George Contogeorgis

Citizen and State: Concept and Typology of Citizenship George Contogeorgis

The status of citizen is not one, but many, as many as the manifestations of freedom, which constitutes its component base. We distinguish three fundamental forms of citizenship: incomplete citizenship, which defines the citizen of the state and occurs in pre-representative or mediating political systems. Simple citizenship pertains to the citizen of the politeia and reflects the representative political system, where the status of mandator is ascribed to the citizen. Full citizenship defines the citizen of the democracy that enjoys accumulatively personal, social and political freedom or autonomy. Finally, in the phase of the post-statocentric world, cosmocitizenship occurs. The concept of the cosmocitizen simultaneously defines the citizen of the city and the citizen of the cosmopolis. So, the citizen of modernity is an incomplete citizen, subject of the state, but not a citizen of the politeia.