1. Challenges to the traditional model of citizenship

Since the end of the Cold War, several processes of modernisation that shaped our history for a long time before (see the box below) have accelerated and intensified, taking on a new quality. The events experienced and changes taking place across Europe have challenged the traditional model of citizenship:

• The globalisation of free trade and competitive market economies has brought a higher level of welfare to many people in many countries – but not to all. The gaps of unequal distribution between rich and poor have increased, both within and between societies, threatening social cohesion and solidarity among people.
• Competition drives enterprises to permanently increase their productivity to lower their costs of production. This has given rise to a permanent process of innovation, directly affecting products, technologies and jobs, and indirectly affecting our whole way of life. Joseph Schumpeter called this permanent process of innovation “creative destruction”.¹² The transformation of whole economies in eastern Europe may be considered as a particularly striking example of such creative destruction.
• Economic growth has produced increasing welfare, but also increasing consumption of natural resources. Rising CO₂ emissions make it increasingly difficult and costly to avert, or to adapt to, climate change.
• New information and communication technologies have provided new ways to increase productivity, to exchange and obtain information, and to deliver entertainment, to name but a few. We live in a media culture, and media literacy – how to use the new media both for producing and receiving messages – is becoming an elementary skill like reading and writing.
• Due to economic growth and the achievements of modern medicine, the population in many European countries is ageing, while it is growing in the world as a whole. Both developments pose serious problems for the 21st century.
• Nations have the right to sovereignty and self-determination. But the concept of nations is both inclusive and exclusive. Since the end of the Cold War, we have seen the emergence of new forms of formerly suppressed collective identities.
• Modern societies are typically secular, pluralist societies. Migration across Europe – particularly within the European Union – has contributed to this development. Pluralist societies are more dynamic and productive, but also are more demanding in terms of social cohesion in order to integrate people with different beliefs, values, interests, and social and ethnic backgrounds.
• Democracy offers the best chances to meet these challenges, as any attempt to solve these and other problems by authoritarian rule will fail to take the complex reality of society, economy, environment, conflict resolution, etc., into account on a national, let alone a supranational level. On the other hand, democracy stands and falls with the pledge of equal participation. The more complex our world and the challenges that define our future become, the more difficult it is for the “ordinary citizen” to understand and take part in decision making. Mistrust of traditional political institutions, forms of governance and political leaders are rooted in the feeling of being left out and not listened to. Democracy and human rights are precarious projects, and their survival depends on whether their heritage can be passed on to the younger generation.

These lines of development can only be briefly sketched out here. They are man-made, not natural, processes, linked to each other, mutually influencing and reinforcing each other. Because they have been “made”, they can also be influenced and changed in their direction and outcome, but not in their complexity.

In the face of challenges such as these, it has become clear that new forms of citizenship are required: citizens should not only be informed and understand their formal responsibilities as citizens, but should also be active – able and willing to contribute to the life of their community, their country and the wider world, and actively participate in ways that express their individuality and help to solve problems. Mounting challenges require strong societies, with competent – and therefore adequately educated – leaders and citizens.

Educators are optimists. They believe that through adequate education, young people, but also life-long learners, can acquire the understanding and the means to influence the development of their communities and the planet. Active citizenship, however, is best fostered by learner-centred instruction, rather than instruction emphasising rote and passive learning.

12. Schumpeter J. (1942,2008), Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Harper and Brothers, New York, p.83.