Volume 2 issue 1 april 2014

The Concept of Citizenship: Multicultural Challenges and Latin American Constitutional Democracy

Helga Maria Lell
In Latin American multicultural societies, citizenship is defined by a normative status that allocates community status rights. Citizenship in multicultural societies is therefore determined by legal dynamics that delimitate who receives citizenship status and who is excluded from it. According to this framework, those who have citizenship rights are considered equal under the law. However, it can be argued that constitutional statements that determine notions of equality do so at a rhetorical level. 

Considering this point, one can question whether laws that provide rights to citizens with cultural differences are in fact effective if certain groups cannot fully exercise them. The substantive point that is being argued here is that although certain rights are formally granted to every citizen, pragmatically speaking, it is often the case that certain members of society are not able to exercise these rights. The point that will therefore be argued in this article is that while legal and political rights are formally granted to minority groups, administrative and social conditions make such rights unattainable to the very groups that these rights were designed to help.