 At first glance, the two models present us with a clear set of alternatives: citizenship as a political office or a legal status; central to an individual’s sense of self or as an “occasional identity”. The citizen appears either as the primary political agent or as an individual whose private activities leave little time or inclination to engage actively in politics, entrusting the business of law-making to representatives. If the liberal model of citizenship dominates contemporary constitutional democracies, the republican critique of the private citizen’s passivity and insignificance is still alive and well.