The Rise and Fall of Citizenship brings together many of Turner’s publications on the topic of citizenship and includes three new chapters reflecting upon conceptions of citizenship today.
The collection begins with a newly written overview of the rise of social citizenship (with particular reference to the UK and the US from 1945 to the 1980s) which charts the experiences of the ‘Baby Boomers’ that benefited from the creation of welfare states, post- war reconstruction, and the commitment to full employment. The core chapters are based on previously published articles, primarily from Taylor & Francis’ Citizenship Studies journal. These chapters examine and critique various sociological and political theories of citizenship and social rights as expounded in the works of R.H. Tawney, J.M. Keynes, T.H. Marshall, Ralf Dahrendorf, Judith Shklar, Peter Townsend, Bernard Crick, and Jüergen Habermas, among others.
Later chapters bring the concept of citizenship up to date. Since the 1980s, the UK and the US have been radically altered by neoliberal economic policies involving the deindustrialization of capitalism and an emphasis on financial institutions, which have given rise to new patterns of inequality and changing labour markets. In describing where we are now, Turner argues that new forms of employment instability and uncertainty are captured by the idea of ‘the precariat’ and that citizens now experience their social world as if they were denizens. Turner also considers the impact of demographic changes and increased immigration, widely opposed by populist parties, on conceptions of citizenship. Migration and membership are also examined with reference to issues of dual citizenship, permanent residence, and ‘citizenship for cash’. The final chapter considers the ongoing relevance of the ancient law of hospitality, positing how the migrant can be considered as an asset rather than a threat.
This wide-ranging and thought-provoking collection will be of interest to scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences with a focus on citizenship and rights.
1. What are citizenship studies about?
2. Outline of a theory of citizenship
3. Outline of a theory of human rights
4. Citizenship studies: a general theory
5. T.H. Marshall, social rights and English national identity
6. Marshall and Dahrendorf: theories of citizenship, 1949–2016
7. Judith N. Shklar and American citizenship
8. Bernard Crick: citizenship and democracy in the United Kingdom
9. Silent citizens: reflections on community, habit, and the silent majority in political life
10. The erosion of citizenship
11. We are all denizens now, on the erosion of citizenship
12. Where are we now and how did we get here?
13. The law of hospitality
Appendix
Biography
Bryan S. Turner is Professor of Sociology at the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Australian Catholic University and Research Fellow at the Edward Cadbury Centre at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of numerous books including, most recently, Understanding Islam: Positions of Knowledge (2023) and A Theory of Catastrophe (2023). He is also the founding editor of the Journal of Classical Sociology and co- editor of The Transformation of Citizenship (3 volumes, Routledge, 2019–2021), The Condition of Democracy (3 volumes, Routledge, 2021), and Urban Change and Citizenship in Times of Crisis (3 volumes, Routledge, 2021). He was awarded a Doctor of Letters by Cambridge University in 2009 and received the Max Planck Award in social science in 2015.
"This collection of essays published across several decades is a testimony to the outstanding contribution Bryan Turner has made to sociology of citizenship. With three additional original chapters, the book provides a renewed focus on citizenship as the condition of community and civility. Turner charts the rise of citizenship in democratic societies between the 1940s and 1980s and shows how 'successful' democratic societies developed community, cultivated civility, and provided social security through citizenship as their enabler and guarantor. Turner then charts the fall of citizenship between the 1980s and 2020s as the decline of community and civility. By convincingly establishing citizenship as a condition for democratic societies, the book challenges and urges scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences to become its guardians and interrogators."
Engin Isin, Professor Emeritus in International Politics, Queen Mary University of London, UK
"For decades, Bryan S. Turner has been the most creative sociologist on the modern institution of citizenship. In this collection of essays, including new ones that reflect on the condition of citizenship today, what it might mean any longer and which political and moral obligations we can still derive from it, Turner offers a tour de force of the sociological and liberal tradition of citizenship. From the social, economic, political, and cultural roots that formed our western understanding of it to its obvious decline; from the time of western citizens gaining more rights in social struggles to its erosion in the face of neoliberalism having destroyed the post-War social contract; and with regard to considerations of what citizenship might (still) mean today and how it might continue to operate as providing for civility, solidarity and preserve an idea of the common good – these essays are in a way the legacy of one of the most important modern sociologists on citizenship."
Jürgen Mackert, Professor of Sociology, University of Potsdam, Germany
"Bryan Turner is known for his pioneering approach to contemporary citizenship studies and its impact in placing citizenship firmly at the centre of contemporary sociological enquiry. Viewing citizenship through the lens of equality, community and civility, this book brings together Turner’s existing publications with three new chapters, which in combination cover a wide array of theoretical approaches, while also tracing the expansion and erosion of citizenship rights. Set in the context of a predominantly British and North American paradigm, the book traces the expansionary post-war promise of citizenship, while noting its gendered blind spots, its sometimes troubled encounters with universal rights and multi-culturalism, and its contemporary decline. This decline in manifest not only in the stalled delivery and active contraction of social rights, but in the resistance to viewing migration as a positive asset, and the failures of citizenship and ‘membership’ when measured against a law of hospitality. So here we have a book that offers both a ‘state of the art’ review and a pressing agenda for future scholars."
Lydia D. Morris, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, UK
