ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how changing conditions, ideas, and values have provoked a re-evaluation of American citizenship by deepening its characteristic tensions. It explores the reevaluation of citizenship that is now occurring in the United States in the shadow of more fundamental debates—notably, debates concerning the role of immigration in America's future and the legitimacy and shape of the welfare state. The reevaluation has been prompted by deep concerns about the unity and coherence of the civic culture in the United States, concerns that flow from the developments in the post-1965 era. They are the accumulation of multicultural pressures; the loss of a unifying ideology; technological change; the expansion and consolidation of the welfare state; and the devaluation of citizenship. The chapter analyzes the implications of change for US citizenship in a federal system. It offers some brief and tentative observations on the notion, which has recently come into academic vogue, of what is commonly called "post-national citizenship".
