The Citizen and the State: A Progressively Subversive, State-Determined, and ICT-Mediated Relationship

Since the origins of humanity, the accident of the place and time of one’s birth has had a profound effect on the continued sustainability (or not) of one’s life with regard to adequate food, health care, education and general life opportunity (Shachar, 2003). Communities centered on an implicit (or explicit) contract with the state under the rubric of citizenship replaced early communities, organized by complex kinship systems and deep tribal loyalties. Strongly held norms or customs and common mores regulated the early ethnically homogeneous communities, or gemeinschaft. A ‘unity of will’ governed them (Tönnies, 2001: 22). In contrast, modern civil society embraces regulated association, or gesellschaft, whereby individuals act in their own self-interest and through so doing, minimize the importance of shared norms and customs.