ABSTRACT
Throughout the world, national societies are increasingly influenced by transnational principles of citizenship. Even in societies varying in economic or political structure, standard definitions of the civil, political, and social rights of citizens are on the rise. The globalization of these principles was unanticipated in social science theories that emphasize either the functional needs of societies or the interests of dominant elites as the underlying explanations of political change. Such theories assume that internal and varying economic arrangements and political organizations play the main role in explaining the development of citizenship rights and their extension to women. These assumptions continue to underlie much of the literature on citizenship and on gender and, thus, this literature has great difficulty accounting for the rapid development of standardized citizenship principles and their ideological and organizational impact on the rights of women (Ramirez 1996). Furthermore, prevailing social theory ignores the recent shift in emphasis from standardizing citizenship principles within individual nations to articulating the human rights of all persons, independent of their membership in any national polity. The contemporary focus on human rights in both international organizations and in nation-states invites new research questions that go beyond the more conventional understanding of citizenship (Soysal 1994).
