Citizenship with adjectives: conceptual precision in comparative research

This paper argues for greater conceptual precision in citizenship studies, particularly as the field expands to include cases both globally and over time. It begins by defining citizenship as a formal arrangement of status, rights, and identity between an individual and the state, to illustrate how core components are related but not systematically and how interdisciplinary usage has overstretched the concept beyond precision. It then addresses the challenge of differentiation, where democratic and authoritarian citizenship exhibit meaningful variation along three dimensions: the relationship between status and rights, the scope of rights (universal vs. particularistic), and the mechanism of rights conveyance. As such, I argue democratic and authoritarian citizenship represent differences of type, not degree. This framework for categorising citizenship supports theoretical development and global comparative research, including changes linked to democratic erosion where citizenship may evolve rather than simply diminish.