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Citizenship, as Robert Bothwell's introductory essay in this collection informs us, in both its ancient and modern guise, means active participation in the civic affairs of a political community. Citizenship is also linked to nationality. In the world of nation states, to become a citizen is to assume a nationality. Few countries have made citizenship as accessible as contemporary Canada. In few countries is the meaning of nationality so contested. The contributors to this volume explore the value of Canadian citizenship by disputing the fairness and viability of the national community to which Canadian citizenship enables a person to belong.
Two schools of thought are evident among the authors. There are those who doubt that the deep diversity and conflicting loyalties fostered by modern Canadian policies and constitutional tendencies are compatible with the sense of common identity required for a viable nation - state. Against these are other authors who regard the very incoherence, looseness, or openness of the Canadian community as the source of what gives Canadian citizenship its distinctive value.
Alan Cairns's essay on 'The Fragmentation of Canadian Citizenship' provides the fullest statement of the first perspective. Cairns maps the fragmentation of Canadians' civic consciousness primarily along the lines of competing nationalisms, but also more broadly in terms of the contemporary politics of difference....