Citizenship After the Conservative Movement

Citizenship as a societal and political value has undergone major transformations under the conservative movement that took the lead in western democracies over the past forty years. In defining liberty as "absence of coercion" or "freedom from any restraint," the conservatives distorted the meaning of true liberty, which is "ordered liberty." In insisting on self-reliance as the prerequisite of individual insertion in society, they have precipitated an abatement in citizens' social and political rights that have had lingering effects on the social fabric, even today. Although these developments are domestic in nature, they greatly impact globalization insofar as they accelerate it by belittling the feeling of belonging to a nation in the citizens' hearts. Globalization and the Law: The Next Twenty Years, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana, April 5-6, 2012.