The concept of citizenship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tended to be characterised in terms of nation-building and military service. Citizenship has tended to be something claimed by nation states as their exclusive property, although this is now becoming increasingly problematic in a more globalised world that challenges the autonomy of states. The pivotal role of citizenship is that it provides a strong legitimising identity for civic and political activity but it also implies duties and obligations as well as rights and is differentiated from associated concepts such as subject-hood because it encompasses an ethic of participation and involves the promotion of the autonomous individual capable of self-governance. Citizenship therefore acquires meaning only when articulated within the wider cultural context of the group. Governance, on the other hand, is about the distribution of resources and the need to create and maintain social order. The use of violence by a nation state or political entity against its citizens represents a failure of politics as a means to achieve and sustain such consensual governance.