Transnational citizenship: problems of definition, culture and democracy

There is widespread disagreement over whether transnational citizenship provides defensible extensions of, or meaningful complements to, national citizenship. A significant strand of criticism relies upon empirical arguments about political motivation and the consequences of transnationalism. This paper addresses two questions arising from empirical arguments relating to the nation state and democracy. Do the alleged cultural requirements for effective political action provide an insuperable barrier to transnational citizenship? Does transnational citizenship necessarily require a commitment to transnational democracy? I argue that these largely empirical criticisms do not succeed in casting doubt upon the normative plausibility or practical viability of transnational projects. On the first question, I point to a growing transnational political culture that serves to motivate transnational citizens. On the second question, I argue for a legitimate category of transnational citizenship that, although inspired by cosmopolitan morality, is different from it, and that does not require transnational democracy.

Australian public opinion on citizenship and transnational ties in Asia

At a time of increasing national security, this article explores the ways in which migrant communities from Asia feel a sense of attachment to exclusive and inclusive forms of national citizenship while at the same time maintaining transnational links. Drawing on data from the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (2003), the study utilises a quantitative methodology. The strength of this methodological approach lies in its capacity to describe the importance of different categories in shaping public opinion on citizenship and transnational connections in Asia. This study compares the views of Asian-Australians with the rest of the Australian population.

Reconciling custom, citizenship and colonial legacies: Ni-Vanuatu tertiary student attitudes to national identity

Nation-building remains a key challenge in Vanuatu. From the origins of this new nation in 1980, it was clear that creating a unifying sense of national identity and political community from multiple languages and diverse traditional cultures would be difficult. This paper presents new survey and focus group data on attitudes to national identity among tertiary students in Vanuatu. The survey identifies areas of common attitudes towards nationalism and national identity, shared by both Anglophone and Francophone Ni-Vanuatu. However, despite the weakening ties between language of education and political affiliation over recent years, the findings suggest that there remain some key areas of strong association between socio-linguistic background, and attitudes to the nation, and national identity. These findings cast new light on the attitudes of likely future elites towards regional, ethnic, intergenerational and linguistic fault lines in Vanuatu and the challenges of building a cohesive sense of political community and national identity.

Gender justice and the English citizenship curriculum: a consideration of post-September 11 national imperatives and issues of 'Britishness'

Although much contention has surrounded the introduction of the English citizenship curriculum, its political agenda clearly reflects a transformative approach to issues of justice and equity. In light of this agenda, this article supports feminist work in further problematizing the curriculum's silence around relations of gender and citizenship. It extends this work by exploring the implications of such silence within the context of the contemporary post-September 11 climate, where discourses around security and militarism have amplified social/gender inequities worldwide while further reducing the spaces available for active social and political engagement toward the "common good." In the U.K. context, these trends are considered in light of the recent high-profile political debate around the issue of Britishness. Here, concern is expressed about how superficial engagement with this debate may be mobilized in exclusionary ways that do little to militate against the masculinist framings of the citizenship curriculum. Conversely, critical engagement in debates around British national identity are also presented as being potentially generative in terms of their capacity to strengthen the discourse of ideal citizenship in the United Kingdom in ways that foster a more critical and gender-just approach to citizenship education.

An almost universal scheme of national service in Australia in the 1950s

While the Australian Government partly justified the introduction of a universal National Service Training Scheme for eighteen-year old males in 1951 by highlighting the threat of imminent war and the consequent need for military preparedness, advocates also believed that national service encouraged the development of a sense of civil responsibility. Its confidence in the potential of national service to promote citizenship explains why the government was so strongly committed to the scheme's universality. Nonetheless, although the government went to great lengths to enforce compliance, Aborigines and those from other "non-white" backgrounds were actively discouraged from participation and women were only reluctantly admitted to the professional army. As would be expected in this period, they were never considered for national service. An examination of the rationale for national service and the associated discourse for inclusion and exclusion not only indicates the social assumptions shaping policy-making by government and bureaucratic elites in 1950s Australia, but also reveals their wider social aspirations.

Civil society and global governance : the possibilities for global citizenship

In this article we reassert the role of governance as well as of civil society in the analysis of citizenship. We argue that to analyse global civil society and global citizenship it is necessary to focus on global governance. Just as states may facilitate or obstruct the emergence and development of national civil society, so too global governance institutions may facilitate or obstruct an emerging global civil society. Our key contention is that civil society at the global level thrives through its interaction with strong facilitating institutions of global governance. We start with a discussion of civil society and citizenship within the nation-state, and from there develop a model of global civil society and citizenship. Through analysing the impacts of various modes of global governance, we identify strategically appropriate forms of political and social engagement that best advance the prospects for global citizenship.

Australian citizenship and the two World Wars

This article surveys Australian citizenship: its distinctive characteristics in the first half of the twentieth century, and how these were changed by the experience of the two world wars. It argues that Australian citizenship, at the time of Federation, was racially exclusive, imperial, masculine and deeply anchored in the traditional view of the military obligation of the individual to the state. The world wars, especially the war of 1939-45, encouraged some adjustment to these ideas, particularly in terms of the imperial link, women's status and the social rights of Australians. However, these conflicts were fought within a context of imperial loyalty and the intensity of their demands reinforced military service in defence of the nation as the primary civic virtue. The centrality of Anzac to Australian nationalism also perpetuated a gendered dimension to Australian citizenship. The world wars therefore, for all their dramatic impact on the lives of Australian families and the national political culture, did not force a major reconceptualisation of Australian citizenship.

Sea search : a community-based citizen science monitoring program for Victoria, Australia, Marine National Parks and Marine Sanctuaries

Community involvement in monitoring Victoria’s Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) engages coastal volunteers in looking after their marine ‘front yards”. The Management Strategy for Victoria’s System of Marine National Parks and Marine Sanctuaries dedicates an entire theme to community engagement with core key performance areas. This includes community participation. The Sea Search community based monitoring program was developed in 2003 to engage volunteers in meaningful ecological data collection for future sustainability of Victoria’s MPAs. Deakin University, an academic institute, and Parks Victoria, the management agency for Victoria’s MPAs, through a research partner program, trialled three different habitat monitoring methodologies. The trails assessed volunteer ability to collect scientific data, and social science aspects for their involvement in a community-based monitoring program. Information collected by volunteers, feeds directly into their local MPA management strategies to address issues such as climate change, introduced pests and human impacts and natural ecological variation.

The Sea Search program addresses the two action programmes, Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, created at the United Nations Earth Summit, held in 1992. Both documents highlight the need for community engagement and capacity building for sustainability, health and integrity of the earth. Involvement in the Sea Search program builds the volunteer’s capacity by learning scientific skills, interacting with other like minded community members, and creating relationships with all organisations involved in the delivery of the program. In this regard, Sea Search is a citizen science program involving all sectors in society by promoting public-interest and research for decision making and planning of Victoria’s system of Marine National Parks and Marine Sanctuaries.

Exploring the extent and nature of the diversity of the doctoral population in Australia : A profile of the respondents to a 2005 national survey

Although there is general agreement that diversity is a feature of doctoral education in Australia, there are various forms and levels of diversity, many of which are not captured by analyses that rely on categories for analysing the doctoral education population that are those commonly used in education at the undergraduate level, such as sex, age, mode of study, type of enrolment, citizenship, and Broad Field of Study, etc. These categories primarily reflect concerns to do with funding and issues of participation and equity. Our analysis of data from a national survey of doctoral candidates carried out in 2005 as part of a Linkage Grant project “Reconceptualising the doctoral experience’, suggests that not all of these categories are relevant to critical concerns for doctoral education. Nor do analyses at a macro-level represent the particularity of the doctoral experience. They can mask the reality of a highly variable student population, and one that is not necessarily represented accurately or helpfully by ascribing group identities.

Migration, citizenship and intercultural relations : looking through the lens of social inclusion

Migration, Citizenship and Intercultural Relations reflects on the tensions and contradictions that arise within debates on social inclusion, arguing that both the concept of social inclusion and policy surrounding it need to incorporate visions of citizenship that value ethnic diversity. Presenting the latest empirical research from Australia and engaging with contemporary global debates on questions of identity, citizenship, intercultural relations and social inclusion, this book unsettles fixed assumptions about who is included as a valued citizen and explores the possibilities for engendering inclusive visions of citizenship in local, national and transnational spaces.

The coming republic : citizenship and the public sphere in post-colonial Australia

The 'coming republic' (Home, 1992) is a reference point in a public discourse about Australian citizenship and national identity. An analysis of this debate raises questions about the degree to which the mass media, as the site of a contemporary public sphere, facilitates democratic change and promotes or demotes the various interests competing for scarce speaking positions. This paper uses the Australian experience to question the ideologies that support the media as marketplace, and suggests the need for an alternative to liberal-democratic and pluralist approaches to theorising the public sphere.

Active citizenship : an empirical investigation

This paper reports on a study of what active citizenship means from the perspective of citizens who are active within third sector organisations. It is based on an empirical study involving 1,610 respondents across 11 towns in six countries. The study explored how active citizenship is manifested, by gathering data on attitudes towards social changes and the forms and practices of active citizenship. There are two major, and apparently contradictory themes emerging in the data. The first theme provides a portrait of active engagement, proactively, and sometimes oppositionally working for a better world. On the other hand, citizens by and large avoid active oppositional engagement in the political process. They prefer to work collaboratively with government and to work at the local level. This second theme can be understood as social maintenance, support for existing structures that facilitates community cohesion, while providing relief for the disadvantaged, oftenwith a conservative charity orwelfare orientation. Following thework of Touraine, the study revealed how citizens act at the local rather than the national level, and focus on concrete issues and interpersonal relations rather than political action aimed at wider policy change. While this form of citizenship action can reflect a conservative form of maintenance, it is equally a creative new form of association and mutual support.

Defining citizenship for a new nation: Papua New Guinea, 1972–1974

A key part of any process of decolonisation is the need for the emerging nation to determine the rules for citizenship. In Papua New Guinea, what it meant to be a citizen was the first topic that the Constitutional Planning Committee considered when it set about its task to develop a ‘home grown’ constitution in late 1972. The process by which it first comprehended this matter and then involved thousands of Papua New Guineans in their villages, missions and schools in a territory-wide exercise in consultation forms the subject of this paper. The records of the discussions that took place between February and April of 1973 reveal much of how the criteria for membership of the national enterprise came to be established. This case study of defining citizenship in PNG demonstrates the intensive consultation of the local peoples on key issues in nation-building and reveals the high degree of Indigenous agency in the decolonisation process.

National identity in fragile states: insights from tertiary students in Melanesia and Timor-Leste

The challenges of nation building in Melanesia and Timor-Leste have often been neglected in the regional focus on state-building challenges. High levels of ethno-linguistic diversity, combined with an array of regional, historical and cultural divisions, continue to present obstacles to the creation of a cohesive sense of national political community leading these nations to be labelled ‘fragile’. This paper presents the findings of a comparative study on the attitudes of tertiary students in Melanesia and Timor-Leste to national identity and nation building. A strong pan-Melanesian pattern of group identification was identified, common to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The ongoing importance of traditional authority and custom in informing conceptions of political community and identity was evident in all four case study sites, but was in each case matched by indicators of respect for modern state authority. The survey also reveals some significant gender differences in key attitudes towards national identity, including the role of traditional authorities. Most importantly, the study reveals high degrees of national pride, and faith in democratic principles and citizenship; but conversely, low levels of pride in contemporary democratic performance and inter-group tolerance.