is necessary to look at a series of questions related to Muslim belonging, loyalty and solidarity in a non-Muslim state. I then present and defend a conception of liberal citizenship in response to certain challenges and concerns of Islamic political ethics. Chapters Three through Five then deal with the range of Islamic responses to the demands of liberal citizenship as I presented them. Chapter Three considers the question of residence in a non-Muslim state and whether the most common justifications for such residence can be considered compatible with liberal conceptions of a well-ordered society. Chapter Four examines the problems of political obligation and loyalty - whether Muslims can in good faith meet their obligations of loyalty to both the global community of fellow believers and their state of citizenship. Chapter Five deals with questions of recognition and solidarity - whether Muslims can recognise non-Muslims as political equals, form relationships based on justice, contribute to their welfare and participate in a common political system. All three chapters demonstrate that very strong and authentically Islamic arguments exist for accepting all of the above demands of citizenship, many being found even in medieval works of Islamic jurisprudence. Crucially, Islamic arguments shown to support the idea of an overlapping consensus also vindicate many of the claims of Rawlsian political liberalism to be a more appealing form of liberalism to non-liberals precisely because of its abstention from claims to metaphysical truth.

Today's increasingly interconnected world creates new challenges related to the use and understanding of the concept of citizenship. The idea of a global citizenship is not new; however, in recent years there has been an evolution of increasing research leading to the expansion of interest with regard to the exploration of the concept and how it could be implemented in practice. This study attempts to deepen the understanding of the qualitatively different ways of perceiving this concept amongst a number of Indian and Nepalese young adults. The study is based on a phenomenographic research approach, where the data material was collected through semi-structured interviews. The results of the study show that global citizenship can be perceived as being related to equality, cultural diversity, global responsibility, global communication and cosmopolitan governance. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the young adults perceive themselves either only as national citizens, or as both national and global citizens. Finally, the respondents believe that formal education can contribute to the promotion of global citizenship by including the concept in the educational curriculum and by encouraging cultural exchange. The role of formal education in promoting global citizenship is also perceived to be unclear due to terminological confusion.

This study centred on three local governments which claimed to give priority to youth participation. Two of those municipalities were identified on the basis of employing youth participation officers, while the third was volunteered to participate in the study by the Mayor of the day who claimed that " their Council was streets ahead " of other local governments in their response to the issues of young people from within their municipality. The study was designed to ascertain how the selected Councils engaged with young people and provided opportunities for them to participate fully in the community. I interviewed the key stakeholders of the three municipalities from which I had agreement to participate. During these frank, unstructured interviews, I asked a range of questions about engagement of young people within the community. Each interview was of approximately one hour duration. Interviewees included elected councillors including the Mayor of each municipality; senior staff within Councils including each Chief Executive Officer; and youth work staff including those described as Youth Participation and Youth Development Officers. I also examined corporate documents including Annual Reports, Annual Plans, and Council Meeting Minutes from each of the councils under study. These documents provided valuable information about Council priorities, budgets, achievements and future directions. For another part of the study, I examined back copies of Leader newspapers published in each of the municipalities under study. Using a specially designed data collection form, I collected a range of information about all articles referring to young people, or which had young people as the main focus of the article. Following collection of newspaper data, I entered all of the information into a specially designed template I had previously created in the Statview statistical analysis program. A range of statistical calculations were then performed and frequency tables produced. This part of the study was conducted in response to a claim that newspaper reporting of youth issues in Kimberly was quite generous compared to other municipalities. Such a claim was' not proved to be statistically significant however. Nonetheless, the data showed that contrary to anecdotal evidence and other research related to young people and media, the nature of reporting of young people and their issues in the municipalities unde r study was overwhelmingly positive. Despite the rhetoric espoused by each local government In relation to youth development within their municipalities, two Councils proved to be disappointing in respect to what they actually delivered. This demonstrated that simply hiring a youth worker and giving them the title of Youth Participation Officer will achieve little if the Council is not serious about youth participation. For Athena and Burke City Councils, the rhetoric failed to concur with reality. Athena City Council demonstrated few opportunities for young people to participate in community activities and interviews with Athena staff revealed interference from elected representatives, compromising attempts to empower young people. Such interference has been blamed on Councillors trying to hurry a process to see results on the board for political gain. This study showed that the Council with the least resources and the largest geographical area actually performed far better than the other two municipalities. That particular Council adopted a community development approach to working with young people within the municipality out of necessity. As a municipality comprising a number of towns over a large area, such an approach was the only way that the youth worker could service the community. Despite individual failings, a major finding of this study is that we can conclude that local government does have a valid role in promoting the full participation of young people within their communities. This includes the involvement of young people in the development of programs and services that best meet their needs and wants. , Further, while the focus of this study was largely on the concept of social citizenship, it became apparent that a broader definition of political citizenship than simply voting or standing for office is as important for the development of young people and their participation in the community, and sometimes indistinguishable from, the concept of social citizenship. Gleaned from the study is a range of conditions determined as desirable to be present for maximising young people's full participation in their communities. These conditions are more indicative of young people's development opportunities than any of the geographical or demographic traits. These conditions include a stated policy commitment to young people; a professional framework for delivery of programs and services; a holistic approach to the delivery of services, connected to sound planning and coordination; and a supportive elected leadership team that refrains from interfering for political gain. Further, a dedicated council officer with a commitment to positively promoting and empowering young people, and supported by the organisations' policies and practices is essential. That same officer would also require a liberal dose of autonomy and an approach to the development of young people that sees the participation in a process as important as any outcome, and indeed as an outcome in itself. That local government is seen as key player within the community in relation to youth issues also became apparent from the study. Across Australia, a wide range of programs, activities and approaches were highlighted which relate to aspects of citizenship. This demonstrates an acknowledgement by local government as a sector that youth issues and youth development is no longer an optional extra, but is indeed 'core business'.

Thesis--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-121).