Ruling Class Strategies and Citizenship

In: Sociology: the journal of the British Sociological Association, Band 21, Heft 3, S. 339-354

Abstract

Marshall's theory of citizenship is criticized for being Anglocentric and evolutionist. Comparative historical analysis of industrial societies reveals not one but at least five viable strategies for the institutionalization of class conflict, here called liberal, reformist, authoritarian monarchist, Fascist and authoritarian socialist. In explaining their origin and development emphasis should be placed upon the strategies and cohesion of ruling classes and anciens régimes rather than upon those of the rising bourgeois and proletarian classes (as has been the case in much previous theory). In explaining their durability emphasis should be placed upon geo-political events, especially the two world wars, rather than on their internal efficiency. If Marshall's third stage of citizenship is a reasonably accurate description of contemporary Europe, this is primarily due to the military victories of the `Anglo-Saxon' powers.