This chapter olfers a long-term perspective on citizenship, questioning one on 'the busic assunptions of most of the literature on this topic, that is, the nation-stale as unit of analysis. Through the adoption of a world-systemic perspective, two basic aspects of the history of cilizenship stand out. Firsrty, the fundamentally exclusive nature of this category, as it emerged and developed over the history of the modern world-system, since at least the "long l6th Century". And, secondly, that well before the so-called "information revolution" of the last decades, "technology" has shaped the Western social imagination, acting, in various and changing historical forms, as an effective instrument of control and supremacy, producing asymmetric and inegalitarian effects, and providing a yardstick of the different "levels of development" of Western and non-Western peoples. In this view, the most recent phase of the history of citizenship, his e-form, seems to replicate, in new ways, the explanations of the gap existing both between and within countries - now conceplualized as "digital divide" - and, at the same time, the illusory universalistic promise of an expansion of the citizenship and the rights associated to it.
Old and New Rights: E-Citizenship in Historical Perspective
GARGIULO, ENRICO;
2009-01-01
Abstract
This chapter olfers a long-term perspective on citizenship, questioning one on 'the busic assunptions of most of the literature on this topic, that is, the nation-stale as unit of analysis. Through the adoption of a world-systemic perspective, two basic aspects of the history of cilizenship stand out. Firsrty, the fundamentally exclusive nature of this category, as it emerged and developed over the history of the modern world-system, since at least the "long l6th Century". And, secondly, that well before the so-called "information revolution" of the last decades, "technology" has shaped the Western social imagination, acting, in various and changing historical forms, as an effective instrument of control and supremacy, producing asymmetric and inegalitarian effects, and providing a yardstick of the different "levels of development" of Western and non-Western peoples. In this view, the most recent phase of the history of citizenship, his e-form, seems to replicate, in new ways, the explanations of the gap existing both between and within countries - now conceplualized as "digital divide" - and, at the same time, the illusory universalistic promise of an expansion of the citizenship and the rights associated to it.
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