Today the issue that corresponds to us to deal with is one that concerns us all. It is not exclusive to Spanish residents, but to anyone who lives within an organized society. Which is the same as saying that it belongs to a city or urban residence. It is about “What is citizenship”, if you are not aware of the subject or what this term refers to, do not worry. That you have come to the right place to find out. Without further ado, let’s start with its definition.
In order not to make its definition very extensive or complicated. It could be said that citizenship is the accumulation of duties and rights to which an individual is bound in his relationship with the society where he shares or lives. Staying with that brief definition could work to understand what the term refers to and to whom it is applied. That is why at the beginning we mentioned that it is something that concerns us all.
However, we cannot be left alone with that definition, especially when this is a term that has a lot of chicha and that can be dug further to delve into it. That is why we are going to develop further what is citizenship.
Going deeper into the term….
The origin of the word “Citizenship” comes from the Latin “civitas” which translates as “City”. Therefore, the status of citizenship is granted to members of an organized community. The role that citizens must fulfill is to maintain and protect those rights and duties that were created in order to maintain stability in society. In the contrary case of not complying with it, it supposes a destabilization of the order. And usually there are a series of consequences for those who do not fulfill their due obligations as citizens or worse. That inflict damage or harm the rights of another individual belonging to society.
Taking advantage of the fact that we have discussed the issue of rights, it is important to know that the term citizenship is closely linked to political rights. In case you are not aware, these are the rights that allow the intervention or participation of the people in the affairs of the state. A very practical example of this type of rights is the right to vote. Democracy in its purest state is allowing a decision to be made based on the support of the majority of a group of people. This allows an indirect participation (or direct depending on the perspective of some) by the average citizen. Allowing a democratic participation in the administration of the state, the choice of who assumes power to compete for who assumes public office within the national territory.
Citizenship requirement.
The essential requirement to be able to exercise the political rights that citizenship entails is to possess the nationality of the national territory where the individual lives. That is to say that being Spanish you do not have the right to vote in a presidential election in Venezuela, for this I would first have to acquire the national of that country to be able to exercise my right to vote in that country. Of course, there are various legal ways to obtain the nationality of a country, from marrying a person who does have the country’s nationality, to completing a period of time living in the nation. There are countries where if the user proves to have resided for 10 years, the individual can acquire nationality.
However, there are particular cases where the citizen does not acquire or is not allowed to exercise their political rights despite having nationality. Examples of these cases are citizens considered “Not of legal age” (which are generally those under 18 years of age). Or another example is the prisoners in jails, due to their crimes committed in society, they lose their political rights as citizens.
Political rights in women, children and servants.
As a subtitle of the theme «Political rights in citizenship». It should be mentioned that traditionally women, minors and those who were terrified as “servants”. They had no say in the political affairs of a nation. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that this changed. Since then the right to women began to be taken into account and those social strata of “Servitude or slaves” were removed. In favor of a more just, egalitarian and civilized society.
We hope that all the information written in this entry has seemed interesting to you and that above all you have learned something.