A neorepublican cultural citizenship:beyond Marxism and liberalism

The idea of cultural citizenship is often associated with a present-day context of multiculturalism, and seen as a novel issue for political philosophy. Within political philosophy it has been mainly conceptualised within a liberal tradition focusing on (cultural) rights. The concept also features in cultural studies, to articulate the importance of artistic and media practices to citizenship. This article aims to orient the debate to wider theoretical concerns, and to a long-standing political-philosophical interest in the relation of politics and culture. It proposes a 'broad view' of cultural citizenship, which moreover locates cultural citizenship in concerns about the public sphere. It revisits historical philosophical positions on the relation of politics and culture, viz those of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. The distinct conceptual models ensuing from their work both expound 'broad views', which take the relation between politics and culture to impact on all citizens. The article subsequently discusses a recent Dutch policy report on cultural citizenship, which shows that these models still have topical relevance. Next, a fourfold grid is elaborated of weak and strong, positive and negative views on how citizenship is to be related to issues of culture. The article concludes by arguing for a neorepublican approach of cultural citizenship that adopts a 'weak positive' view and may repair the conceptual drawbacks of both the liberal and Marxist views.