Citizenship is passive and active membership of individuals in a nation-state with certain universalistic rights and obligations at a specified level of equality.

Citizenship involves active and passive rights and obligations. Dennis Thompson (1970) sees citizenship as passive right of existence and active rights that include present and future capacities to influence politics. Passive and active rights are very different in their theoretical implications. With passive rights alone, a beneficent dictator could rule…Active rights bring citizens in a democracy to the foreground in politics and even economics. When citizens become directly active in citizenship rights, social scientists will be concerned with measuring the levels, causes and consequences of participation.

Citizenship rights are universalistic rights enacted into law and implemented for all citizens , and not informal, unenacted or particularistic. Groups can advance unenacted rights as claims or proposals for citizenship rights, but since these rights often derive from norms within subcultures and are enforced by social pressures or group rules, they often conflict with norms in other subcultures. The process of enacting citizenship rights is an attempt to iron out these conflicts through universalistic rights.

Citizenship is a statement of equality , with rights and obligations being balanced within certain limits. The equality is not complete, but it most often entails an increase in subordinate rights vis- à –vis social elites. This equality is mainly procedural – the ability to enter the public forums of courts, legislatures, public bureaucracies and private councils - but it may also include payments and services that have a direct impact on substantive equality. The extent of rights actually used by citizens may also vary considerably with class and status group power.

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