ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of some key ideas about citizenship. Initially the chapter explains Thomas Humphrey Marshall and his thoughts about the development of civil, political and social rights. It focuses relationship between citizenship, migration and ethnicity because this is particularly relevant in the contemporary age of migration. The chapter particularly emphasizes the distinction between formal and actual rights as central to the understanding of contemporary citizenship. It focuses the meaning of ethnicity and migration, by emphasizing existing citizen (ship) ideals, formed by beliefs about similarity and difference on the basis of ethnicity, culture, nation and race. The central line of reasoning in the chapter is exemplified by cases from multiethnic Sweden, which illustrate the differences between formal rights and what happens in practice. The chapter exposes the problems of citizenship rights and obligations based on the distinction between them being formal or substantive.
