Commons and Citizenship
Article: Commons and citizenship: The contradictions of an unfolding relationship. José Esteban Castro. Heinrich Boll Stiftung.
URL = http://www.boell.org/downloads/Castro_Commons_and_Citizenship.pdf
Introduction
"This article aims at contributing to the ongoing debate about the “commons” by exploring the emancipatory potential of contemporary struggles for the defense and reclaiming of common goods in connection with the development of substantive, not merely formal, citizenship. For the sake of clarity I have organized the discussion around three main propositions:
Proposition 1: The principles of citizenship as developed in capitalist democracies tend to fall into contradiction with the principles associated with the existence of the commons.
Proposition 2: In the short and midterm the substantive, not merely formal, exercise of existing forms of citizenship may contribute towards the defense and the reclaiming of the commons.
Proposition 3: The successful defense and reclaiming of the commons at a global scale may contribute to the unfolding of new social forms that transcend the limits imposed by existing citizenship systems."
Excerpts
1. Citizenship in contradiction with the commons
José Esteban Castro:
Proposition 1: The principles of citizenship as developed in capitalist democracies tend to fall into contradiction with the principles associated with the existence of the commons.
The principles and institutions characterizing the prevailing models of citizenship are, broadly speaking, the historically-specific product of Western societies. It can be said, by analogy with Herman Heller’s classical characterization of the modern nation state, that the development of modern forms of citizenship has been a process circumscribed to the “Western circle of nations”. This does not mean that some of the components of modern citizenship systems cannot be found in other societies, but the point here is that the main principles and institutions that are the hallmark of currently prevailing forms of citizenship (particularly civil and political rights and duties) have been largely the result of developments in Western societies and their adaptation to, adoption by, or imposition on other societies, particularly since the eighteenth century. More importantly, it means that similarly to the case of other western concepts, “citizenship” should not be mechanically applied to other societies without carefully examining the implications. Closely related to the previous point, the formation and expansion of modern citizenship systems is part and parcel of the development of capitalist democracy. In particular, citizenship is at the centre of the crucial contradiction between formal equality and, the actual conditions of inequality that structure capitalist democracies. As suggested long ago by T H Marshall, citizenship in capitalist democracy provides the basis of formal equality on which the structural socio-economic inequalities that characterize capitalism can be sustained.6 In this sense, in contemporary society the system of citizenship is instrumental to the reproduction and expansion of capitalism. This is highly relevant to our discussion, because the most formidable process of commons encroachment takes place through the expansion of capitalist forms of social organization, and particularly through the commodification process. Not only these processes are not incompatible with the prevailing forms of citizenship, but in fact the institutions of citizenship themselves may foster the colonization of the commons by capitalist forms of property and management.
From another angle, the long-term evolution of western citizenship has been characterized overall by qualitative and quantitative expansion, but this expansion has been uneven and also subject to regressive tendencies. Broadly speaking, in modern times being a citizen evolved from being a burgher (a male head of family, property owner) in medieval European cities ,7 to becoming an individual (still male, property owner) member of a nation state towards the end of the eighteenth century with the French Revolution. Subsequently, ever more inclusive forms of (nation-state-bound) citizenship developed, particularly during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which included the formal expansion of citizenship to women and to the majority of non-property owners (still excluding large sectors of the population, often on ethnic grounds). More recently we have been witnessing the re-appearance of old and the emergence of new forms of citizenship that tend to transcend the boundaries of nation states, such as in the case of “post-national”, “transnational”, “cosmopolitan”, “world”, or “global” citizenship.8 Thus, in a long-term perspective it can be said that as an overall pattern the formal membership of citizenship systems has been continuously expanded to incorporate, borrowing from Norbert Elias, “ever greater numbers” of human beings.9 Moreover, in more recent times debates about citizenship increasingly involve the consideration of extending the membership also to non humans, whether it is animals10 or even artificial life.
This evolution has also a qualitative dimension given that the contents of citizenship, in particular the kinds of rights and duties involved in its exercise have also evolved in width and depth. Thus, the traditional basic components of citizenship, the civil and political dimensions, were expanded during the twentieth century with the incorporation of the social dimension consolidated during the post-Second World War period. Since the last decades of the twentieth century there has been a rapid transformation of the contents of citizenship, mostly through the further specification of the meaning and scope of rights and duties, but also moving beyond classical anthropocentric concerns through the incorporation of whole new areas such as ecological,12 green (humans as stewards of the global commons),13 or post-human, technological (cyborg) citizenship.
However, this has been neither a linear nor uniform progress, and the historical development of citizenship has been rather punctuated by recurrent social struggles and has been also subject to significant setbacks where rights acquired during favorable periods have been be suspended or cancelled altogether. This can be illustrated, most notably, with the cancellation of basic civil rights such as the habeas corpus by both capitalist dictatorships15 and democracies16 or by the substantial reduction and even cancellation of social rights through the neoliberal reforms implemented worldwide since the 1980s.17 Moreover, it is well established that even in the most traditional capitalist democracies the actual exercise of citizenship is highly uneven, and therefore we have to distinguish between formal and substantive citizenship as well as between the social asymmetries expressed in the actual development of different citizen hierarchies (first, second and even third class citizens, non citizens, and so on) to take these nuances into account. Class, gender, and ethnic inequalities determine that for large sectors of the population in capitalist democracies citizenship is mainly a formality that has limited impact on their daily lives.
Also, there exist different models of citizenship within the Western experience which draw on and reproduce rival intellectual and political traditions. Moreover, the particular institutions of citizenship derived from these models tend to diverge, often sharply, between different national and regional political cultures. The institutions of citizenship prevailing in Nordic Europe have followed a very different pattern from the rest of the continent,19 while the differences between West and South and between Anglo Saxon and continental Europe are also significant. Likewise, there are fundamental differences between the European institutions of citizenship and those that were developed in the United States.
Understandably, applying mechanically the notion of citizenship to the experiences of non European countries is even more problematic. For instance, what does it mean to be a citizen in Latin America, or rather in each of its countries and regions? Some authors have argued that the case of Latin American countries is one of “states without citizens”, where the development of nation states was not corresponded with the formation of a citizenry that could provide a legitimate basis for the exercise of political power.22 Still others have written about “imaginary citizens”, thus referring to the limitations of the often artificial attempts to transplant the liberal institutions of citizenship (and particularly private property) in countries like Mexico, which had well-established indigenous and Hispanic traditions of collective ownership of natural assets (land, water, forest).23 In fact, what does it mean in practice to be a citizen, for instance, for the large proportion of indigenous population in countries like Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico or Peru (but also for the smaller proportions of indigenous and non-white people composing the population of most countries in the region)? Moreover, even where in principle the conditions for the exercise of citizenship had experienced some degree of development, like for instance in the countries of the Southern Cone, decades of dictatorship followed by the neoliberal reforms implemented since the 1980s have significantly worsened those conditions as clearly illustrated by the re-emergence of an “exclusionary society” in countries like Argentina and Chile.
The prevailing forms of institutionalized citizenship are integral to capitalist democracy and have developed in intimate correspondence with the other key structural components of the capitalist system. Thus, the unfolding process of citizenship has been closely bound with the development of capitalist social relations construed around the pivotal element of capitalist society: the commodity and the corresponding process of commodification that continues its expansion into ever newer terrains. In this connection, commodification is a long-term process by which relations between human beings are increasingly mediated and transformed by the logic of production and circulation of commodities, a process grounded on the private –not common– appropriation of nature. The development of currently prevailing citizenship systems centred on individual rights has not only been instrumental to such process, but it has actually been inextricable part of it. This relationship between the principles of citizenship and capitalism is more transparent in the liberal-individualist tradition of citizenship, which is predicated on the assumption that individuals are primarily maximizers of their own personal benefit, whose rational individual choices eventually deliver the best possible social outcomes if the appropriate conditions (e.g. private property) are present. These assumptions are familiar in debates about the commons, as they underpin a number of influential arguments that range from Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the commons”27 and the neoinstitutionalists North and Thomas’ claim that common property is an anachronistic legacy of a bygone era when resources were plentiful,28 to the extreme neoliberal positions that strive to replace the commons with private property as the key solution to the crisis of natural “resources”.29 From this perspective, the prevailing forms of citizenship are in principle antagonistic to the very existence of the commons and it could be argued that the logic of the progress of citizenship in capitalist democracies implies in the long run the demise of social relationships predicated on common forms of property and their replacement with private property relations and institutions.
Temporary Compatibilty
Proposition 2: In the short and midterm the substantive, not merely formal, exercise of existing forms of citizenship may contribute towards the defense and the reclaiming of the commons.
Notwithstanding the instrumental aspect of citizenship in the context of capitalist democracy, as discussed above, the historical development of citizenship has been neither monolithic nor linear. It has been rather characterized by divergence, diversity, and ongoing contradictions with the capitalist logic. In the words of T H Marshall, from a certain perspective, the principles of citizenship and capitalism have also been “at war”, in particular because while capitalism is predicated on the production and reproduction of social inequalities the principles of citizenship are grounded on notions of universal equality and its enhancement can potentially bring about the abatement of qualitative structural inequalities.30 Moreover, the quantitative and qualitative expansion of citizenship over time has also incorporated the embryonic forms of potentially emancipatory forms of social organization that, among other issues, may foster the defense and reclaiming of the commons. Borrowing from Marx, the exercise of citizenship may constitute “the final form of human emancipation within the hitherto existing world order”. Let us explore some aspects of this short-term emancipatory potential of citizenship. The basic components of citizenship in capitalist democracy concern the civil and political dimensions, basically the rights and duties involved in owning property, having judicial protection, and participating in political life. Over time, these have been extended to incorporate social rights (admittedly a controversial topic, as for free-market liberals citizenship is mostly limited to the civil and political dimension). Although these rights and duties are primarily allocated to individuals, the actual implications of the substantive exercise of such rights and duties go well beyond the individual sphere. For instance, while in relation to certain uses of freshwater the ownership of this element is allocated to private actors, such as has been often the case with underground water rights, in the case of urban uses water rights are normally in the hands of collective actors such as municipalities or provincial and national governments. In many cases these rights consist in abstraction permits granted by the state, but sometimes they may resemble a de facto property right over water, which may have been acquired in conjunction with land rights. Whatever the case, the actual exercise of the rights and duties derived from water rights in the hands of collectives like cities or metropolitan regions can be considered to be part and parcel of the rights of citizenship available to the relevant population. In this connection, and remaining just in the sphere of civil and political rights, a number of questions arise. What kind of citizenship rights and duties are involved in the control, government and allocation of water in urban areas? Is this information available to urban dwellers? How do they actually exercise these rights and duties? The bottom line question regarding water-related civil rights would be: who owns the water? Do urban dwellers own the water (even if this ownership is formally in the hands of their local government institutions)? How is this ownership exercised? What institutions and (juridical and administrative) mechanisms are available for the exercise of the relevant rights and duties? Then, moving to the political dimension, how do citizens participate in the relevant political decisions related to the control, government and allocation of water in their cities? How are political decisions about water (e.g. about deciding if urban water services should be provided as a public good or as a commercialized, even privatized service) taken? Who takes the decisions? Are the decision makers elected by the citizens? What mechanisms are available to the citizens for challenging the decisions and practices of water policy makers and implementors? What are the instruments that help citizens to become aware of their own responsibilities as stewards of freshwater and other commons?
The answer to these and other related questions is that, in historical perspective, citizens have been precluded from actually exercising their rights because the decisions about the allocation and overall management of water in cities has been largely the preserve of, borrowing from Dryzek, the “administrative rationalism” of water bureaucracies.32 This applies to much of twentieth-century water policies, but also to more recent policy decisions implemented under the banner of “citizen participation”, empowerment, and “privatization”, which in fact continue to ignore –if not altogether cancel– the rights of the population in relation to the control of water in their cities and regions.
An examination of the key decisions taken worldwide in relation to water since the 1980s shows a clear pattern whereby the majority of water users have been systematically excluded or even prevented from exercising their citizenship rights, not just in the much publicized cases of privatization of urban water and sanitation services, but also in a wider range of water policies from the creation of “markets” for water resources to the construction of large hydraulic infrastructures like dams, river transfers, or hydroways, which affect the livelihoods of millions of human beings. As a matter of fact, water-related policy decisions are usually taken with almost complete disregard for the opinion, values, and material interests of the majority of water users and citizens, even when they are oriented at providing effective solutions to problems such as food security, disaster protection, or underdevelopment.
This is the overall pattern, and it is not uplifting. However, at the same time, and as shown by mounting empirical evidence from recent and ongoing social struggles over freshwater and other commons, the attempt to transform merely formal citizenship entitlements through the substantive exercise of civil, political and social rights has a formidable emancipatory potential. Whether it is through direct action as it actually happened in the now world-famous Bolivian water wars that brought about the cancellation of privatization projects in Cochabamba (2000) and La Paz-El Alto (2006)33 or through more nuanced political confrontations like in the 2004 Uruguayan plebiscite that led to the banning of water privatization in the national constitution,34 water users have not been passive victims of exclusionary citizenship practices and authoritarian decision making.
Social and political forces that have stemmed from struggles against authoritarian rule and dictatorship are making inroads in the development of innovative forms of substantive citizenship that have already demonstrated the potential for democratization in the management of common goods. These include the also world-known example of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre and other Brazilian municipalities,35 which has been replicated with significant success in other Latin American and European cities. Another example is provided by the Community Water Boards in Venezuela, which place the emphasis on promoting the involvement of citizens in decision making at the local level.
The examples can be easily multiplied with reference to the widespread struggles for environmental justice being waged worldwide to protect or reclaim the commons from both state- and market-led capitalist encroachment.37 These processes provide excellent examples of how existing forms of citizenship can eventually be turned into vehicles for radical change in the struggle to defend the common good. In fact, the potential for deepening the exercise of citizenship in this regard is significant, not least because closing the enormous gap between formal and substantive citizenship is already a major task ahead in the democratization process."
3. Social Forms beyond Citizenship
José Esteban Castro:
Proposition 3: The successful defense and reclaiming of the commons at a global scale may contribute to the unfolding of new social forms that transcend the limits imposed by existing citizenship systems.
Unleashing the emancipatory potential available through the exercise of substantive citizenship, as Marx suggested, is certainly a desirable course of action to preserve and reclaim the commons. However, we can neither take for granted the replicability of successful experiences nor their sustainability, given that the conditions for the exercise of citizenship are highly uneven, in unstable equilibrium, and ultimately determined by the logic and constraints of capitalist democracy. After all, capitalism is driven by the commodification process, which is in principle incompatible with the subsistence of the commons. However, this is neither a necessary nor teleological process, and despite the privatization thrust of contemporary neoliberal capitalism the obstacles to the further commodification of the commons are significant.38 This leaves ample room for counter hegemonic projects aimed at preserving and reclaiming existing commons and developing new ones.
There are, though, alternative possibilities and scenarios, some of which present us with a difficult dilemma in relation to the future of both the commons and citizenship. On the one hand, as already said, the progress of unbridled capitalist encroachment of the commons is not incompatible with prevailing forms of citizenship. Moreover, the currently dominant forms of capitalist democracy based on formal representation are predicated on the exclusion of most citizens from the public sphere, as the latter is considered to be a preserve of experts and professional politicians. This prevailing model of restricted citizenship has been strengthened in the last few decades, alongside the accelerated expansion of commons enclosures, which increasingly extends to the global commons such as the oceans and the atmosphere. On the other hand, the social struggles over the commons taking place globally tend to be associated with those forms of citizenship which place greater emphasis on direct participation by the citizens in crucial debates and decisions. An example, and another world-known case, has been the struggle of the Mexican Zapatistas who based their 1993 opening “war” declaration on Article 39 of their country’s Constitution and stated that one of their key objectives was “to suspend the plundering of our natural wealth”.39 It can be said, hoping not to misinterpret the Zapatistas, that their struggle is both for achieving substantive citizenship (as a bottom line, to achieve the recognition of the indigenous population as full citizens in their country, and the actual participation of all Mexican citizens in their country’s public affairs) and protecting and reclaiming the commons.
In perspective, and as the experience of the Zapatistas and many other actors tends to suggest, the successful defense and reclaiming of the commons is likely to lead to (and in fact also require) the unfolding of new social relations that may supersede the currently prevailing forms and institutions of citizenship. To some extent, this potential and largely unintended outcome of the human struggle for substantive democratization was already anticipated by Marx, who stated that
- “Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his own forces as social forces, and consequently no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished”.
There is no certainty that human emancipation thus defined will be achieved, not any time soon at least to judge by the increasing alienation of common citizens caused by hegemonic neoliberal globalization in recent decades. However, the defense and reclaiming of the commons constitute one of the front lines in the ongoing struggle over the territory of substantive democracy and citizenship. In the process, it can be expected that new social forms will emerge that may help to re-equilibrate the system in a higher level of human organization that privileges intra- and inter-generational cooperation and solidarity over the blind dynamics of competition and the survival of the fittest. (http://www.boell.org/downloads/Castro_Commons_and_Citizenship.pdf)