Understanding Citizenship and Democracy

Characteristics of a Citizen

What characterizes a person belonging to a political society:

• Possessing fundamental rights.
• Assuming obligations and responsibilities.
• Maintaining an adequate relationship with the environment.

The citizen is free. Citizenship is understood in a universal way: it involves all its members.

Citizenship and Democracy

The concept of citizenship has developed alongside the fight for democracy. Democracy and Citizenship are closely linked. Democratic societies, whose objective is the general interest, must equip themselves with institutions and citizens who cooperate in achieving good governance.

In all societies, their members must take responsibility and help build a just society. The construction of a state is the responsibility of forming citizens with a series of common values, attitudes, or life dispositions. Citizens, through their attitude and demands, can ensure the maintenance of democracy's existence.

Aspects of Citizenship

Political Citizenship

Right to participate in collective decisions. It is the right of a full member of a country and a national.

Social and Economic Citizenship

Pay taxes and care for and conserve the environment. It allows access to social rights and services.

Civic Citizenship

Possibility of establishing community relations through principal associations, of which it is possible to form part spontaneously and voluntarily.

Intercultural Citizenship

In open societies, coexistence of different cultural groups occurs. All citizens can directly subscribe to a culture, religion, or way of life that they find convenient or with which they feel most identified.

Ecological Citizenship

Sharing an environment entails feeling that we must care for and conserve it.

Citizenship in Spain

In Spain, several degrees of citizenship are observed:

• Full Citizenship

  (Those who have the nationality)

• Restricted Citizenship

  (Those who are not nationals but reside legally in the country)

All citizens must respect symbols, have rights recognized in the Constitution, and have obligations. The distinction in citizenship often relates to political rights.

Civic Virtue

Values and qualities that should be developed to achieve adequate behavior as citizens. There are 2 types:

• Private Virtues

  (Those the individual citizen must have: equality, tolerance, responsibility, autonomy).

• Public Virtues

  (Those social institutions and society as a whole must have. In democratic societies, justice is the main virtue).

As citizens, members of a democratic society, we should adopt an ethical attitude, which consists of adopting proper individual conduct and making it compatible with the search for justice.

Civic Values

Values are shared by all, independently of our political or religious ideas. They are the minimum moral beliefs we need to develop for peaceful coexistence.

Philosophical Perspectives

Aristotle's Eudaemonism

Is about achieving happiness by using reason and acting with prudence.

Kantian Ethics

Human beings guide their behavior by what their reason tells them is their duty. Duty is a universal mandate of reason (categorical imperative).