Citizens and Civil Society

Author: (American) Yanovsky, translated by Ke Xiong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-02-01
Features: Citizens and Civil Society is the most extensive and comprehensive examination of the issues of civil rights and obligations since Marshall's pioneering work on the historical development of civil rights. Focusing on developed industrialized countries, Yanovsky summarizes the legal, political, social, and participatory rights in nations with different political traditions and systems. He empirically describes the strong connection between the divergence of the concept of citizenship and the different components of the welfare state. Professor Yanovsky teaches at the University of Kentucky in the United States. In this book, he advances the theory of citizenship in three important aspects. , he clarifies some confusion surrounding civil rights and obligations. This book uses Wesley Hohfeld's legal theory to systematically correspond legal rights, political rights, social rights, and participatory rights with liberty, claims, power, and immunity. Second, this book elucidates the balance between rights and obligations through limited exchange and total exchange systems. It points out that when rights and obligations do not exist in a one-to-one (limited exchange) relationship, society and organizations become more powerful. Social democratic states have a high level of balance (i.e., high rights and high obligations), while liberal states have a low level of balance (i.e., low rights and low obligations, although they often emphasize broad freedoms). Third, Professor Yanovsky addresses some questions about the development of civil rights over the past few centuries. He explains that traditional states rely on social closure to limit rights and obligations to a certain resident population. In this case, total exchange can operate more effectively, achieving better results than closed groups. Liberal states rely on social openness and can only have low levels of rights and obligations because citizens do not want to share their resources with those who can enter and exit freely. Professor Yanovsky then refers to the power resource theory and state-centric theory to explain the development of civil rights over the past few decades and centuries. He supports T.H. Marshall's view that rights develop in a certain order, incrementally improving. First to emerge are basic legal rights, including property rights for men and women, as well as freedom of speech and religion. Then come political rights, with property-owning men, all men, women, minority groups, and indigenous peoples gradually gaining the right to vote. After these legal and political rights, social rights appear. Finally, in the period after World War II, participatory rights emerged, including the right to co-decision and rights and protections in the labor market.