Citizenship; Civil Society And Civilization Essay

Citizenship as depicted by Weber has its root from Medieval European city, due to the political demands of the rising class, merchants, professionals and skilled workers to control the environment. (Ibid, 294) As earlier mentioned the spate of globalization and interconnectedness has generated a similarity in the construction and design of buildings, structures in the city. This was really not totally possible before with the variables of religion, culture playing a key perspective before. Religion to a greater extent determined the way things were done, for example, buildings in china where not built high , because in the belief that gods work on the earth, no hierarchical order like the Christians, temples built in the country which symbolises the belief system of the Chinese. The lack of citizenship or identity points to the fact that the system of governance does not allow for this, they had no citizens but subjects were present. (ibid 297). The Changan dynasty is a typical example of how the modern city developed ,with the regulation of the behaviour of the populace, already we can observe the existence of institutions which shows a little bit of modernity as we have today. Kaifeng is another city which is known for its trade and commerce potentials, the development of cities here is influenced by interaction with other players in the globe, just like the example of Kaifeng been unwalled,later on we can see that they also built a wall as the population was increasing, therefore we can conclude that population, external influence has a large part in moulding a city towards modernization or civilization. The educational sector also addresses the point of civilization, more educational empowerment; the more success can be achieved by a political system. The Hanghzou and Kaifeng,further stresses the point earlier submitted ,that the economy is a substructure on which the political interest of actors rest, the urbanization of the duo cities led to a change in the way of lie of different people, the migration of population further widened the chance of development. The aforementioned is further buttressed as a cogent point as Hangzhou by the end of the Song dynasty was the largest city in the globe. (Ibid, 302) The centrality of the progress of the City of Hangzhou ,therefore remains the economy, but the political system unlike the Ancient Athens state never gave in for a democratic rule, what was in operation was religious beliefs cum ancestral beliefs. The Islamic cities were not as progressive as compared to the Chinese; the political system was theocratic, with the sultan controlling the affairs of the cities. The distance between the ruled and ruler was a negating influence on the development of city or states in the Arab world, the level of freedom here also was restricted as you have the populace been more or less subjects ,unlike the only case in this paper i. e. the Athenians that demonstrated a major enshrinement of the democratic ethos. The lack of municipal authority in Islamic cities undermined the pace of evolution to civilization. The revival of cities in the West was prompted by a shift in history of class relations, this promoted freedom of association and other democratic ethos. The modern city however grew from the village level, down to the urban from which civilization got to the peak. (Ibid,310-316). The rights of citizens and not subjects were therefore in full force here, the Italian city of Pavias shows how the act of political representation was more in the polity, like the first ever in Athens, more representation meant more active participation by the civil society. The emergence of artist, professionals further paved way for civilization as evidenced by Artist and professionals from Florence and Siena. The emergence of institutions and democracy, however concluded the stage or phases of civilization with liberalism, Neo- liberalism playing a crucial part in the move towards civilization and Liberalism in the globe. CONCLUSION The paper has been able to find out the reasons for the civilization of cities or the evolution of cities in the current or contemporary globe, this was necessitated by religion ,systems of governance, interrelationships among empires ,trade and commerce to mention but a few. The Interesting part however remains the development of some continents at the expense of the other, this was briefly depicted as a result of religion and system of governance, the Islamic countries case is crucial here. However further scholarly submissions to the thesis is prevalent in the academia. REFERENCE Reilly, K, 1989, The West and the World A history of civilization. Second Edition volume 1