Three Models of Political Membership: Delineating ‘The People in Question’†

Alex Green

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 2021, vol. 41, issue 2, 565-583

Abstract: In her timely monograph, The People in Question, Jo Shaw provides a much-needed critical comparative review of the complex interactions between citizenship and constitutional law. I argue that, despite its emphasis upon citizenship’s essentially contested nature, Shaw’s latest work contains rich moral commitments and an important caution against uncritically eliding ‘full citizenship’ with ‘political membership’ more broadly construed. To establish these claims, I present a tripartite taxonomy of approaches to defining ‘the people’ based, respectively, upon the concepts of status, subjugation and duty. I claim that Shaw’s incisive analysis demonstrates perfectly why we should avoid placing undue reliance upon ‘status-based’ models of community membership and conclude by advancing an original, alternative and hybridised model of ‘the people in question’.

Keywords: constitutional theory; citizenship; legal philosophy; political theory; public international law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ojls/gqaa040 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxjlsj:v:41:y:2021:i:2:p:565-583.

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies is currently edited by Liz Fisher, Stefan Enchelmaier, Andreas Televantos, Liora Lazarus and Jennifer Payne

More articles in Oxford Journal of Legal Studies from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().