Rediscovering citizenship: Historical and contemporary reflections

Our contemporary perception of participation is rather narrow, limited as it is to types of direct and indirect political participation. It is in this narrow perspective that governments' major problems nowadays are analysed: demand overload and declining citizen participation. The major solutions are thus found in reform of politics and government. Little or no attention is given to the potential of the citizenry in providing public services, since their contribution is mainly voluntary by nature. In this article I argue that a different perception of citizenship may well lead to different solutions of governments' current problems. In its true meaning, participation encompasses more than just public endorsement of political proposals. A comparison of historical and contemporary citizen participation serves to highlight the true problem of our times: the lack of reciprocity between government and citizen.