What is a citizen?

Answer 1

A citizen is a recognized member of a specific nation. In most cases, people become citizens automatically by being born within a given nation, but it is also possible to move to a different country and apply for citizenship according to whatever rules that country has established. It is also possible (although not that common) to be a citizen of more than one country at a time.

A citizen is a person living in the community. E.G in England a citizen is that person who is British and lives in the community!

A citizen is a person who was either born in or legally immigrated to of a country within that country's bounds. '''The legal definition ''' There are several legal definitions of citizenship "A person who, due to place of birth, naturalization, or other reasons (for example, citizenship of parents) is a member of a political community or of a civil state, such as a country or state, and is entitled to all the civil rights and protections thereof and owes allegiance to its government" This means that a British citizen is a person who has a right to be their and as a result has equal rights in a legal and political status meaning that they can vote and have a political say in our countries welfare. There are different types of UK citizenships including British citizenship British overseas citizenship British overseas territories citizenship British national (overseas) British protected person and British subject. Each of these essentially classifies the different types of citizens by nationality as well as birth place and parental nationality in order to determine who has the legal right to be a British citizen and what rights they may or may not have. For example a British subject does not have full rights such as the right to vote etc. Evaluation This is good because it regulates who is allowed to move in and out of the country, it means that the right people have the necessary rights and allows the government to classify certain people as not British citizens and allows the government to refuse them entry if necessary as they do not have all of the rights needed to be allowed entry into the country. The negative to this is that some people may argue that we allow too many people entry into our country. This is because we allow entry to anyone from a former British colony or anyone connected to those people and since Britain is seen to be popular culture, anyone of that heritage may enter the country if they so wish. This is bad because England is a relatively small island but the former British colony covered just under a quarter of the world and anyone of that heritage may enter. This would be seen as bad because it will mean more people per capita and would reduce available jobs, etc '''non legal definition''' The non legal definition or dictionary definition of citizen is the following "a person who is a member of a particular country and who has rights because of being born there or because of being given rights, or a person who lives in a particular town or city" This means that a citizen is a member of a community or society through many possible factors including law and area of where you live. This means that it is expected of that person to act as a member of that community in a sufficient manner, e.g. by doing your bit in the community. This means that the non legal definition can be linked in to both the legal definition and the social and moral definition. Meaning that both in some ways come into it and that it is more or less how it is viewed by the public. Evaluation This is good because it means that it shows what is expected of a citizen with regards to culture and behavior, it shows how people should at and be treated meaning that it is useful with regards to how people should behave in society The downside to this is that it is unofficial with regards to the law, meaning that it is open to interpretation and can easily be ignored. This means that it is not necessarily important as it does not necessarily have relevance or correlation to how they react since there is no enforcement behind it. '''social and moral definition''' The social and moral definition of a British citizenship is the following "Citizenship is a two way sheet, it is a balance between rights and responsibilities. Our rights as citizens are in law, but we also have responsibilities, this is because a state acts on behalf of its society and hence its citizens and in return its citizens should act on behalf of its state and hence contribute to its society. As citizens we all have a stake in society and it is in our own interests that society functions well and people contribute and accept the duty that is our responsibilities." What this is saying is that people should not be able to abuse the system as they can if they want to, for instance by claiming benefits and remaining unemployed and being of no benefit to society even though society is benefiting them. A person who does this is known as passive citizens. These are people who abuse their rights and then but do not contribute to the community, hence not meeting their responsibilities The responsibilities which a citizen is expected to abide by include a combination of legal compliance and social norms. For instance a citizen would have to comply with all laws such as tax not littering and not smoking in public, all three of which either contribute to the community or improve the community to make it a better place. But all laws are applicable as they all hep the community in some way such as for instance safer driving reduces injury, which in turn makes it easier for the hospital and will lower their costs meaning the government can spend the money elsewhere to help the community. A social norm would be respecting others in the community which will benefit the mood of your community and will make the community better Evaluation This is good because if people act like this they will benefit the community which will ultimately benefit themselves this would help the economy as well as society and would make the community better. The downside to this is that ultimately it is unenforceable, meaning that they cannot force people to be good citizens and ultimately a lot of people do abuse the system, one way to improve this would be to change the system to be more like Australia which is more selective about its citizens although the problem with this would be that it would involve a total reform of the system which would mean that not everyone would be entitled to entry to the country. One thing which the government is doing, or is talking about doing is changing the benefits system to make it an incentive to go back to work as opposed to live on benefits. This would be good as ultimately it would cost us less although to start with it is going to cost us a lot more and in the middle of a recession may not be the right time to do it.

Answer 2

A person who owes loyalty to and is protected by a country. Citizens of a country have certain rights and responsibilities.

Answer 3

Person