Law and Citizenship.

Joseph Garcea is a professor of political Studies at the University of
Saskatchewan.

This book is a reminder that citizenship has become a major topic both in political discourses today and in the academic literature in recent years. According to the contributors this is due to a combination of factors including globalization, massive forced migrations that are increasing the incidence of statelessness, the emergence of identity and rights movements among ethnocultural groups, nationalist movements, increased economic concerns, and increased national and community security concerns.

In addition to the introduction which provides an overview of the factors that have heightened the importance of citizenship in policy discourses and the policy agendas and provides an overview of the various chapters, the book consists of six chapters devoted to various types of citizenship commonly referred to as civic, political, social, and economic citizenship.

The first chapter provides an interesting analytical distinction between what the author refers to as “legal citizenship” (i.e., the juridical status of individuals vis-à-vis the state) and “substantive citizenship” (i.e., the rights, roles, and responsibilities belonging to the individuals within the state). It explains the case of the Khadr family’s treatment by Canadian and American authorities as an example of the importance of legal citizenship and how it can be undermined in times of real or perceived crises.

The second chapter examines the initiatives undertaken by several countries with large emigrant populations to ensure not only that the emigrants maintain a sense of belonging to their “home country” but that they actually retain rights of citizenship and access to participation. For those interested in the issue of dual citizenship for Canadians this is an interesting and important chapter.

The third chapter examines what might be termed multinational citizenship in countries such as Canada in which the borders of the national state surround more than one nation. The principal focus is on the effects that the existence of a multiplicity of nations has on the tensions between national identity and the recognition of differences and differential rights for groups within the polity.

The fourth chapter examines the nature and scope of social citizenship and its decline over time in conjunction with the decline of the welfare state. This chapter introduces the concept of dis-citizenship, which captures the sentiments of those who have traditionally argued that they were being treated as second-class citizens. The fifth chapter devotes special attention to the effect that the decline of citizenship has had on the rights and treatment of the disabled to enjoy full citizenship despite constitutional protection within the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The sixth chapter, which examines the relationship between gender and economic citizenship, makes the case that economic citizenship could be made more progressive for women to improve their socio-economic situation as full-fledged citizens.

After readers make sense of the overarching purpose and general organization of the book, they are rewarded with some interesting and important analyses of each of the aforementioned aspects of citizenship in Canada. This is a very timely book in light of contemporary discourses and worth the time it takes to read it.