The construction of the concept of citizenship in modernity

Abstract

The focus of this paper are the problems that Modernity's mainstream thought encountered
when it attempted to fit an elitist and narrow concept of citizenship into an equalitarian and
universal paradigm. This attitude opposes the arguments and criticism of the minoritarian stance
which defends an universal and plural concept of citizenship. At the basis of both stances political
theses are the ontological aspects of the various concepts of reason and nature. The incoherent
solution posed by the majoritarian stance implies keeping a pre-modern concept of the subject
whose reference are women, together with the modern concept which (at least virtually) refers
to all men.