公民资格:西方民主的一种解读视角

西方民主的发展历程,在某种意义上就是公民资格演变的过程。古希腊、罗马时期的自由人尚不曾拥有以尊重个人权利为核心特征的公民资格。现代公民资格概念在17世纪才开始出现,并在发展过程中形成了英、美、法三种模式。可以说,从古至今,公民资格在形式上经历了由特殊到一般的过程,在内涵上,则是落实人之为人的基本权利的过程。现代公民资格的“一般化”跨越了社会结构,伸展到政治、经济、社会诸领域,成为人民主权和个人自由两个政治信条的连接点。民主成熟程度是与公民资格的发展程度相适应的,后发展国家在民主化道路上,不可避免地首先需要对本国公民资格的普及、保障与张扬作出努力。

Citizenship:a perspective of western democracy

The developing of western democracy is the developing of citizenship to some degree. In ancient Athens and Rome, a free person owned no citizenship with the core character of respecting individual rights. The concept of modern citizenship emerged just in the 17th century, and three models of British, America and France have been formed since then. It can be said that the developing process of citizenship goes from specialty to universality in form, and the basic rights of citizenship have at last been fulfilled. The generalization of modern citizenship has extending to political, economic and social spheres and become the joint of people' s sovereignty and individual freedom. The maturing degree of democracy goes hand in hand with that of citizenship, thus developing countries inevitably need firstly to make efforts to generalize, protect and promote equal citizenship in their process of democratization.