T.H. Marshall og det moderne medborgerskab

The major theme of this article is the theory of citizenship put forward by British Sociologist T. H. Marshall in his famous 1949 essay Citizenship and Social Class. The academic interpretations and political uses (and abuses) of Marshall’s seminal, yet both immensely illuminating and evidently contradictory, work are numerous. In this article I argue that, in spite of a revived scholarly interest within sociology and social policy studies in Marshall’s work since the mid 1980s, no “canonical” interpretations or ”paradigmatic” theory of modern citizenship have yet emerged. This situation calls for a critical reexamination of Marshall as well as his critics: Which were the ideas and concepts deployed by Marshall and, equally important, why did Marshall portray the historical development of citizenship in his peculiar – and in the eyes of many interpreters both naive and functionalist - way? I suggest that we must distinguish between two different elements of Marshall’s contribution, on the one hand a theory of the historical growth of citizenship, and on the other hand a heuristic set of explanatory concepts aimed at conceiving citizenship. I conclude that the theory of the historical development of citizenship is seriously flawed and should be rejected, whereas the concept(s) of citizenship offered by Marshall may still help provide insights into the theory and practice of modern citizenship and i.e. the current problems facing the Scandinavian welfare states.