Ruth Lister: Citizenship in Theory and in Practice

Whereas many scholars, especially feminist scholars, have expressed a commitment to informing their theories with praxis, few have achieved the fine balance found in Ruth Lister’s Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (second edition, 2003). This is not at all surprising, given that Lister’s academic pursuits were, and continue to be, infused by an activist past and a highly politically engaged present. And so, when it was first published in 1997, and then again, in the 2003 edition, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives not only offered a comprehensive overview of some of the most challenging, contemporary debates on citizenship, and related political and feminist theory, but also featured pragmatic efforts to advance progressive political alternatives through the formulation of thoughtful, context-speficific, policy-oriented directives.

The book first appeared in a period of great political flux in Britain, at a time marked by an unusual mix of both political despair—given the after-shocks of Margaret Thatcher’s “elective dictatorship”—and hope, which came with New Labour’s rise to power and 1997 landslide election win. To be sure, there was also uncertainty, and for some, palpable unease, about how the latter’s “third way” would unfold, that is, what would ultimately come of Labour’s efforts to stake a middle ground between Thatcher’s New Right imperatives and the socialist principles of “old” Labour. Nonetheless, there was a sense of cautious optimism that the new, New Labour government would have to engage in creative policy thinking in order to make good on its promise to redress the social, economic, and political decay wrought by Thatcherism. What followed was that, at a dizzying pace, the Labour government introduced countless new, and seemingly ever changing, policy discourses and directions. Unlike the previous anti-statist Conservative governments, this was an active government. But then again, more akin to its predecessors, this was also a government that demanded an active citizenry. As a result, New Labour’s understanding of citizenship became fundamental to its multipronged reform project. However, it became increasingly apparent that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s main citizenship thrust was mostly propelled by Tory muscle. That is to say, under the Conservatives, the view that the duties of citizenship should carry more weight than citizenship rights, in general, and state-supported social rights, in particular, had gained ascendancy. Similarly, “no rights without responsibilities,” the mantra of Blair’s guru, Anthony Giddens, seemed to sum up the state of play of citizenship under New Labour (Dwyer 1998, 2008; Lister 1998, 2003b; Lund 1999).

Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives springs from this turbulent, British political context. Ruth Lister sought to give voice to, and to actualize, alternative, feminist-inspired citizenship models wherein not just the obligations of citizenship, and the more coercive forms of active citizenship, dominated the political agenda. Building on feminist work that had called into question deeply entrenched dichotomies (e.g., public versus private), her objective was to extend this critique to the fundamentals of citizenship and break through its multiple binary oppositions, old and new: from long-standing ones that continued to define citizen “insiders” and construct “outsiders”; to the latest either/or scenarios that pitted rights against responsibilities and “individual rights” against “social rights” (2003a, 8). What is more, the intent was not solely to expose the dialectical nature of these binaries, but also to transcend them in ways that would have real life impact.

It would not be an overstatement to suggest that Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives had practical political consequences. By the time the second edition was released in 2003, the British political context had shifted once again. The Labour government’s abundant policy output had abated, and what had initially appeared to be a willy-nilly “what matters is what works” rationale had consolidated into a policy agenda with a much more complicated cast. In brief, it reflected a distinctive “social investment” perspective, in which, for the most part, citizenship concerns remained highly individualistic and duty-oriented, particularly in relation to paid work, but there were also some notable exceptions (Dobrowolsky 2002; Lister 2003b; Dobrowolsky and Jenson 2005; Dobrowolsky and Lister 2008). The departures...