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Background: Citizenship, nationalism, human rights and democracy are four terms and concepts that are inextricably linked. In Kuwait, the status of citizen is based on nationality, gender and age, with women, children, naturalised citizens, expatriates and bidoon (stateless people) denied many freedoms, rights and services. Citizenship is defined by some, feeling and practice. In Kuwait, the denial or limitation of the first makes the latter two all but impossible. Purpose: In this paper, I discuss the tensions between citizenship, nationalism, human rights and democracy within the Kuwaiti context and then explore how these are mirrored in the tangling of terms within the Kuwaiti national curriculum. Particular attention is paid to the Constitution and Human Rights (CHR) module, which introduced a form of national democratic citizenship education to the secondary curriculum (grades 10, 11 and 12) for the first time in 2006 but was then rescinded to grade 12 only by the 2009-2010 academic year. Students' perceptions of the concepts and their learning will form an important part of the analysis. Methodology: The student voices come from student research workshops carried out as part of a case study of a Kuwaiti government school. These workshops were carried out in the spring terms of 2009 and 2010 with grades 10, 11 and 12 classes; a total of approximately 180 students were involved. In small groups, students were asked to reflect on posters on what they learned in school about citizenship, human rights and democracy. Their responses were translated, coded and categorised by theme. The grade 11 posters were selected for this paper, as they provide a contrast between the 2009 students, who took the CHR module, and the 2010 students, who did not. Quotes that were selected forinclusion in this paper were those that had themes echoed by several other students. Conclusions: The CHR module shifted the focus from education for national citizenship to education for democratic national citizenship, as reflected in the contrasting student responses in 2009 and 2010. However, the module also inadvertently brought to the surface the inconsistencies and tensions between several of the concepts it was meant to educate about. This caused students to develop criticality, and, alongside their learning on human rights and politics, wasa potentially strong trigger for change from below. Its swift withdrawal fromthe curriculum, however, shifted the focus of citizenship education back tonationalism and patriotism. It also rendered students less equipped to effect change - a result that the more sceptical may believe was intended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a neglected dimension of the debate about post-national citizenship by focusing on the articulation of citizenship demands at the level of the region. More specifically, it analyses the pressures for, and the constraints on, the project of social citizenship within Mercosur. Drawing on primary research in Argentina, the article identifies a number of initiatives that attempt to infuse Mercosur with a social agenda. I argue that the significance of these initiatives is that they represent the first coherent attempt to articulate a citizen-centred model of new regionalism in Mercosur. But I also suggest that a formidable combination of obstacles lies in the path of this alternative project of regional governance. Finally, I explore the consequences of excluding issues of citizenship, rights and welfare from the agenda of regionalism, highlighting in particular the possibility of societal rejection if region building remains empty of social meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proceeding from Lord Acton's insight that "exile is the nursery of nationality," this paper examines a peculiar historical instance of dislocation as a relevant matrix for the articulation of national identity. I inquire into aspects of the elaboration of French national consciousness among French émigrés of the revolutionary period in Russia, approaching the subject at two levels: first, the maîtres à danser, the run-of- the- mill émigrés who abandon cosmopolitan certitudes or pretensions of a "monde français" and abstractions of dynastic loyalty, in favour of nostalgic attachment to a tangible paine, very much at odds with the Russian otherness into which they have been thrust. Second, the maîtres à penser, those émigré thinkers in whom the Revolution provokes a reconsideration of established universals and who conceptualize Russia in terms of a project to reconcile universal and particular or national values. I examine the dilemmas and ultimate failure of such a projection by focusing on the work of Joseph de Maistre. On both levels, the historical case studied here is an exemplification of the proposition that nationalism is founded on a disenchantment with the world, and that physical estrangement from both the world to which one believes oneself to belong as well as spiritual estrangement from the world in which one treads, may provide a critical context for defining collective identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on theories about the importance of national identity to ethnicity, this paper presents a case study of a region where national contests were intimately tied to personal identity. In the mid-nineteenth century, southern Colorado, long a part of Spain and then briefly Mexico, was conquered by the expanding United States. Material remains and historic documents attest to its residents' ensuing struggles over place, identity, and citizenship. Bilingual newspapers proclaimed that the region's Hispanics, who continued to call themselves Mexicanos , were just as ‘American’ as residents of other new US territories. Yet much of their material culture was rooted in centuries-old Hispanic traditions. The archaeology of a late nineteenth-century Mexicano site in the region provides an example of how material culture, social ties, and landscape were mobilized by people for whom a former nationality became an ethnic identifier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A vast range of recent academic scholarships seek to theorize the recent convergence of neoliberal, anti-immigration, xenophobic and populist measures and practices since the Crisis of 2008. This paper analyses recent changes to the Canadian citizenship regime and it compares this changes to neoliberal and neoconservative trends in Europe. The authors argue that although it did not explicitly renounce its pluralistic orientation, the Canadian Conservative Party had already started its neoliberal and neoconservative reorientation of the Citizenship in Canada prior to the Crisis of 2008. Despite several similarities with European trajectories, the Conservative Party needs to deal with structural factors that are specific to the Canadian context: the electoral system; demographic trends; and a public opinion which, unlike in Europe, remains optimistic with regards to the economic contribution of immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers understand and apply citizenship education differentially in traditional western democracies. But what of Asian countries where democracy is more recent and treated differently and where countries have traditions of highly controlled education systems? Do teachers have and demonstrate independence of thought in civic matters? This article reports on a study of social studies teachers' understandings of citizenship education, and how these understandings influence their teaching. We found that teacher understandings and practice of citizenship education were located in three distinct groupings, characterised as nationalistic, socially concerned and person oriented. This reflected a citizenship education landscape in Singapore that, despite tight controls, was not as rigid, prescriptive or homogenous as literature on the Asian region suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the relevance of citizenship to nation-building in Turkey. Significance of citizenship in legitimizing a republic; Implications of heritage ideologies on nationalism; Privileges of citizenship; Impact of globalization on Turkish nationality; Identification of diverse Turkish citizens.

The article presents information on various socio-political developments related to Europe. The first, subjective aspect is that discussed mostly in scientific and public discourse under the headings of "national identity," "nationalism," and so forth. National identity in this sense refers to a certain attitude of mind, a weaker or stronger attachment of individuals to a larger sociopolitical unit. There also exists, however, nation in an objective sense, as a certain social unit or system, nation in this sense relates to the specific structural, institutional, and ideological conditions that lie behind the attachment of individuals to their nation. This is the Western concept of nation, which is distinct from an Eastern concept in which supposed genealogy and social descent, common language, customs, and traditions are more important. The fact that modem states are based on national integration in this sense is quite important. It was only the modem nation state that had the power to integrate its peoples politically, to create a political order and society, and to confer a meaningful "citizenship" to its peoples.

This article contends that struggles over maps, names, and stories about the past are a crucial aspect of globalization. Specific results are never driven simply by macro sociological and economic structural processes. They follow, rather, from the politics out of which such struggles emerge, including revitalized and modernized nationalist movements. This article examines three movements active in Canadian politics today Québécois `EnglishCanadian', and Aboriginal nationalisms. It does so in order to illustrate how globalization has created new possibilities for nationalist movements to make claims for expanded rights, including those of citizenship. In particular, the article argues that in recent constitutional debate a central concern of these three nationalist movements was the capacity of the national state to regulate within the territory of Canada. In making claims for recognition that is, in the politics of naming the movements challenged traditional notions of sovereignty and the capacity of the Canadian state to exercise it. All three proposed a reconfiguration of space, by agitating for greater sovereignty and for different transnational linkages. Therefore, the story of these three nationalist movements illustrates the ways in which globalization both generates challenges to existing practices of states and nationalist movements and opens space for new political practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on the need for a government of national unity in South Africa. Whatever political solution may be arrived at in South Africa, it will be based on the principle of universal citizenship. One may wager with good assurance, on the basis of what has happened everywhere else in Africa and virtually all the world, that in the new political order, all the people who live within its boundaries, except temporary sojourners from other countries, will not only become citizens but will be declared a people, the people and a nation. To create national unity may be no more than to gain acceptance of a nationalism, that defines the citizens of a particular state as a community. One may see this as corresponding to the national democratic stage of political development envisaged in Communist Party analyses of South Africa.