Citizenship Exclusion and Inclusion of Minorities with Special Needs in Developments of Citizenship Discourse

This article aims to analyze the developments and evolutions in citizenship concept/discourse- from its classic meaning/status to a diverse concept being sensitive to special needs of different groups- with the help of Foucauldian theory of Archaeology of Knowledge. Here, five specific social groups- women, children, youth, elderly and people with disabilities- have been discussed and re-classified and solutions to overcome their “exclusion” from citizenship inclusion have been reviewed, using theoretical views and international experiences.The evolution of theoretical-critical views on citizenship concept and institutional development of citizenship, on one hand and emergence of new institutions, orientations and independents social scientific views on the other hand, have resulted in a new understanding of citizenship which is based on rights of “specific” social groups. Common explanations for complete or relative exclusion of specific group from citizenship are mostly related to structure of societies and lack of agency among these groups, such as imbalance between rights and responsibilities of members of these groups; their limited access to public sphere in general and their relative low participation in labor-force.