Good citizenship in an unequal society: the value of political organizing

This article defends the instrumental value of one form of activism – political organizing – to the achievement of a range of egalitarian goals. I begin by arguing that among the central aims of egalitarians in contemporary advanced capitalist nations such as the United Kingdom and United States ought to be transforming the legal status of citizenship. This should involve both deepening and broadening citizenship: expanding the entitlements the status provides to its members and removing barriers to the attainment of the status by non-members. I then highlight two pathways through which some political organizing can contribute to the realization of this transformation. Both concern how organizing can play an important role in curtailing support for inequality-promoting ideologies which inhibit the realization of expanded civic entitlements and increased access to citizenship status among non-members. This argument, I suggest, provides a presumptive case for considering some acts of political organizing taking place within unequal societies to be paradigmatic acts of good citizenship.