Citizenship’s Culture: Its Concept and Objective Conditions

Abstract

A process of accessing to a society of citizenship is the goal of every democratic system. Citizenship is the core stone of democratic practices as it is the goal and the mean as well. Without citizenship, democracy becomes a form with no content, and therefore the subject is important from this aspect. A political system has to have a kind of education that supports it. Democracy-seeking systems have a culture of citizenship, embodied in multiple values, norms of behavior and traditions, such as: respect the other so there is no longer an absolute Ego that monopolizes truth and perfection for itself but denies others. Undoubtedly, respecting the other does mean acknowledging the existence of another opinion, which allows freedom of opinion and political and intellectual pluralism. The value of citizenship is also the value of tolerance. As much as the value of tolerance seems to be moral and morale, it necessarily means accepting the other intellectually and politically, and the psychological readiness to accept submitting authority peacefully and periodically. The ballot box is then the arena for resolving such political conflict, not resorting to arms, and other principles that will enhance the concept of citizenship as well. Recently, the concept of citizen has to exceed the traditional one that restricts only to the resident on the homeland. The concept of the citizen is the person involved and influenced in government and political power by various means. In order to promote the culture of citizenship, a number of conditions must be met. This is what the research has attempted to address, through the research axes that have been divided into two chapters. The first chapter addresses the study of citizenship concept and pursues its historical evolution. The second one deals with a number of conditions for the development of the culture of citizenship. Including: political conditions, legal conditions, social conditions, educational and cultural conditions.