The Impact of Constitutional Change on Notions of Citizenship in the United Kingdom: Some Provisional Thoughts

Abstract

Beginning with a critique of T.H Marshall’s pivotal thesis that citizenship was at the culmination of its evolutionary trajectory, this paper examines territorial, political/civil and social citizenship with reference to recent developments in the United Kingdom constitution to demonstrate that not only is contemporary citizenship in Britain informed and reactive to a multifarious collection of socio-legal and political influences but it is also in a process of transition which is categorized by a retraction of centralized state control and a shift towards more regional and market-driven (neo-liberal) paradigms.

More specifically, this paper attempts to identify areas where constitutional change has led to a fortification of citizen rights (such as in the political and civil context) and contrasts this with what is, an increasing acknowledgment of the limitations (both territorial and administrative) which impact on the state’s ability to maintain or develop the welfare state, undercutting the social rights of citizenship in a way T.H Marshall did not fully envisage. The central hypothesis of this paper is that although the nation-state might be established, constitutional change demonstrates that citizenship itself, at least in the United Kingdom, is not.

Keywords: citizenship, constitutional change