Citizenship in Wartime

When a democracy enters a period of war or overt security threats, its citizens' lives are affected in many ways. Their feelings about their country can be transformed; public and political distinctions between "us" and "them" shift; citizens' expectations from the government can be revised in light of what they perceive as their most urgent interests. The public agenda often becomes preoccupied with security issues; the public sphere is rearranged around these newly defined focal points. Many issues, including immigration, criminal law, demography, free speech, and artistic expression, to name but a few, become part of the security discourse. Access to information about some of these matters is constrained accordingly. These changes can broadly be described as a shift from an open, democratic notion of citizenship to a narrow conception of the relations between state and individual, which I term "belligerent citizenship." This chapter will trace some of the basic alterations in the conceptualization of citizenship that occur in times of war or conflict, as a basis for constructing a qualified notion of civic education.