Citizenship as an idea was revived in the 1980s. In Western Europe and North America there was a growing concern that Western individualism and consumerist lifestyles had eroded the importance of political community. In the face of new questions being raised by feminist and ecological movements, declining levels of political participation and the erosion of welfare state provision, there was an increasing concern to introduce a more explicitly moral language into the everyday practice of politics. In the state socialist societies of Central and Eastern Europe, questions of citizenship were also raised in connection with the imposition of state control, the exclusion of civil society and neglect of political rights. In their different ways these academic and political debates sought to recover a language of belonging, rights and obligation.